I was forty and at university before I realised I could write clear, strong, insightful, academic arguments.

I discovered that if I kept writing, re-writing, and more writing, deep clarity about the issues would emerge, as if from the body as well as the brain. It was 2006, when I had been writing academic material for 20 years, before I decided to try writing my story. I had five lecture pads full of journal notes about the 2,500 km trek I’d recently completed with my two donkeys. This seemed like a good place to start. My finished story read pretty well, so I sent it to an author friend who said it had publishing potential, but asked “But why did you do this trek?”
“Oh my god!” I said. “That would take telling the story of my whole life.”
“Well,” he said, “You’d better get on with it!”
And so I did. I wrote on and off for nearly fifteen years before feeling as if I understood myself and my life well enough to explain why I had done the trek. By the time I thought I was finished, I felt no need to get published. More than anything else, I had written for myself.