You know what you're doing, but you don't know what you do. I'm writing to you from a school where I'm just a guest at a Royal Television Society project getting kids into television careers. I am the tiniest part of it, I am merely a live version of one PowerPoint slide that lists various jobs people can do. But of course it's not me who matters, it's what I've done and in this case how I started at a school like this one.

Not as good, to be truthful: I'm very impressed with schools today in comparison to my old one. (I should go to my old school sometime: that would be so strange.)

But you forget that what you do every day is something that you hopefully wanted to do, it's certainly something that you had to work hard at doing. And there are people starting out who maybe want to do the same but certainly need to see that it can be done.

That was the problem in my school: I am a writer but then writing was something I believed other people did, it was something the school discouraged. If a writer, any writer, even me, had come in to the school, I would've started my writing career ten years earlier.

Maybe I would've benefited from that push more than most. The kids in this school are easily the smartest I've met so far and they are asking very sophisticated questions. But the fact that they have the Royal Television Society in here, the fact that actually at this moment all of the kids are working on a genuine practical exercise – not a theory, not an ideal, but a real television project – it is fabulous to witness.

And of course it's a honour to be included. But it's also sobering: I always feel as if I'm just starting out but if I'm made to look back, there is plenty to see that the school-age me would be very proud of.

I don't know what I do. Mind you, I also don't know what I'm doing, so.