At nearly 50 I think I know what I want to be when I grow up

Have you ever had someone tell you that you’re good at something and you dismiss it?

Do you just think “Yeah thanks, I know you’re being nice”?

It’s the instinct of many of us to just say that if someone is telling us something positive, they don’t really mean it. It helps keep us grounded, but unfortunately, it also prevents us from pursuing something we are passionate about.

I had someone I respect say to me recently that praise from people they don’t know means more than praise from their friends, because there is less in it for a stranger. I get the rationale, but it’s flawed because our friends should be prepared to be honest with us and point out our flaws as well as what we are good at.

So here is my story, ironically about my desire to write stories.

I would like to think that I’ve always had a creative mind. As soon as I could write, I would write stories. My topics were often about dinosaurs, spacemen, and magical cars. I was influenced by the wonderful worlds of Disney, Star Wars, and comic books. From a young age, my teachers would tell me how good a writer I was. Through high school, I embraced writing poetry and song lyrics and I genuinely loved indulging in creative endeavors.

But I also realized that after school I’d need to find a career where I could pay bills and feed myself. At the time I graduated from school, the internet was but an infant, for someone growing up in rural Australia I would need to find a “real job”. So, I undertook my engineering degree, which was as far from a truly creative outlet as you would find. I then went on to join the police and that was very much focused on “the facts”.

For my ten years as a cop, I only had a few forays into writing creatively. One of these was to write about a trip away to a remote island in response to some civil unrest where we were accompanied by the District Inspector; he was a man of limited humor and personality. I wrote a daily journal in the vein of a group of people marooned on a deserted island, inserting daily jibes at our fearless leader. I would email my musings back to my colleagues on the mainland.

After about five days, I got a phone call from the Superintendent. He said, “I’ve just been reading some of your writing, you’re a funny guy”. I felt a wave of terror wash over me. How did the boss of the district get his hands on my work? (Turns out one of my colleagues had foolishly printed it to the District Office printer and the boss had picked it up). The Superintendent advised me to not send any more across the email, but he still thought it was hilarious.

My only other real artistic writing at that time was to write a mini erotica story for a female colleague stationed at a remote station. We had flirted back and forth for some time, she had mentioned that she was more interested in imagining erotica rather than watching porn, so I undertook to deliver a written piece to help occupy her time. Again, the feedback was positive, but I brushed it aside.

Years went on, and only now and then would I engage in writing or preparing anything creative. Then at one workplace, I landed the responsibility for organizing the lottery syndicate. I felt bad about people paying $5 and then we’d lose. So, I started to accompany the lotto emails with funny stories, either from my days as a police officer or other amusing anecdotes. After a while I had a few people say that they would happily pay the $5 just for my stories. That was nice and flattering, but still, I didn’t really believe in my writing talent.

So, we come to a global pandemic, maybe you’ve heard about it, I think it’s been in the news. I was home a lot more and needed something to fill in all that dead air. I heard about Vocal so I decided I’d start writing some stories and try my hand at a number of genres including erotica. That then led to a work colleague discovering my hidden talents (if you haven’t already then please read about that here). They told me that I had a talent that I should pursue, and even though I don’t tell that many people about my erotica, I do sometimes share other PG-rated stories I have written.

Now I want to write my novel. I’ve had a plot in my head for years, it’s finally starting to formulate, and I’m getting words on paper. It might be a best seller; it might sell one copy (I would hope my mother would buy a copy although she will probably expect that I gift her a copy).

I can now say, however, that I want to be an author.

It will mean lots of work and refining my art. But it’s a passion I want to pursue, so maybe I can be the Hemingway, or Tolkein (we share the same birthday just a few years apart). But I do know from people I respect that I am a good writer.

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