Just who do I think I am anyway?
Anonymous, commenting on my last, rather self-indulgent blog, asked the pertinent question: why don't I just get one proper job, rather than pissing around with four or five ill-paid contracts, no pension, no security and the constant worry as to whether or not this months pay cheque will cover last months expenditure? (Well, s/he didn't ask exactly that, but you get the gist of it).
The answer is complicated and many-faceted, but basically boils down to the fact that I was spoiled as a child. I've never been hungry, never wanted for a warm bed at night, never lacked for the little luxuries that make life so pleasant to live. And I was never forced out to work for my pocket money. When I did begin to work - my first ever paid job was plucking turkeys at Christmas, oh what fun that was - I wasn't expected to contribute 'housekeeping' to the family finances (it's hard enough persuading my Dad that I'm going to pay for the meal when I take him out to a restaurant even now). I just did the job because I wanted some cash to buy myself something I knew my parents wouldn't pay for.
So far, so idyllic. But every time I cast my mind back to my formative years (which isn't as often as you might think), I see a great black cloud. I was sent away to a boarding school at the age of seven.
Some seven year olds are outgoing, gregarious, pugnacious. They can take whatever life throws at them and laugh in the face of adversity. I was not one of those seven year olds. I was quiet, reserved, painfully shy. I had a reading age of fifteen, which tends to mark you out as unusual. And I had a brother two years older than me already at the school.
I get on fine with my older brother now, but back then his favourite sport was goading me until I lost my temper (which usually took a long time, but the final result was worth watching from a distance). He was quite a rebellious child, my brother, constantly pushing the bounds of what could and could not be done, both with our parents and with teachers. And he had spent two years pushing these boundaries before I arrived at the school. So when I arrived, the teachers were ready for me. From day one, I can remember an unnaturally heavy hand falling on me. Where other boys (and it was a single sex school) got away with minor naughtiness with a caution, I was immediately sent to the Headmaster and usually beaten (and no, I'm not that old, but we were beaten at my school).
Sometimes I was punished for what it was thought I was about to do, based on experience of what my brother had done in the past.
In one particularly memorable incident, I wrote on one of my school exercise books 'Colditz Castle' where it said School: and left a blank to be filled in. We were all obsessed with World War Two, as young boys are - making model airplanes and watching old movies like The Dambusters, Where Eagles Dare, Ice Cold in Alex and of course, Escape from Colditz. When the headmaster found out about this dreadful misdemeanour, I was summoned to his office, beaten, given a cold shower and made to run once around the playing field (about a mile, I suppose, maybe more). Then I was beaten again, given another cold shower and sent off round the playing fields a second time. And a third, and a fourth. I missed a whole afternoon's lessons that day being intermittently beaten, doused in icy cold water and made to run a mile. And to this day I don't know what I had done wrong.
So I learned early in life that what happens to you has nothing to do with your actions. Life is completely capricious. I developed a stubborn streak so wide you can only see the other side on a clear day. I can clearly remember thinking (as a nine year old) that if adults thought I was disruptive, messy, lazy and unreliable, who was I to disagree with them? I became all of those things, relying on my basic intelligence to get me through my exams. And since I couldn't make sense of the world around me, I gave up and retreated into my own little place. I guess most children go through this stage in their development, but most of them have come out the other side by the time they leave university.
And I wouldn't want you to think that I was miserable at school (well, not all of the time, anyway). I had good friends and enjoyed a lot of my time there. But it was my formative years, and my experiences then still seem to inform the decisions I make today. Certainly much of my character was imprinted then (and my accent, but we'll not go into that now). So I am shy (which I think I have mentioned before), socially awkward. I don't find it easy to make new friends (much easier to get on with animals, they don't judge). I have a terrible authority figure complex, which makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for me to approach editors, agents and the like at conventions. I am happiest sitting at my keyboard, wrapped up in my own little world.
Writing was just about the only thing I could possibly do.
So what does this public soul-baring have to do with my current employment situation? Well, I decided many years ago that I wanted to be a writer. To that end, I sat down and began to write. It soon became apparent to me that I would need some other employment to pay the bills, but I still wanted time to write. That stubborn streak meant that I could only let myself work part time. I've had a bewildering number and variety of jobs down the years. I've plucked turkeys at Christmas, run media campaigns for banks, organised management training, built carriage driving courses, sold mortgages, designed web sites, created databases, stacked boxes, been a wine merchant and many other things in between. And all the while I have been writing. If you go to my website, you can see something of my output over the years. But I have found that when I work, that absorbs me totally; when I write, work gets put to one side. I have infinite admiration for guys who can work a nine to five (and more) then come home and batter the keyboards until the wee small hours. I've tried it and either work suffers, or the writing is little more than gibberish.
And so to the point of this wondrous waffle. My current employment is ideal in many ways for the person I have become (with the exception of its unpredictability). I get to do piece work, so I don't need to wrap myself up in a project over many months. And I don't have to work every day, so I can spend time writing and actually produce something of quality (I hope). I am, and have been, extremely lucky. I don't have a family to raise. Barbara has a good job and doesn't expect me to provide for her. We don't have a huge mortgage to pay (although that is set to change) and we live somewhere where there's not much to spend your money on anyway. As the expression goes, I'm good. If I could just find a publisher, I'd be wonderful...
Well, this has been another self-indulgent blog. Next time I'll think of something to say which isn't necessarily about me. Hopefully.
Blogging - It's cheaper than a shrink, and just as effective ;}#
The answer is complicated and many-faceted, but basically boils down to the fact that I was spoiled as a child. I've never been hungry, never wanted for a warm bed at night, never lacked for the little luxuries that make life so pleasant to live. And I was never forced out to work for my pocket money. When I did begin to work - my first ever paid job was plucking turkeys at Christmas, oh what fun that was - I wasn't expected to contribute 'housekeeping' to the family finances (it's hard enough persuading my Dad that I'm going to pay for the meal when I take him out to a restaurant even now). I just did the job because I wanted some cash to buy myself something I knew my parents wouldn't pay for.
So far, so idyllic. But every time I cast my mind back to my formative years (which isn't as often as you might think), I see a great black cloud. I was sent away to a boarding school at the age of seven.
Some seven year olds are outgoing, gregarious, pugnacious. They can take whatever life throws at them and laugh in the face of adversity. I was not one of those seven year olds. I was quiet, reserved, painfully shy. I had a reading age of fifteen, which tends to mark you out as unusual. And I had a brother two years older than me already at the school.
I get on fine with my older brother now, but back then his favourite sport was goading me until I lost my temper (which usually took a long time, but the final result was worth watching from a distance). He was quite a rebellious child, my brother, constantly pushing the bounds of what could and could not be done, both with our parents and with teachers. And he had spent two years pushing these boundaries before I arrived at the school. So when I arrived, the teachers were ready for me. From day one, I can remember an unnaturally heavy hand falling on me. Where other boys (and it was a single sex school) got away with minor naughtiness with a caution, I was immediately sent to the Headmaster and usually beaten (and no, I'm not that old, but we were beaten at my school).
Sometimes I was punished for what it was thought I was about to do, based on experience of what my brother had done in the past.
In one particularly memorable incident, I wrote on one of my school exercise books 'Colditz Castle' where it said School: and left a blank to be filled in. We were all obsessed with World War Two, as young boys are - making model airplanes and watching old movies like The Dambusters, Where Eagles Dare, Ice Cold in Alex and of course, Escape from Colditz. When the headmaster found out about this dreadful misdemeanour, I was summoned to his office, beaten, given a cold shower and made to run once around the playing field (about a mile, I suppose, maybe more). Then I was beaten again, given another cold shower and sent off round the playing fields a second time. And a third, and a fourth. I missed a whole afternoon's lessons that day being intermittently beaten, doused in icy cold water and made to run a mile. And to this day I don't know what I had done wrong.
So I learned early in life that what happens to you has nothing to do with your actions. Life is completely capricious. I developed a stubborn streak so wide you can only see the other side on a clear day. I can clearly remember thinking (as a nine year old) that if adults thought I was disruptive, messy, lazy and unreliable, who was I to disagree with them? I became all of those things, relying on my basic intelligence to get me through my exams. And since I couldn't make sense of the world around me, I gave up and retreated into my own little place. I guess most children go through this stage in their development, but most of them have come out the other side by the time they leave university.
And I wouldn't want you to think that I was miserable at school (well, not all of the time, anyway). I had good friends and enjoyed a lot of my time there. But it was my formative years, and my experiences then still seem to inform the decisions I make today. Certainly much of my character was imprinted then (and my accent, but we'll not go into that now). So I am shy (which I think I have mentioned before), socially awkward. I don't find it easy to make new friends (much easier to get on with animals, they don't judge). I have a terrible authority figure complex, which makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for me to approach editors, agents and the like at conventions. I am happiest sitting at my keyboard, wrapped up in my own little world.
Writing was just about the only thing I could possibly do.
So what does this public soul-baring have to do with my current employment situation? Well, I decided many years ago that I wanted to be a writer. To that end, I sat down and began to write. It soon became apparent to me that I would need some other employment to pay the bills, but I still wanted time to write. That stubborn streak meant that I could only let myself work part time. I've had a bewildering number and variety of jobs down the years. I've plucked turkeys at Christmas, run media campaigns for banks, organised management training, built carriage driving courses, sold mortgages, designed web sites, created databases, stacked boxes, been a wine merchant and many other things in between. And all the while I have been writing. If you go to my website, you can see something of my output over the years. But I have found that when I work, that absorbs me totally; when I write, work gets put to one side. I have infinite admiration for guys who can work a nine to five (and more) then come home and batter the keyboards until the wee small hours. I've tried it and either work suffers, or the writing is little more than gibberish.
And so to the point of this wondrous waffle. My current employment is ideal in many ways for the person I have become (with the exception of its unpredictability). I get to do piece work, so I don't need to wrap myself up in a project over many months. And I don't have to work every day, so I can spend time writing and actually produce something of quality (I hope). I am, and have been, extremely lucky. I don't have a family to raise. Barbara has a good job and doesn't expect me to provide for her. We don't have a huge mortgage to pay (although that is set to change) and we live somewhere where there's not much to spend your money on anyway. As the expression goes, I'm good. If I could just find a publisher, I'd be wonderful...
Well, this has been another self-indulgent blog. Next time I'll think of something to say which isn't necessarily about me. Hopefully.
Blogging - It's cheaper than a shrink, and just as effective ;}#
Comments
As for films, yes, I like them. See earlier postings and my good friend Mr Stuart's blog for more on the subject. I don't get to see as many as I would like, living too far away from any form of civilisation (or cinema).