People ask me What I Do, and I really don’t know how to answer that.

I write. But would I call myself a Writer? No way! A Writer makes a living out of writing. A Writer can throw a few ISBN numbers casually into conversations, or give you the name of their Publisher, or even give you a signed copy of their latest book. I could give you a signed copy of this, I suppose, but let’s face it, it would lack a certain…gravitas.

I run. Very slowly, and very haphazardly, and with little or no obvious signs of improvement year on year. But am I a Runner? Absolutely not! Runners are lithe, stringy creatures. They eat egg whites and talk about Fartleks without collapsing into a puerile fit of the giggles. They wear running shoes with names like Air Zoom Vomero. Mine may have been Air Zoom on the shelf, but now the only air zooming is through the holes where my big toes pop out, and Vomero is how I feel half way up Hogerty Hill.

I paint pictures. But I am so Not an Artist. Artists use something called Technique and Mixed Media. They know big words like Perspective and Vermillion. They too can give away signed works of art and casually mention their next Solo Exhibition. My pictures are more of the Pritt and Glitter persuasion. Nice, but not really Monet.

I cook. But am I a Cook? Definitely not. If a recipe is longer than 10 lines, I speed read through it, then make it up as I go along. Truffle Oil to me is something fat pink pigs extract from giant Lindt balls (keeps me amused for hours). Crudite is a foreign word for chopped carrot, and cilantro sounds like something dangerous and metallic. Don’t even get me started on Reductions and Coulis.

I am 44, married with 2 beautiful children, but does that mean I’m a Grown Up? Not even nearly! When people all around me are discussing Trump, and Brexit, and Bond Notes, I’m sitting there thinking, “How do they know all this stuff??” I keep waiting for that moment of elucidation when I’ll be a Real Grown Up and will know exactly what to say about Everything, including the really boring bits that I normally skip over in a paragraph, because, seriously, who needs details? And that moment never seems to come. Frankly, Grown Up conversation bores me. I’d rather be drawing fairies or visiting the Magic Faraway Tree. I’d rather be climbing out of a wardrobe into Narnia.

So, here’s what I learned in 2016:

I suffer from something called Imposter Syndrome. Wikipedia says:

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome) is a concept describing individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a “fraud”.

And, as 2017 begins to speed by, I finally know the answer to the question about What I Do. I commit fraud. Daily.