Who do you want to be?

We never had careers advice at school. I wasn't considered bright enough to go to university, as I did badly at exams, and in the end my parents were asked to remove me after O levels as my anorexia was considered too disruptive. I was delighted - it was what I'd been campaigning for since the age of 11.

Throughout our lives, work apart, we may become parents, partners, brothers, sisters, carers, wage earners, dependents - all kinds of things. But these roles can and often do change.

I remember after Pip died, I had a real Who Am I time. I wasn't his wife any more, or his carer. I'd lost my best (male) friend and I was just so desperately grateful that I was still a journalist rather than being cast into the role of Grieving Widow. For when I was working I was back to being Me again. The Real Me.

This year, of course, has been exceptionally weird and while for some life has stood stil, for many it has fallen into a rubble about their ears, so this can be a really difficult question to ask ourselves. It can be scary because it means looking at hopes and aspirations that may have crumbled. Our dreams might seem unrealistic, impossible, which is daunting Or just Not Possible At the Moment, which is different.

I've always been a writer, ever since I could spell, aged 4, but it was a long, long time before I was paid for that work. And now I am looking to change things a bit with my books and also I hope to get my novel published.

Not that telling stories is something new - I've made them up for as long as I can remember. I wrote my first novel when I was 13 (a Gothic novel which I found the other day. It wasn't nearly as bad as I feared!). But getting an agent/publisher is, as most of us know, incredibly hard.

But when I was asked the other day, Who Do You Want To Be? The answer has always been A Writer. I've achieved that, but now it is also A published Novelist. In addition to Journalist, Poet and Travel Writer. Greedy? No, it's what I've always longed to be.