I'm done with writing competitions. Done, I tell you. Done. Done-diddly-done-done. Done. I'm new to this writing lark. This is the first year of my (rather advanced) life that I've earned my living as a writer. I mean, as a serious writer. Yes, this is the first year of my life that I've Become Someone who gets up in the morning and walks ALL THE WAY along the landing to go to work. I KNOW. I've had success and I couldn't be more proud of myself for the way things have turned out this year. The way I've engineered things to turn out. I'm well chuffed. I am, finally, A Writer. I earn my living through writing words. It's everything I wanted it to be. It's everything I dreamed it would be, ever since I was five. Mind you, in my dreams there were always meetings in that London with an agent or a publisher. The meetings would be lunch, always lunch and always held in a high-class bistro or cafe, and the agent or the publisher would pay...