The first thing people tell you is that J. K. Rowling received a whole bunch of rejection letters before the first Harry Potter book was published, and now she’s the first female billionaire author. I suppose, technically, that should have been comforting, but I know that for every J. K. Rowling there are a lot more authors who never make it, and I was worried about becoming one of those.

I think I had these fantasies about giving up the job I hated to become a bestselling novelist. I know now that it doesn’t work like that, that it takes years and years of hard work and multiple books before you can do this gig comfortably.

Little did I know, just as I decided I was about to give up, I was just days away from signing my first book deal. Before I got the good news, I decided that I needed to get another job, so I made an appointment to see a recruiter.

With my degree in English and a few years working a social media job under my belt, I decided to try and find a copywriting gig. It might not be what I wanted to write, but it was writing that involved more than 140 characters.

I went into the meeting with the recruiter and I was sat down in front of this hipster-looking guy. He was skinny, with blown-back hair and a long shaggy beard. He was dressed in a suit that made him look fresh out of Peaky Blinders, as if perhaps he should be working in an overpriced barbers’ shop and not a recruitment firm. Coupled with his South Yorkshire accent, that seemed so out of place amongst all the southerners, which only made him stand out and seem like someone from a bygone era even more. It was Daniel.

At first, he asked me questions about my work experience and my career goals, but then his questions got a little more personal. He started asking me what I did for fun and what my favourites foods were. I thought it was a little unorthodox, but I just went with it – after all, I really wanted to change my job, and Daniel was easy on the eye.

I didn’t get the job, but I did get a date with Daniel. The good book news arrived a few days after our first date, and as things went from strength to strength with my work and my feelings for Daniel growing, I was on top of the world.

Daniel wasn’t like the other boys, which I liked and found a little frustrating in equal measure.

I liked that he wasn’t a ‘lad lad lad’ type. He’d never dream of going on a messy boys’ holiday to Magaluf, coming back with a fiery red sunburn and a really bad case of chlamydia. Even though he enjoyed watching football, he was the furthest thing from a hooligan you could imagine, and the word ‘banter’ just isn’t in his vocabulary. I never worried about him playing the field, juggling birds on Match, Tinder, Plenty of Fish and Bumble, serial dating a bunch of girls while he was dating me. I think that’s why his affair has jarred me so severely, because you kind of expect the people you’re dating to be dating other people in the early days, but Daniel just wasn’t interested in anyone else and it wasn’t long before we made things exclusive and official.