Well, 2010 is behind us, another decade gone, a chapter closed, history. We can’t get it back. Here’s something I remember about my career in those ten years, the good and the bad and the mediocre – the rest I’ve blocked and my therapist says this blanket amnesia is quite normal (it’s also saving me a packet on anti-depressants let me tell you).

Take a chance. Push yourself. When I applied for a job on a new start-up gay lifestyle magazine, I didn’t think I had a chance – not having worked in magazines before. I sent my CV and a quick column I wrote on the horror of turning 30 as a sample of my writing. My experience at the magazine was overwhelming – I learned to write features, reviews, sex advice and just about everything else in 3 months. It was exhausting – but I proved I could write and write well.

Business is boring – but you can learn from it. My next job was working as a writer for a business magazine. I didn’t know much about business – but again I learned fast. I wrote on anything from franchising to vending machines. My biggest challenge was going down a mine to take photographs, and writing an entire special publication on the mine on my own! My biggest triumph, if you will, was having an MBA article I wrote published on a MBA website - a triumph, because on the day of the initial interview I had to Google what MBA stood for.  Lesson here? Be open to learning.

PR is not always professional. My first experience as a freelance PR writer didn’t start well – I worked with a PR firm that was all very airy-fairy and vague, with a client who didn’t pay on time. I learned that freelancing was hard and unpredictable – and there was a possibility you could starve some months. I then found a great position with a trade PR firm – I was treated like family, nurtured, grown, encouraged, and exposed to the wonderful world of media and advertising. It was a great learning curve. Lesson: finding the right fit for your career is like a relationship – there has to be trust and commitment on both sides. Move on if you’re not being respected.

Teaching feeds you. When I became a part time creative writing facilitator, I realised that teaching is a surprising vocation. One – it’s more exhausting than any other job, there’s an exchange of energy that can drain you. Two – As much as you are drained, you are also fed. The ideas, personalities and creative talents in a class feed you far more than you can ever hope to give out.  I learned more as a teacher than as a student.

Writing is hard work.  Writing my first book, even though it was a short one, took a lot of work, more than I’d realised. Writing is lonely, it’s frustrating, it’s back breaking. And the pay isn’t great. But when it goes well – there’s no other feeling in the world. When you characters take over and tell their story, when you find the perfect description, when you solve a tricky plot problem – it all comes together.  What’s better than being a storyteller?

In the last ten years, I’ve learned that I can only be a writer – nothing more, nothing less. I have tried many jobs over the years and nothing feels as right as when I’m playing with words, finding a story, chasing the perfect phrase or reading something inspiring about writing and writers.  In the last decade I learned you can make money out of writing – maybe not as much as I’d have hoped, but it’s a start.  Thank heaven for 2011 – at least I’ve figured who I want to be when I (eventually) grow up.