This week I reach a milestone in my quest to write a weekly blog for a year and turn it into a book, and here we are, halfway through!
First of all, I want to thank you all for continually supporting me by
reading my weekly blog, the great news is that we are halfway there! And
without you I would not be here. So whether you have read all 26 blogs so far
or only a few (even just one) you have contributed to my commitment and dream
to push myself as a writer to produce 52 bite-sizes blogs with my experiences
and views in life, which in turn may have, so far, given you inspiration and
ideas on how to better live your life. All 52 blogs will then form part of a
self-help book which will be entitled “A pack of cards, 52 ways to raise your
game” a title inspired by my son who in a conversation about my book reminded
me that there are 52 cards in a pack, the same number of weeks in a year and of
blogs I will write. It’s amazing how and when inspiration comes to you and
everything around you gives you an idea.
So to celebrate this milestone, I thought it would be a good idea to
share with you one of my first writing pieces I wrote back in 2011 when I began
to blog. It is entitled “A writer’s world – Everything
is an idea!” and it is appropriate in the context of how I’ve come to be here
today and how my son inspired the title of the book. So enjoy it, keep on
reading and once again, thank you for your support, as long as someone out
there reads, I will write!
A writer’s world – Everything is an idea!
When I was a
young kid, my mother worried about me. Not because I was not good at school
(which by the way I was terrible) or because I hanged around a bad circle of
friends (which I didn’t) or because I was perhaps into drugs or drinking (which
I was either) but she worried because I had a very vivid imagination… strange
thing for a mother to worry about!
But as a parent,
you always worry about your children and whether they are going to be socially
awkward or outgoing. If you see your child at a party, standing in a corner,
not talking to other children, you’d think there is something wrong with them and
so we enroll them to attend a drama class to help them come out of their shell.
I was one of those kids whose mother worried about being a social outcast (I
know, hard to believe hey?). She also knew that I had a very vivid imagination
and her love and passion for Theater inspired her to take me with her to do
theatre. And I will thank her for the rest of my life as she gave me the greatest
gift any mother could give to a child, the encouragement to do what I enjoy
most, using my imagination.
I grew up as a
child actor, working from the age of 10 in theatre (and no, it was not child
labor and I was still going to school, which I hated!) and unlike most children
my age; I was doing something that let my imagination run wild. Being in the
theatre and playing different characters was just what my head needed; it
helped me transport myself to different worlds. You could almost say that acting
was child’s play; it was for me! I was not in the yard with other kids playing;
I had my own playground and an audience who appreciated what I was doing.
Now at the age
of 47, I work in Human Resources and in the past I’ve facilitated training,
which is like acting. As a trainer, one of my opening lines to relax the
participants and introduce myself is “I was a child actor, but I was a rubbish
actor” People always look at me in astonishment that I call my self a rubbish
actor, so I follow by saying “and do you know how I know I was a rubbish actor?”
no one ever dares to answer but I’m sure many think of a few things to say. I
wait and then proclaim, “Because I am not famous today!” That always gets a
laugh, and then finish by saying “If I had been any good I would be in
Hollywood and you would be watching my films!” There is some truth in that, me
being a rubbish actor, but a major factor for not being famous today is the
fact that I never worked hard at it (I was a lazy Actor). I did continue to
fulfill my need to exercise my imagination as an actor working for an amateur
group but I haven’t acted now for over 10years building up my frustration and
locking up my imagination.
The other great
gift my mother gave me was the passion for writing; she knew that another way
to get all those ideas out of my head was to channel them through pen and paper.
As a child I used to write stories, which never left the scrap piece of paper
upon which I wrote them, but they were out of my head! As a teenager I used to
write drafts of movies I used to conjure with my childhood friend, often taking
center roles as the heroes and good looking leading actors, these where often
action driven adventures inspired by blockbuster Hollywood movies we would
watch. We used to create different characters and occasionally we were able to
bring some of these to life at my father’s social parties, in short sketches,
where he enjoyed showcasing his son, the actor. And all of the time I was
exercising my passion to create stories and characters that live in my head and
needed to come out!
And as a young
adult I worked for a theater company down in Putney, south London, where I had
the tremendous opportunity to put my vivid imagination to good use. Group 64
Theatre, as it was know back then, provided me with the platform to showcase
some of my work; plays that I had written and nurtured for years like a farmer
nurtures his crop until it grows and he is able to harvest and share with the
world. Unfortunately, I left Group 64 to pursue a more mature career in Human
Resources and forgot all about my world, the world of imagination and
adventures, the world of acting and writing.
And then I was
given the opportunity to take a new role in training for my company, a job that
consisted in traveling a lot to deliver training across Europe. This new career
would take me away every week discovering new places and new adventures. Little
did I know that this job would be the starting point to re-kindle myself with
my old passion and help me get my head clear from all those characters asking
me to put them on paper again! Traveling took a lot of my time in the working
week, and this new job was all work, from the moment I left home to the moment
I got back, 24 hours a day. And at home, the weekends were not mine, but my
family’s, it was full on, every minute of the day, 7 days a week, 365 days a
year.
A year went on
and I loved it, but there was something missing. I had a good balance, spending
good quality time with the family and giving 110% at work, so what more did I
need? And then it dawned on me; what was missing was what I would call from
that moment on as “me time”
I was not doing
anything for me; I was doing stuff for everyone else, but not for me. And I
discovered I had around 10 hours traveling time, which was dead time. Most
travelers use this “dead time” to read or watch a movie or listen to music, I
also did at times but that wasn’t enough, I needed to do more, something that
would fulfill that “me time”. In one of the trips I opened my personal laptop
and looked at it. I didn’t want to watch a movie, listen to music or play
solitaire. I didn’t want to do any work either. So what else could I do? And as
I stared at the blank screen I had that eureka moment; Write! After all,
laptops are the modern portable versions of typewriters! And I was off!
Since then I’ve
written a array of work from full-length musicals, full-length plays, comedies,
several short plays, a monolog and several episodes of sitcoms and movie
scripts! These are all still just drafts except for the comedy, which the first
20 minutes of it was performed at the Soho Theatre in London for “the first 20
minutes” competition.
I’ve revived my
passion for writing and everything I see is an idea I want to write about: a
new play, or a book or a film, a blog. The more I look the more ideas I get and
my travels keep on feeding these ideas. I see so many people, different places
and situations that I just have to write about it. And I guess primarily I am a scriptwriter; I love putting
dialog together for those characters in my head, although I am also working on
a book. I believe in writing because someone, somewhere maybe is interested in
reading my thoughts, the ideas that pop into my head, those ideas that make a
good play or TV series or even a film that one day many would enjoy, ideas that
come from experiences and observations from my travel, the people I meet and
the different situations I find myself in every week. I want to share with
everyone my world, the world in my head, the world of a writer.
I don’t know if
I am any good at this, but what I know is that I love doing it. I love putting
thought to paper and to me that is 90% of the job done. I’ve heard of “writer’s block” which I guess means you
run out of ideas and you inspiration stops. Well not with me! I feel that if I
don’t put my ideas on paper my head will explode! And by they way I am a firm believer
that writing is not just about using clever words, I don’t have many of those;
writing is about painting a picture that your readers will be able to see, and
some times the simplest of descriptions can paint a thousand images. If like me,
you have a very vivid imagination, you need to give life to some of those
stories, characters and situations for everyone else around you to enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment