Of horses and ballet dancers and books

Having already confessed to my bookaholism, which if anything is escalating rather than the reverse, I must now confess to a desire to complicate my obsession with reading books, by trying to write one. Rather than an indication of latent literary talent finally emerging after a long gestation, this is more likely one of those predictable age related yearnings, sort of like the desire to have a horse or be a ballet dancer in young girlhood, or a boyfriend in slightly older girlhood - all goals to which I fervently aspired at the appropriate age. The horse thing never really came to fruition, unless you count sitting astride an old saddle slung over a fence at my grandma's farm for hours fondly imagining I was Liz Taylor in National Velvet. I did give the ballet thing a real run for its money though and despite my resemblance to a long and very ungainly string bean rather than a ballet dancer, forced my mother to enrol me in classes where I eventually won a prize for "most improved". The irony of this was lost on me though and I persisted with practising en pointe at home in my slippers, despite the agony, for some time, which may well have been the genesis of my recent unfortunate foot problems. As regards the boyfriend, well probably enough said there - that dream came true in my younger days reasonably regularly although I think more the result of a complete lack of discrimination on my part, rather than any mysterious sexual magnetism. Now of course things are different. Friends (other than platonic) of the male persuasion are very thin on the ground, I'd be scared shitless to get on a horse (and so would the horse no doubt) and would probably kill myself if I attempted ballet.

No ... now that I've reached the respectability of middle age, and probably along with half the literate population, I want to write a book. Ambitious perhaps but not completely beyond the bounds of rationality, given that I quite like writing and this blogging stuff is good practice, even if I often feel like I'm just talking to myself. Dreams of best sellers aside though, I realise it would be a lot of hard graft and long hours of eschewing other more hedonistic or possibly lucrative pursuits. The only pursuit though that can truly be called lucrative in my case is work, that being currently of the 9-5 variety and monopolising a fair amount of my physical if not mental energy. Fruitless as it may be as an outlet for intellectual creativity, it is sadly non-negotiable as an option, especially as I have to finance the aforementioned bookaholism somehow.

However even after having absorbed the statistics that 556,500 Australians reputedly engage in writing as a creative or leisure activity, but only 185,500 have paid involvement in writing (even for a maths dunderhead like me I think that means that only a slender minority can ever hope to make a buck from this "activity"), I still think it's worth a shot. Some years ago I had similar ambitions I recall and actually enrolled in a creative writing course. An interesting experience from which I learnt not much except that the tutor (who specialised in bush ballads I think) and I had quite polarised opinions about my literary potential. I'm afraid at that time I took his probably highly deserved and no doubt constructive criticism personally and took my budding magnus opus and went home in a huff.

Now though I'm made of sterner stuff and even the thought that often crosses my mind that surely there are more than enough books and misguided scribblers in the world already is not enough to deter me. There are of course books by the tonload and it's likely anything I could possibly have to say to add to the wisdom or entertainment of the world has already been said and possibly more incisively by hundreds of others. But equally there's lots of publishers, agents, book sellers, printers, bookshops and all the rest of the literary paraphernalia still making a gainful living out of books ... and they're not all reprints ... and someone has to write them .. and indeed even if my efforts meet with scorn, derision or simply the disparagement of a new age Henry Lawson, why should I at least not have a go?