They say you should never resign from a job without another lined up. But that’s just what I’ve done. In two weeks my more-than-comfortable role in the in-house creative team of a major tech company ends, and a year of god-knows begins.

I do have some plans. The first? To travel the world with my new husband. To check off ‘bucket list’ destinations before we settle down and face the mortgage-kids-silver-hair-high-cholesterol brouhaha of middle age. To fish in Sri Lanka, dance through Diwali (and endure Delhi-belly) in India, to hike breathlessly in Nepal, roam New Zealand, gape at Canada, and pick-up-truck through the States.

The second? To set up a small freelance machine and get some interesting bits and bobs into my portfolio – from ickle things to big fat things. The trouble with staying at an in-house company for nearly five years is that your portfolio paints you as one-dimensional, when really you’re bursting with ideas.

The third? To write in different ways. To finally write the short horror stories lying dormant in my imagination, and try my hand at screenwriting. To observe. To find different ways to express feelings. There’ll be short stories, long stories. Probably some song lyrics (which I do already write). Little travel vignettes. A haiku or two. Editorial reviews of music that I like. Images that need no words.

In short, I want to find my voice away from the commercial. Because while I am twelve years into my career, and have worked my way up to a pretty solid level in the advertising world, I want to make sure there’s not some other place I should be.

So whoever you are, be it a friend, my mum, or a young’un unsure of how to find themselves creatively, follow me, Jules, as I give it a go myself.