All my life, I've been a reader. At some point, early on, I began to put words to paper. And somewhere along the road I became a writer. It happened slowly -- sometimes I wrote by necessity, not by choice -- but one day I realised that I'd actually earned the right to call myself a 'writer'.

That said, can I write? Am I any good at it?

I'm better at writing than I am at most other things, which isn't saying much, because I'm generally Not Very Good At Stuff. Writing always came naturally to me, and sometimes it feels as though I'm cheating my way through life, doing something this easy for a living. Not that writing is easy, but it's a heck of a lot easier (from my perspective) than being a surgeon, or a pilot, or a teacher. Writing is about make-believe, and although writers have to do a lot of research, if we're ever stuck, we can just Make Something Up and get away with it. Mostly. If an architect did that, you'd have buildings falling apart. Bad writing doesn't kill anyone.

Still, though, am I good at it?

So far, most of what I've written hasn't been published or produced or even read by anyone else. My biggest writing job so far, The Longest Journey, was extremely well received, but then again most games aren't particularly well written, so there was a lack of genuine competition. And my first (and only) novel, Prophet Without Honour, was written as a tie-in novel for a computer game -- Anarchy Online -- and would have been published regardless of how good it actually was.

It's only natural for someone to be critical of his or her own work. As a writer, I've mostly been my own employer and editor. I believe in my own instincts, but I also know that I haven't had to fought a writer's battles. Not yet.

Am I good at what I do? At times; yes. I don't think I'm bad at it. I think I have a lot to learn. A lot. But I also think that I will learn, and that my stories will improve and grow and develop. Some day soon, I won't be a wooden puppet anymore: I'll be a real writer.  ¶ 17:08