I always wanted to be a writer.....

I'm having an easy week this week cos I have study leave from work to do an intensive revision course for a professional exam I have to do. An easy week! I scored 45% in the pre-course test so I hope the course works. I have two months before the actual date so plenty of time.

Because this is an easy week it gives me time to reflect on life. I have a great job. I know I bitch and moan about it but it is great. It's just a job that I never dreamed of doing as a kid. I never even thought about it till I was 21 and I'm just really really lucky that I fell into it. I can't really imagine myself doing anything else now. I don't think anything else would satisfy me.

I'm wandering off topic. The title of this post is 'I always wanted to be a writer.....' and that's true. That's me. I always wanted to be a writer. I guess that's why I like blogging. It's the vanity publishing of the modern era.

When I was a kid I just wanted to write comic books or science fiction novels. At around the age of twelve I wrote a script for a Captain Britain comic and posted it off to Marvel Comics in London. It was totally unpublishable because it featured a LSD crazed gang of mutant neds beating up a drunken Captain Britain (LSD, alcohol and gangs were VERY cool at my school) but I still have the very nice rejection letter they sent. It has Spiderman on the letter-head.

Later on I wrote for the university newspaper at my first uni. I had the dubious honour of being the first student (in the 550 year history of that uni) to slip the bad 'C' word into the paper. The editor wasn't doing his job. I was told off. I then reviewed a CD by some obscure american band and randomly embedded the sentence 'Noel Gallagher is a 'c'' into the body of the text resulting in another warning. The editor was really shit.

That was about 10 years ago and I haven't really written anything since. Sure, I wrote loads of rubbish lyrics for the rubbish bands that I played in but they do not count. (Anyone can write 'Fuck you! FUCK you! arrrgh!) I haven't really written anything since.

I guess I could write work related stuff for journals, etc. but I don't know if that would be fun. I'm not sure that anything I would have to say on work related topics would be that original.

I was presented with an interesting opportunity on Sunday. I walked down to a comic geek-fest thing where a couple of successful local artists were signing stuff and chatting to people. One of them was actively recruiting people to write for a Viz style humour comic and asked me if I would be interested. It was tempting but I don't know if I could write that sort of stuff. I don't know if I could write and force it to be funny.

What would I write? Autobiographical stuff? That's essentially masturbation and there is a lot I couldn't write about. Some stuff is too personal. Other stuff could be funny but it would be ethically wrong to write.

Hunter S. Thomson was (and still is kinda) my hero. The energy in his stuff is amazing. I loved the innocence and wide-eyed amazement of Kurt Vonnegut. I like the simplicity of Charles Bukowski although I do think he's a misogonistic asshole. I like some PJ O'Rourke stuff (even if he's a republican).

I like plenty of trash as well: Chris Brookmyre, Neil Gaiman, Carl Hiaasen, Ian Rankin, Terry Pratchett, Chuck Palanhuk. The list goes on and on.

I just wish I had something to say or that I had the ideas or the time. The one thing that my job steals from me is time. I know I probably have about 8 more years of training in front of me. I'll wake up and I'll be 40. A lot of the time I don't even get a chance to read. The job is fun though.

I always wanted to be a writer......


Phunky