My Brilliant Career?

As a child I had thought about being an author but was not encouraged in this pursuit. So, the dream was forgotten and as I grew older various challenges presented themselves. After finishing school I started college, work then travel where a whole new world was waiting to be explored. Eventually the mortgage had to be paid and there was more work and study and, later, caring for my mother until her death.

Even in retirement the dream was still forgotten. Some chance meetings resulted in my being told that a few authors grew up on farms as I did. I was also virtually nagged about being “creative”. And so the memory of my childhood dream returned. It was about this time that, for the first time in my life, I went to see a palmist. It had been one of those things I thought would be fun to do at some stage. So, coming back from holidays in 2008, I nearly fell over a street sign for the palmist and thought why not? I was utterly amazed to be told, among other things, that I had a “writer’s fork” and was advised to do a creative writing course. Perhaps more amazingly another course I had been doing on a Monday folded so I was able and fortunate enough to come here at the beginning of 2009. Some might say “it was meant to be”.

I wasn’t taking any of the above too seriously but started the course with the intention of simply exploring writing and seeing how I felt about it and where I would go with it. Some writing has simply been cathartic, particularly in my first year. Some has been only exploring a subject rather than being particularly creative. It has been exhilarating to experience a few “Eureka” moments of inspiration. There have been times lately when I have felt more relaxed about writing than I did initially.

It has been an interesting exercise to blend my experiences with imagined characters who have at times been assigned parts of personalities of people with whom I have associated, or with whom I have been forced to associate. At some future stage I might be able to put various characteristics into a figurative cauldron and see what emerges. Certainly I have had a few life experiences which have led me to believe that I have some stories to tell.

Writing can be empowering as well as providing a creative balance in one’s life. It can be used to bring attention to injustices, to enlighten readers as well as to entertain. The beauty of writing, as opposed to some visual art, is that the reader can picture the characters and scenes as he or she chooses without this having already been interpreted for them. I sometimes think it would really be fun, as well as cathartic, to portray someone who has been unpleasant to me as being rather weak, cowardly or evil and contrast that with the ways in which they thought they were privileged or superior in some way.

What a great achievement in life it would be to write something as significant for its record of the times as The Diary of Anne Frank, as thought-provoking as To Kill a Mockingbird, as inspiring as Women Who Run with the Wolves, as educational as The Road Less Traveled or as purely delightful as The Hobbit.

Writing with a group such as ours has encouraged me to continue. I am slowly expanding my vocabulary and have been impressed by the different approaches to assignments as well as the wealth of knowledge, experience and imagination. It is good to have experienced writing of compassion, passion, beautiful descriptions, humour and fantasy. Compared to published authors, and some of my companions, I feel that I’m at the kindergarten level and that the assignments are the exercises that provide part of the necessary training.

Completing an assignment each week means that I have to be somewhat disciplined. From memory the first chapter of Maeve Binchy’s book “The Writers’ Club” deals with this subject. As a full-time journalist and Mum she had to find the time to write, and for her, it became the discipline of getting up an hour earlier each day and simply writing. I won’t pretend to be as disciplined, but there have been occasions when there has been some planning and or writing over several days rather than a last minute rush. I must confess, too, that I have spent either Saturday and part of Sunday or Sunday and Monday morning in last minute writing and editing.

In doing these assignments I am sometimes pleasantly surprised to find that thoughts and experiences from different circumstances and eras come together and they now seem to fit into place like completing a jigsaw puzzle.

Our class has almost always been fun. Even the discipline of poetry has been enlightening if not everyone’s preferred means of expression. Who knows if this will end in a brilliant career or merely a far more balanced, creative soul?

                    —Maria Contardo