Sometimes I don't have anything much to say, but I just want to get words out. I haven't written a lot lately. There seems to be some kind of marker in my head that is torn between wanting to write and write and move and travel but not knowing if what I have to say has any right to be written. I've just gotten a freelance job as a copywriter, my first writing job outside of England which is a really big deal to me. I've worked for international companies, but this is the first job I've been employed to do in North America. It's exciting getting to write for a purpose again. Who am I kidding, to write for a wage.
All I want to do is put words down. I was talking to a friend at work the other day who was discussing changing her major at school, because she has her whole life to carve out and enjoy her career. I don't feel like I have that. Sometimes I feel as if I've missed a chance because I didn't do a certain thing or study a certain course or go to a certain school. Journalism interests me, but a specific type of journalism. I want to write about something that matters. I want to write something that matters. I want my work to matter.
Right now I'm about a quarter of the way through The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson. I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as a teenager and then I think again for a module in my fourth year of university, but so far I like this more. Thompson's method of "gonzo" journalism is something every creative writing student with a Moleskine wants to achieve, despite the very nature of the style being unidentifiable. I'm different, everyone's different. Everyone has something to say, everyone has something meaningful they want to get out. I want to write mine down, and I want it to matter.
There's an episode of One Tree Hill where Lucas submits Peyton's work to THUD despite her saying she doesn't want her work published, because she wanted to draw something that meant something and if she couldn't do that she didn't want her work published as it was too important to her. This isn't exactly how I feel about my work. I'm not afraid of people reading it, you can't be afraid and work in any form of the arts that's just not how it works. No one is going to find you writing in the corner of a bar on a Friday night by yourself over $5 beers and dub you the next Hemingway, you have to go out and find what you want. You have to go out and get what you crave if you're ever going to do something that matters to you.
The problem with this lies in the fact that, for the most part, writing for the purpose of paying bills involves being hired by someone. Someone has to read your work and decide that it's a fit for what they're company is looking for and hire you. When I first started out I was convinced that every rejection was telling me my work was bad, the word having rolled around in my head for years to the point that reject was my IT password in high school. Rejection hurts in every sense of the word, regardless of who is being rejected by what.
A former colleague came into work today and said she'd cried in class after being told to stand up and tell a room of people her deepest darkest fear and it got me to thinking. What is my deepest darkest fear? What am I afraid of? What would I give anything up to avoid? Part of me thought I should say writing, of not achieving what I want but, in reality, I know that will never happen. I'm never not going to achieve what I set out to do because that's not who I am. I'm not going to stop until I am completely satisfied because I can't. This doesn't necessarily mean I know exactly what I'm striving for or that I'll know when I reach it because I don't, there might never be an end point, but I know I'll keep working at it because that's who I am and I know that will never change. I'm not afraid of giving up because I know it'll never happen.
That doesn't mean I know what I'm afraid of though, but that's for another post.
xXx
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