When I was six years old I had my first poem published in a magazine. When I say magazine, I mean my primary school magazine which consisted of 8 pieces of A4 paper stapled together with the school's logo stamped on the front and forcibly handed out to every parent that set foot through the school gates. To my six year old self, this was a monumental occassion and I can remember the moment as if it were yesterday. The poem, believe it or not, started thus:
"All kind of pets
visit the vets
These pets are ill
Some need a pill..."
You get the picture? Still, of everything I have written, these words still remain the closest to my heart. To me they are more important than the words of Wilde, Shakespeare, Shelley, Ruskin,Tennyson or Atwood, for it was these words, typed in pt. 10 times new roman on crisp white paper that started my love affair with writing.
Over the many years (16 now in total since the first poem) my grandmother has collected my scribbles. Whereas my mother kept the paintings of our hands, our locks of hair, first teeth and repulsive Christmas decorations made out of empty toilet roll tubes, my grandmother has horded my words and locked them away somewhere in a drawer upstairs. Occassionally she will remind me of this, declaring that they are her pension, that one day they might actually be worth something, which is codswollop. I have read these poems and they range from being the juvenile words of a child who knows very little about life, to the narcissistic rantings of a teenager who thought the world was against her.
Still when all is said and done - it is nice that she has a little faith!
It was poetry at first, and poetry it remained for a very long time untill I hit 16, when I dipped my toe into the waters of the short story. After reams and reams of short fiction had been written ( and I realised that this was not where the money lay) I progressed to trying to write a novel, and more reccently have found that my talents actually lie in theatre and Tv scripts. In 2008, my short play The Constant Companion was performed by the University Drama Society at the prestigious Northern Stage. It was then that I realised that whether it were poetry, prose, shorts or scripts - I had fallen in love with writing.
However I am not stupid. I do not have romantic ideals about what a writers life is like. I know it will not all be sitting around in isolated cafes pondering the meaning of life in order to write a great masterpiece. Far from it. Writing is hard work with little financial reward and I am very much aware that in order to sustain myself financially ( for I can't continue to sponge off my parents forever) that I would need to find what is commonly referred to as a 'proper job.'
So, I flitted with the ideas of many different careers, speech therapy, lawyer, pshycology, teacher, lawyer again ( my mother was really keen on the lawyer idea) but none of these ever evoked in me the same passion as writing did, until some-one suggested journalism.
I had thought about journalism before, but had dismissed the idea because I did not have the required experience, and there seemed to be a distinct lack of oppurtunities. My sixth form newspaper came out twice a year, but was more of a Christian newsletter than something which contained anything of real substance. I had contributed articles to the university magazine, but this was never going to be enough to compete with the thousands of students graduating with journalism degrees ( mine is only in english) who had been editors and sub editors of their student publications and probably had contacts already in the industry!
More reccently though, my luck seems to have changed! Last March, I secured week long placement with Trinity Mirror and have another one coming up in November. Likewise one of my fantastic friends came to me with the details of an online fashion magazine www.daisygreenmagazine.co.uk set up by two womem who were passionate about being both fashionable and ethical at the same time. After emailing and meeting with the editor Sallyanne I was offered a years placement (albeit unpaid) with the magazine.
With this placement (which I LOVE), my contributions to The Sun, The Chronicle and The Newcastle Courier, a short play and a song which reached the semi finals of the UK songwriting contest all securely tucked away in my back pocket, I am taking my first steps to making writing, of any sort, my main source of income!
Personally for me, these oppurtunities are a dream come true. Of course I do not expect things to be easy - far from it. The work will be hard, and I will need much more experience before I get anywhere, which is one of the reasons for setting up this blog. I also know that I will need to find a way of standing out from all the other writers and journalist wannabe's and so have cajoled my lovely friend into hooking me up with an online portfolio to promote my work.
This is all in the process of being set up and pretty soon I hope to have the portfolio linked to my blog and face book account ( and vice versa) - so stay tuned and keep reading
Lucinda-A
xxx
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