This is wonderful! Good for you!! I love how you kept at it and chose to find other ways to do what you love. Very inspirational! And congratulations on your books and other successes!

PS I am Canadian - but also British after moving to England many years ago and becoming a British citizen. Many of our spellings are the same (e.g. "humour" "neighbour"), but some are different ("-ize" - "-ise") and I'm now totally "British" in spellings even though I had to move back to Canada last year. :)