I don't remember when I began writing for other people to read but it was a  long time ago.

For starters, I  learnt to type when I was very young, on my parents' portable Olivetti machine.
Two fingers, clickety clack, and thence came letters, stories, poems, all sorts of rubbish.

Then school, university, and jobs.  More writing, editing, essays...
First editorial job - computer software house, working on in house publications. Some incomprehensible to me, some fascinating, all very illuminating re the production process.

One cold and rainy day, at home with sinusitis and feeling snuffly and sorry for myself, I decided to enter the Vogue Talent Contest.  This was a good move, even though it surprised me. I was the only finalist in my year to be offered a job on the magazine,
and started as a sub editor which, completely fortuitously, gave me the best possible
training I could have had. After a year of this, I became Assistant Travel Editor,
writing and travelling a lot, with my own page each month.

I left after two years, and wrote as a freelance for newspapers and magazines, submitting ideas, some of which were commissioned.  Very little money, harsh deadlines, competition, and freedom to write whenever I wanted. Great stuff.  I did interviews, profiles, pieces on design, travel, gardening, nappy changing on airplanes... Does the word 'hack' come to mind? If so I am delighted.  With a bit of research, I can become an expert on the most arcane subject, write a reasonable piece, and probably forget all about it within a month. So?

I have contributed to (among others):

The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The (Evening) Standard, The Sunday Telegraph, Creative Review, Homes and Gardens, The Director, Farm Life, Honey, Woman's Journal, The Lady...

Then came editorial jobs on staff.  Riverside Magazine (Editor), London Portrait
(Senior Editor, then Editor), Country Homes and Interiors (Deputy Editor, Acting Editor, then - well, Reader, I married him...)

When I returned to this country, in 2000, I brought with me flexibility I had honed by turning up in places that needed what I could offer, but not how I had been offering it.  Newly acquired and practised design skills came too, experience in managing teams, and working in large and small organisations and on my own

I worked for Pfizer as a journalist on their in-house web newspaper, another new skill. I was a Feature Writer and Supplements Editor for the local paper, for exactly one year, to show myself that I could still cut it. And then I built a picturesque and comfortable office at the bottom of my country garden and repaired there. I wrote articles and started a small PR company to pay for it.