Rosie Millard has reported on people following their dreams and striving for success in the unpredictable world of the creative arts throughout her 30 years as an arts journalist and broadcaster. In the background, there lurks the same narrative arc: that luck and persistence will win the day. All you need to do is follow your dream, and success will be yours! But nothing's ever simple. Many people don't ever achieve the success they wanted or expected, for others it’s just a long hard slog, and then there are many whose ambitions are reframed as they go through life.

Rosie explores what constitutes success and failure, particularly in the creative industries. And who gets to make that judgement anyway? In this programme, she asks author Debbie Bayne, who is in her early sixties and still unpublished, how and why she keeps on writing.

Produced by Jo Dwyer for BBC Audio in Bristol