I never had a career, only work
Jun. 18th, 2009 05:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerA friend posts about hir journey through various careers and how satisfying it's been to change course every now and then and do what looks interesting.
I find myself happy for hir, but saddened for me, because what looks interesting to me, what has always looked far more interesting than anything else, is what I'm doing right now: writing. I don't know if this is what's called having a vocation, but if it is it should come with a big black-edged health warning.
Some writers go through a squillion different jobs before they end up writing, and it looks good on the back blurb ("Fenton Squinge has been a plumber, security guard, brain surgeon, trapeze artist, hedgehog sexer and saggar maker's bottom knocker...") and I always wonder how, because all jobs these days require you to have umpteen years' proven experience in the same job. Me? Shop assistant and office drone. And every moment of every day I spent in those jobs I would rather have been writing (indeed, tell it not in Gath, but sometimes I was). I don't have any urge to sail to Cairo and become a camel wrangler, or join the Army and learn to mend jeeps, or go back to college to study modern architecture. I want to write. And maybe do some music. And getting paid for it would be nice if possible.
I know, I know, I've already moaned at length about this and I really don't want to repeat myself (I'm not repeating myself! I'm not repeating myself! Oh God, I'm repeating myself!) so I should cut this short.
I find myself happy for hir, but saddened for me, because what looks interesting to me, what has always looked far more interesting than anything else, is what I'm doing right now: writing. I don't know if this is what's called having a vocation, but if it is it should come with a big black-edged health warning.
Some writers go through a squillion different jobs before they end up writing, and it looks good on the back blurb ("Fenton Squinge has been a plumber, security guard, brain surgeon, trapeze artist, hedgehog sexer and saggar maker's bottom knocker...") and I always wonder how, because all jobs these days require you to have umpteen years' proven experience in the same job. Me? Shop assistant and office drone. And every moment of every day I spent in those jobs I would rather have been writing (indeed, tell it not in Gath, but sometimes I was). I don't have any urge to sail to Cairo and become a camel wrangler, or join the Army and learn to mend jeeps, or go back to college to study modern architecture. I want to write. And maybe do some music. And getting paid for it would be nice if possible.
I know, I know, I've already moaned at length about this and I really don't want to repeat myself (I'm not repeating myself! I'm not repeating myself! Oh God, I'm repeating myself!) so I should cut this short.