The need to write was getting stronger, all
the while - I couldn’t deny it any longer.
Once I had
discovered that I could write, it was like Christmas day, every day. Suddenly,
I was making great progress and I could see my achievement across my page. Naturally
the first thing I wanted to do was to share my new discovery with my fiancé,
Matt, so I did. We left the house one evening, shortly after my discovery and
walked up to our local pub for a drink without the kids. Life for us was
already starting to change as our children were growing up and becoming independent
of us, we could finally do a simple thing like that, without getting a
babysitter, something that had always been in short supply when the kids were
little. So with our new found freedom we took a trip out of the house for an
hour.
I remember walking up our very steep hill, struggling to keep up with
him and bursting with the excitement of my news. I couldn’t wait to get there
to tell him, because I knew that what I had discovered was life changing. I had
a new beginning, something to pick me up out of the rut I had found myself in.
So off we went and soon arrived. We bought our drink and found a nice secluded
spot in the bar area and I couldn’t wait any longer. Out the question, “How
would you feel if I became a writer?” poured. I looked at him, searching his
face for an answer, completely elated at my new beginning and slowly watched
his face as negativity choked it. “No!” came the answer.
There was no time taken to think about it, no consideration for the
excitement I was bursting with, a simple ‘no’ finished the conversation there
and then. I have to tell you that although I may not have shown it, I was
pretty devastated. I remember my insides wanting to curl up in a foetal ball
and hide from the world. I suddenly felt on display, like the whole pub had
heard and were watching my inner crisis. Of course no one had heard, nor were
they interested, but there it was, my dream screwed up in a ball and thrown
across the room along with my excitement and self-esteem. If you’ve ever had a
long night, it’s probably nothing compared to that one. I couldn’t let him see
how hurt I was. I had to sit there and be entertaining, but inside all I wanted
to do was cry my heart out.
I know my fiancé, and at the time I knew that no meant no. There wasn’t any
point arguing with him, it would have been a waste of my time and energy.
Pleading was demeaning, so I resigned myself to forgetting the dream and to
getting on with my career that was going nowhere. You see, at the time I had
worked tirelessly for a promotion at work. I worked all my evenings and
weekends, late into the night. I stayed back and worked an extra two hours on
top of my working day that I wasn’t getting paid for, nor acknowledged for, to
get a department up and running for my employer, but when it came to promotion,
I was passed up in favour of another. This reality check hit me hard. I
suddenly saw how I had been used. I had been looking for something special to
do with my life since leaving school. I’d worked in numerous sectors, trying
lots of different jobs and careers, but nothing had ever satisfied that need. This
job was the closest I had been to achieving it. I knew that commitment to work
wasn’t the problem, nor was skill, I was simply on the wrong path. I needed to
get on the right path, to be doing the thing that I was supposed to be doing with
my life. This new career direction I’d been forced into was the catalyst I
needed for change.
If I could work
that hard for someone else, then surely I could turn that around and apply
those same attributes to a project of my own. I had never needed to leave a job
as much, in my life before. I loved the people I worked with, but I needed a
job that was fulfilling. Yet my fiancé had told me not to be a writer for a
living, so I had a huge conflict. I was torn.
Days went by, I had put the writing aside and tried to distract myself,
ignoring the urge inside me to continue, but no matter how hard I tried,
everything came back to writing. It was all I could think about – my mind was
bursting with images. I went off my food, everything became tasteless; every
task at work that I’d seen as a new and exciting challenge, became monotonous and
boring, or just another problem to solve. I could see no future with this
employer. There was nothing to work for, nowhere for me to aspire to, but I had
a mortgage and bills to pay and the recession had hit hard – there were no jobs.
So I stayed with my employer, keeping my head down and hoping for a way out of
my situation, but couldn’t really see a way out with the recession.
The need to write was getting stronger, all the while. I couldn’t deny
it any longer and the old adage, ‘when one door closes, another one open,’
circled in my mind, over and over. So I sat at my desk and reassessed my career
expectations. I knew that I no longer had a career, I had a job now.
Trapped, I slowly began to question myself. From the summer of 2010, all
the way through 2013, was like living in hell for me. I had given all I could
and had done my best at work, so the problem then must surely lie with me, but
they were still coming to me for all the answers.
I have to admit that the night at the pub, hadn’t deterred me for long.
I love my fiancé, but I have always had the ability to see where we needed to
be further down the line. With everything that was happening at work, I knew
from the start that I could never come back from what they had done to me, so I
had to move forward. He didn’t understand just how bad things were for me,
because I tried to shield him from as much as I could and deal with it on my
own. Reinvention was my only way forward.
The urge to write had become so strong that I couldn’t resist it any longer.
Deep down, I knew that this was my way forward. I didn’t know what was driving
me in this direction, but I had never experienced anything so powerful in my
life before and knew I couldn’t ignore it. So I did something that I am quite
ashamed of now, and started writing in secret, even though I knew that he
wouldn’t support my new direction. If nothing else, I had reached a point in my
life where everything was a ‘no’ anyway. Anything I asked for, I got one
blanket answer – NO! The only person who could change that was me and I had to
try, so every spare minute I had, I got my laptop out and I wrote as much as I
could.
I was beginning to realise that I was in the company of other writers,
some more successful than others, so I could see first-hand that there was a
way of making an income from it. Slowly, Hidden started to take shape and I
knew that I had the foundations for a book. I had to stand back a few times and
shake myself, because I had no idea where this stuff was coming from, but once
I had opened that gate, everything started pouring through. The tidal wave of
creativity shows no signs of slowing down today and I know in the long run I
made the right decision, but at the time I couldn’t deny that Matt was
suspicious.
One day we sat down and he came right out and asked me if I was having
an affair. I had to laugh. He had watched me on the computer, typing away and
assumed the worst. I had never been so happy to put him straight about
something. I showed him my book and asked him what he thought. He never gave me
a direct answer, but from that point on, I never wrote in secret again. He has
supported me all the way.
As I run the two careers side by side, very few people at work know that
I am a writer and author and have been since that hot sunny day in August. I
look back at the hell I have been through since I got sick and can now cherish
this time. I have let go of many of my responsibilities at work. I now plough
this time into my own venture. Sometimes the tower has to crumble to give us a
new beginning. If none of it had happened, I would have still been doing the
same job, probably for many years to come. With a publishing contract signed,
and my first book about to be released imminently, I am still there, working at
the same place. I can hear the gasps now, as you read this, especially after
they treated me so badly. I knew, however, that if I was going to get my writing
career off the ground, I needed to focus just on that. Applying for other jobs
and the prospect of retraining and starting again from scratch, were taking the
focus and my energy away from the writing, so I’m running the wheel and working
toward a new goal - To be a full time writer and author.
Serina Hartwell – Author of The Hidden
Saga
Thank you for taking the time out to read
my blog. Don’t forget to follow me and tell a friend. Why not leave me your
thoughts or a good review? I have a new website available at – http://www.serinahartwell.com
No comments:
Post a Comment