I was frustrated and I felt inadequate due to my own lack of fulfilment. This was further cemented by images of ‘beautiful’ women in the media – to me they were everywhere and I was the ugly minority. I was having some sort of identity crisis. It drove me to create an advertising idea, aimed at the real, normal and everyday woman. I was a part-time Travel Consultant and mother of 2, living in suburbia with no formal training in marketing. Everyone I talked to thought I was mad, but I persevered. I emailed my idea to Kevin Roberts of Saatchi & Saatchi and he agreed to meet with me. He loved the presentation and sent me off to a major sportswear company, but unfortunately they didn’t think the real, normal and everyday woman was a big enough market?!

But this whole creative exercise gave me a huge rush and I wondered why the hell I wasn’t doing something like this full time?! So I sat down and started to write my story, I wanted to know how I ended up where I was. I felt transported back in time and found myself back at 12 years old. I’m not sure how this works, only that it does. What I discovered was embarrassing, shocking and sad, but only because I didn’t understand. From this, JaneInside was born – a real honest and confused teenager to dissect study and learn from. JaneInside is the first in a series of four books to be published that follow my life’s journey and what I have learnt along the way.

Writing allows me to be completely free to be myself. I hope by being so open I can pass on some of that freedom to others.