Because I'd always wanted to be a writer, I decided that when I left school I needed to go out into the world and collect experiences, so that when I had enough I could write about them.I travelled around Australia and then around the world. The experiences I collected were many and varied: such as learning how to cook when I worked with shearers in the outback; learning how to fly when my husband and I ferried aeroplanes across to Canada and back; learning to teach when I taught English as a foreign language to Arab girls. Along the way I learnt about life.I got my chance to write while living in Dubai when I started working for a children's magazine. All my different experiences became useful. I had six columns to write - covering astronomy, astrology, science and technology, gardening, as well as a weekly bedtime story and an advice column. There I also met an interesting old lady from Iran and helped her write her autobiography, which was later published.My time in Dubai taught me more than how to write, though. I learnt that when people from different cultures meet they often don't trust or respect each other, and there can be many misunderstandings that can even lead to war. But after having lived and made friends with people from other nationalities, I know that no culture is better than another, we just do things differently.I wrote the first draft of Camel Rider while living in Dubai. We left there in March 2001 and we now live in magical 'Rowan House', which overlooks the Sunshine Coast of Queensland and where I run a writers' retreat and guesthouse. Less