Have I Left This Too Late?

In the midst of the coronavirus outbreak and the advice to practise social distancing, I have found myself asking a question of myself. It’s a question I ask myself often, usually when one job or another has gone completely tits up.

Why the hell didn’t I get into writing sooner?

Think about it. Wouldn’t it be great if it were the norm to work from home? Wouldn’t it be great if it were even possible for many of us?

I often berate myself for not trying to get a jump on this lifestyle much earlier in life, (before I had a family and responsibilities) but here we are. Yes, I wish I’d knocked down all my self-made barriers sooner, but I didn’t, so I’ll just have to do it now.

I’m sharing this particular rambling partly in the hope that it will be seen by someone who is basically me as a teenager or a young adult, because if I can save someone-anyone- a whole load of regret, then it will have been time well spent. I also want to reach out to people like me who are wondering if it is, in fact, too late for them.

So, what was stopping me from acting on my dream in the past?

There are a couple of factors, besides my constant questioning of my own abilities, that have come into play here. Annoyingly, the most prominent one I can think of is something that I should never have allowed to hinder me; something that a truly determined person would never consider. It was the lack of encouragement, from those closest to me. In truth, I have felt actively discouraged by some people at times.

I should mention that there was definitely no malice intended in this, but very few people consider writing a real job. Sure, when I was nine and my teacher told me that I wrote great stories and should be an author when I grew up, my family was proud. But it turns out, as you get older, they start to show some concerns about how unrealistic your plans are. The nature of writing as an often unreliable source of income makes people say things like: “That’s great, but you need to look at other careers too. It’s hard to make a living from that.” Read as: “You definitely won’t make a living from that.”

So, my writing got boxed into the “hobby” category and I went off in search of something secure/reliable/stable. But it had to be something that matched the level of my intellect. Something that would make me look successful. Otherwise, I’d feel like a complete failure. This is where the next barrier to my writing career comes in.

I found said stable career, but ended up so tired and drained and stressed from it that I didn’t even feel like putting pen to paper. My mind and soul were so depleted that I had no imagination left. I remember giving up on the idea of ever being able to write fiction again. I thought that was it; that my imagination and creativity had left me forever. I simply didn’t have it in me anymore.

Happily, my lack of imagination turned out to be circumstantial; a symptom of a mind that never switched off and a life devoid of peace. My career choice had left no room in my mind for creating anything.

I don’t have a career now, truth be told. I have a job to pay the bills, but not a career. It doesn’t linger in my mind all day and night and it doesn’t make me ill. Now, I have the headspace for my son and for my writing. It feels great, but I still have a lot of hard work ahead to achieve my dream. There’s also a bit of a battle to make it a priority. Occasionally, I still get the active discouragement from others, this time in the form of reminders of other things I “should” be doing. Jobs around the house is one, but sometimes I have to let those go for a bit. My writing has been on the back burner my whole damn life, so it’s time it took priority. The other is spending time with my little boy which, granted, is very important. Look, of all the plates I’m spinning, the one with my son on it is not going to be the one I let go. That one takes precedence at all times, but a few hours a week, my husband is more than capable of keeping that particular plate spinning unaided.

There will be times, like now, as other countries in Europe go into lockdown and the UK may well follow suit, when I curse myself for not doing all this sooner; for not being established by now. But the sooner I get this ball rolling, the shorter the term of my regret will be. When I ask myself whether I have left this too late, I tell myself the same thing I’d tell anyone else who was wondering whether they’d missed the boat for trying something new. It’s never too late until you’re dead.

So, here’s the thing: whatever age you are, whatever dream you have, for fuck’s sake, just chase it. Not next week, next month, next year. DO IT NOW. You don’t need anyone else’s encouragement because, when you achieve those goals, you’ll show everyone. But, best of all, you’re going to show yourself what you can do.

V.

Into the Unknown.

It’s a scary business, this. Trying something new.

I mean, I write as a pastime. My first novel has had its first beta read and I’m editing it now (or trying to! It’s not easy with a toddler in the house.) I even purge my soul with a bit of poetry when my mental health is at a low ebb.

Trying to make a career out of freelance writing, though, feels like a huge step into the unknown. Always my worst critic and serious under-estimator of my own abilities, I find myself plagued with self-doubt. I’m absolutely convinced, as I have been with most aspects of life at one time or another, that I’m not good enough. I hold a firm belief that I don’t have any knowledge or experience worth documenting.

I’ve given it a half-hearted attempt before, but got so scared of rejection that I never pitched a single paid gig. Two pieces were published on The Mighty to get the ball rolling on my portfolio, and I created my first blog on the subject of life as an anxiety sufferer. That’s as far as things went.

Two things went wrong that time:

1)      My aforementioned lack of courage and self-belief to put myself out there.
2)    I chose the wrong niche for my blog.

It seemed like a really good idea at the time. Anxiety has been quite a dominating factor in my life for the past 28 years and shows no signs of ever fully dissipating. However, it does tend to occur in phases. The good times provided me with no content at all, while the bad times left me striving to find positive messages for my readers when I didn’t feel positive myself, because the last thing I wanted was to bring them down into my pit of despair. (There’s a good chance I may not have even had any readers besides my mum, but this is beside the point.)

Ultimately, I decided I didn’t want my mental illness to define me, so down came the blog.

Now, this isn’t a “How to become a blogger” blog by any stretch of the imagination, but if I were to offer one piece of advice on choosing a niche, it would be to make sure it’s something you’ll feel happy and comfortable writing about for the foreseeable future.

After quite some time of only focusing my writing efforts on my novel and the odd bit of poetry, I’m ready to give things another go. I’m going to make an effort to put my work out there by actually building a portfolio and making pitches. There. It’s right here in black and white in the public domain now. That means I have to do it.

I’m not an expert. Not even close. I’ve read blog post after blog post on how to get started and still feel completely unprepared and inadequate. What makes these feelings worse is that I can’t seem to find anything online written by people feeling the same way. All the writing blogs I’ve found read like manuals for making a successful career out of writing. That’s great! Really. Sometimes sound and rational advice and step by step guidance is what’s needed. But I wish I could just find something by one person that was written at a time when they didn’t have their shit together; when they were taking their first tentative steps out into the freelancing and blogging world, thinking that they’d never be good enough to make their dream a reality.

That’s why I’ve chosen this as my new niche, I guess. I’ll always love writing, so I’ll always love writing about writing. And if there’s nothing in a Google search about the writer’s journey from winging it and hoping for the best to actually achieving one’s goals (or not) then maybe I should be the one to provide it.

Maybe, in the process, I can make someone like me feel less alone in their cluelessness.

V.