When I was at secondary school (Briz, in Bristol), it is fair to say I didn’t do very well. One ‘O’ level was the sum total of my academic achievements and that was in the less than useful subject of English Language. Emerging into the real world of work, aged 17, I knew what I wanted to do (the English Language bit is a clue) but I didn’t have a clue how to do it. So I didn’t do it. My bad.
My fascination with writing came about because of two women. One was my English Language teacher, one Mrs Defonseca, an inspirational Portuguese. The other, I can’t for the life of me recall her name, although I do know she was a writer with the Bristol Evening Post. Wow! A journalist in a paper that everyone reads, including my grandparents. Actually, it was only my grandparents who I knew for sure read the Post but hey ho! I was having a brush with fame. Whatever her name was, she was lovely.
Anyway, I learned I was not as bad at English Language as I was at everything else and that gave me hope. Hope turned to hopeless when I had literally no guidance from school or my family as to progress what I wanted to do. At age 17, I guess you’re not mature enough to work out how to do what you want to do without someone telling you how to do it. I ended up with a job in the civil service and that was, as they say, all she wrote. Sadly for you, my loyal reader, it wasn’t all I wrote.
Researching and preparing a far larger writing project, I know I am anger and bitter that my life has gone by without me doing what I want to do. And, as I was frequently warned when I was much younger than today, time is accelerating at an insane rate of knots. Time is running out.
I’ve had a few writing gigs over the years, none of which have generated any income. Literally hundreds of articles for the award-winning Bristol Rovers programme ‘The Pirate’, a couple of dozen for Bristol B24/7’s website, 3000+ blogs in the last five years and a not-very-good book about Corfu and I am still way out of pocket, even though I have to pay tax on what are effectively cuts to my losses when I sell the odd copy. Typical of my luck to find something I truly love to do and then find I’m not good enough to make any money out of it. And that is the self-pitying, pathetic whinging reality others probably see about me.
I’m not alone, though. I know quite a few writers, musicians and artists (some are all three) whose abilities are Premier League, whilst mine, I suspect, are a bit nearer the Downs League in Bristol and they haven’t ‘made it’ either. And that’s for a very good reason: there are fewer opportunities for writers, musicians and artists to make a living these days.
Anyone can start a blog, self-publish a book, release their own music and all the rest of it, but no one wants to pay for it. You do it for love and you do something less enjoyable to put bread on the table.
You haven’t seen the last of me yet. I am resigned to spending the rest of my days pumping out copy that hardly anyone will read and no one will pay me for. But it’s what I do. And I am still glad I have the chance to do it.
