MY FIRST TIP: DO WHAT YOU LOVE WHATEVER IT TAKES. SECOND TIP: TAKE ONE STEP AND THE NEXT MOVE WILL COME TO YOU IF IT'S RIGHT. THIRD TIP: IF IT DOESN'T, MOVE ON. As an innocent teenager I replied to an ad for 'FREE WRITING TESTS' and was overwhelmed to receive a pass (well, of course I did) plus an invitation to enrol in a correspondence course on copywriting. I was so disappointed that I couldn't afford to do the course. Soon after, on leaving high school, I landed a job as a messenger boy in the advertising department of a large Melbourne retail sore. So began my writing career which led me through some of the hottest ad agencies culminating in my own one-man freelance copywriting business. I had a priceless hands-on course in writing. My true writing dreams were set on fire when a true mystery fell into my lap and I was on a plane to New York, then to Regency England and, later, to northern Italy on a romantic adventure worthy of a Hollywood movie. Now I really had something to write about, all this when I was nudging 50. After self-publishing 'The Mystery of Granny's Ghost' I settled down close to my family to live "The Writer's Life", alone, close to my two grown daughters and two adorable granddaughters, in a quiet fishing village and seaside resort across the bay from Melbourne, where I've written 3 further non-fiction books (with more to come).