The Starving Writer
I’ve done it! Five bastard years of broadening my already swollen noggin. A couple of weeks ago I sent off my final essay for my Open University degree in English Language and Literature (with hons). I am now totally educated and shit. It has happened at a weird time though.
Some background is needed as this site isn’t normally a blog (just occasionally). Mrs Wordofward and I wisely decided to go to Thailand for two months at the end of February and gave up our flat in sunny Belsize Park and put everything into storage. We are now back and have been working freelance in TV. My current client only books me a day or two in advance and as I write this I have nothing booked. Currently, we are staying in a friend’s lovely two bedroomed flat (she’s away for a few months) as are looking for our own place.
So now I finally find myself with a degree and I am technically homeless and unemployed. I’m pretty sure that is the opposite of what’s supposed to happen.
On the plus side, I am now realising I have no excuses not to write more. Before, I always had this nagging guilt that I should have been studying – a guilt I have to admit I was able to ignore a lot – but now there is no excuse. I am writing this in a sunny garden on a Macbook air with a cup of tea and an increasing portfolio of shares, so it’s a bit of a stretch to class myself as a starving writer but fuck it, I like the imagery.
Why am I saying all this? Firstly, it is my website so I’ll write what the hell I like. Secondly, I read a book called 59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman that proves if you announce things publicly, you are more likely to actually do them. (I wrote about this before here.) I have been writing 1000 words a day as I vowed before but only on days when I wasn’t working and most of them were for my degree. I now vow to write more fiction and badger the hell out of all of you lovely readers to buy it. Thank you in advance.
So, er, I had better dash. Next entry: something more interesting that isn’t so self absorbed.
