When I was 10, I was already the proud author of approximately a dozen unpublished novels. By unpublished, I mean, read only by myself- or perhaps by anyone who managed to sneak into my bedroom, haul the stacks of notebooks out from their not so well-hidden hiding place, and decipher my drunken spiderlike scrawl. Most of these novels involved either a. time travel or b. secret passageways leading to alternate universes. These novels were illustrated with floor plans and detailed sketches worthy of the best blindfolded architects suffering from delirium tremens.
I’m still quite proud of those 5 page, single spaced novels.
I had no doubt at all that I’d be a famous writer by the time I was really old, like maybe 17 or 18. In fact, when I was 17, my teacher in a by-invite-only creative writing class in high school wrote on my report card that if I wasn’t a famous writer within 5 years, it would have been because I gave up.
17 + 5 = 22. I should note that I just turned 38, and am probably most famous now for my mop blog. But more about that later.
When I was a kid, I also drew a lot. Not just detailed floor plans, but also tons of Victorian and Edwardian ladies (I was obsessed with the details in the dresses), sheep and odd Celtic swirls that were, surprisingly, not at all influenced by the ‘shrooms that nourished most of my fellow classmates after age 12.
All of my school notebooks were fully illustrated, and I will admit to having spent most of grades 7 through 9 with my headphones on, at the back of the classroom, obsessively drawing . Grade 10 combined art with appalling poetry. Grades 11 and 12 were spent at the Arbutus cafe drinking mediocre coffee that had free refills, writing slightly better poetry and a lot of short stories about Prague, midgets, accordions, Tom Waits. Somehow I graduated in the top 10% of the province, which really doesn’t say much for the levels of scholarship in BC in the early 90s.
I grew up (kinda), I extensively illustrated my university notes, I opted for the ‘creative response’ option for term papers (I once got 105% on an essay I wrote for a Canadian lit class, where I merged Duncan Campbell Scott‘s early Canadian bureaucratic/patriotic romanticism with Thomas King’s awesomely magical realist Green Grass Running Water– a perfect excuse for a poetry/prose mash up if there ever was one), and wrote more novels, still unpublished and unread but slightly better than my earlier ones.
Back in the days before the postal system was declared obsolete and/or uncool, I used to draw the most elaborate designs on envelopes to be sent out to my friends all over the world. I have no idea how the local postmen/women were able to read the intended addresses as those were frequently part of the great, big swirly design. The merging of text and image, the amalgamation off address and swirly thing.
Even when I was co-running that school in Istanbul, all of my memos were elaborately illustrated and my meeting notes were, to say the least, hallucinogenic and possibly quite unprofessional. I remember the head teacher (Hi Claire!) telling me I was totally wasted in that job. Not wasted as in drunk, no, though Istanbul could bring out those tendencies in people caught off-guard.
No, she meant, what the hell are you doing spending half your life buried in an Excel document trying to time table 40+ teachers (with constantly changing class times and courses) and the other half in endless meetings with marketing or with the boss or whoever, quibbling about hungover teachers and complaining students?
Good question, Claire.
I should mention that I am now firmly ensconced in another job that is pretty much the same as that last one in Istanbul, except I don’t have 40+ teachers to time table yet, and I’m herding kids not business executives. I still have to pretend I’m an efficient, serious, responsible grown up though.
My 3 bosses have no idea that I write about mops, have extensively documented the feline invasion of Shanghai, and wrote a novel (unpublished and seen only by 2 other people, thankfully) about the water monster population of Shanghai. Those are from my not-so-secret secret life.
But still, I feel pretty annoyed with myself for shoving the creative part of my brain onto the back burner. It’s November, and I’m not doing Nanowrimo. I started it last year, and gave up half way through. I haven’t drawn anything in ages. I haven’t written anything longer than a mop post in even longer.
Not only did I fail to become a recognized writer by the age of 22 (thanks for the spirit-crushing optimism, Dr Hargreaves), but I’m still floundering at 38.
I was talking with Jackie (of Travels fame) this morning on Twitter about something along these lines. Or rather, along the lines of starting up yet another blog, but this time a blog by Jean Paul Mop, the existentialist thinker mop. Maybe this one would be my path to literary fame. I mean, hell, the Oatmeal got a book deal! Animals Talking in All Caps got a book deal! Hyperbole and a Half got a book deal!
Surely the mops can’t be far behind. Hell, Christine of Almost Fearless was nagging me (er, subtly encouraging me, I mean) to get a Kickstarter fund-raising campaign started for the mops.
Or maybe they are. Far, far behind. I mean, what exactly would I do with, say, 5000 crowd-sourced dollars and 250+ talking mops?
Seriously.
This is as niche as they come.
Or maybe I need to bring back the watermonsters. And the cat invasion. Something, anything that can say I’m not totally boring and domesticated here in Shanghai.
I sometimes wonder if my occasional and brief bouts of creativity will ever go anywhere. Maybe I was just meant to be a teacher who has a weird hobby. Sorry, several weird hobbies.
The cat invasion of Shanghai started last week, after all.
Does anyone else struggle with the (ever-widening) gap between inspiration and actual productivity/application/public reception in the real world?
Is it time to give up hope of ever actually funnelling inspiration into something that could possibly become a career?
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