Today I'm going to write about my dream job. The brief was thus: If you could do anything in the world to make a living what would it be?
My dream job is writing. I love to write and blog and my ideal would be to be able to make money from it. Ever since I've been able to grasp a pen being a writer has been all I wanted to do. As a child when asked what I wanted to do the answer was always 'Be an author.'
The trouble is that aside from writing posts for my blog I'm terribly undisciplined. At the cusp of the year I set out to write my autobiography. Before you think 'Jaysus, she's a bit jumped up!' I have to say it has been at the request of a lot of people over a number of years as I've had a somewhat chequered past and an um, entertaining life, to put it in flowery terms. How far have I got in 5 months? Halfway through the first chapter. At this rate I'll be done by the time I'm about 70.
I have this terribly romantic notion of myself labouring over a rickety old typewriter, supping endless cups of coffee to keep me alert (I don't even really like coffee - it gives me the shits!) whilst I mop my angsty writer's brow and gaze wistfully at the outside world from a rain-drenched window. I keep thinking up reasons not to write, when quite obviously I need to find reasons to bloody well write.
I have the perfect location for inspiration - our living room has a view of the sea and our sun room would be the perfect place for me to write from - there's already a table out there I could use as a desk and it's out of the comfort of the living room so it would feel like 'work' rather than fannying around. There's nothing stopping me from sitting out there for an hour a day inspired by the sea and working on something, except my own self-doubt and a mild dose of hypothermia on cold days, but it's nothing an extension lead and a fan heater won't fix.
When I address my 'blocks' to doing what I want to do in a rational manner like this it blows them all out of the water and boils it all down to either laziness, or that perhaps I don't really want to do what I think I want to do - if that makes sense?!
I suppose the only way to find out if I'm book author material is to give it enough of a go - suck it and see, as they say. I don't doubt that writing a book is a massive commitment of time and effort, and it may just be I'm better suited to shorter pieces of work, but either way exercising my writing muscles in any way, shape or form can only be a good thing. I think the hard part is choosing something to write about, in which case a bash at my own life story might be a great way to cut my teeth. No one knows me like I do, after all!
In this day of the internet we are all our own historians. There's never been such a wealth of information available to 'pass on' to our loved ones, and what better way to influence the way we are remembered than telling our story in our own words?
Have you ever thought about writing your story? What's your dream job?
Thanks for reading.
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