I was nineteen when I made the decision
to follow my dreams and become a writer.
I'm still waiting for my dreams to make
the same choice about me, but apparently, they work a little slower than I
do.
Now I'm a writer with a day job and no
one can tell me that’s not a challenge. Balancing the responsibilities of
real life, while finding time for my real love is the true test of time and
over the last *cough* eighteen *cough* years, the worlds that exist inside my
head have kicked this world’s ass.
I’ve sacrificed nights out, time with
friends, career prospects. I’ve hidden myself away, putting fictional worlds
onto paper while the real one passed me by, because I am a writer, and that
meant sacrifice, and I’m sure it’s a trait that many creative people share.
Writers, artists, designers, chefs… Hands up if you have a tendency to put creativity
first. Hands up if you prioritise work, and not the work that may earn the
money, but the one that infuses your soul.
As 2019 raced by, with my writing career
stalled, my social life wilted from lack of use, and my love life as vibrant as
a fading ghost, I knew I had to make a change.
The problem was that I already made the
decision to be a writer years before, so for me, there is no plan b. Perhaps
for you there isn’t either. I can’t turn off the story ideas, the characters
who talk to me, the plot bunnies who hop through my imaginary gardens, and if I
tried, they’d explode out of me and I’d spout flash fiction and limericks at
anyone who came within earshot. I’d be unbearable. Even more than I usually am,
as a regular, struggling author.
For others, the distraction may come in
a different way, but I’d wager that no matter how you express your creativity,
it’s always there, waiting to pounce the second you have something else to do,
because that’s how the little bugger that disguises itself as talent works. It
waits until you can’t make the most of it, and then it surges forward.
So, if shutting off the inner worlds
isn’t an option then I’ll have to find a way to coincide fiction with reality.
I need an alternative method for a symbiotic life. The question is how? And if
anyone has answers to that, feel free to let me know, because that’s what I’m
trying to figure out.
Once life returns to some form of
normal, my mission is to build a writing career alongside a day job and some
kind of social life. (Tell me I’m not asking for miracles over here.) I’ll be
figuring it out as I go. Feel free to join me. I’ve got Facebook, Twitter and
Instagram set up, so anyone who wants to keep me company can follow along.
We can create together and manoeuvre
through the maze that is the real world, which as an introvert, isn’t easy for
the type of person I am. For a little while at least, I’m going to step a toe
outside of my sparkly writing cave and see what all the fuss is about out
there.
We just have a pandemic to get through
first.
