#MyFirst... Fulfilled Wish

Each Monday I will be writing about a First. I will choose the First (first kiss? first drink? first fight? first phobia?)I will post the topic here and write my own little piece about it. And I will invite YOU to write about your own First on your blog anytime during the week. If you have never experienced that particular first, write about why not. And how you feel about that.
Then add your blog post via the linky below, and/or tweet it under the hashtag #MyFirst.

Today's topic is My First... Fulfilled Wish

I was thirteen years old and I wanted to be an actress. I wanted to be an actress desperately. You know - with that passionate, yearning, my-life-will-be-over-if-it-doesn't-happen need that only a teenager can feel.

I enrolled in acting classes, and my mum schlepped me out there every Saturday morning for two years. (One of my fellow students was an extremely tall, thin girl with frizzy red curls. Her name was Nicole and she was really very good. I often wonder what became of her.)

About a year into my 'career', it was time to find an agent. My mum looked in the Yellow Pages, and took me along to an office full of pictures of famous-looking children. A maternal looking woman peered at me over her glasses and scrutinised my head shots.

"This one is nice," she said, indicating a photo of me in a blue and white striped V neck. Then she rejected a pic of me in an eighties-style headband. "This one makes your head look too big," she said dismissively. And she was right, of course, but come on, it was the eighties. My head was supposed to look big!

Shortly thereafter my agent began sending me out to auditions. One after the other. Week after week after week. Auditions for TV commercials, for bit parts in films, for guest roles in TV series, for a starring role in Sons and Daughters. I wanted them so badly. I put my heart and soul into each audition - even the one for Outback Vampires, which I couldn't determine was a comedy or not.

I got nothin'. Not a single job.

Then, one day, the Big Audition. I got a call-back for the lead role in a new Australian movie called BMX Bandits. The premise sounded pretty lame - some kids on bikes - but it was a lead role in a movie! I did the call back. And then I did a screen test. And then I met with the director and producer.

And then I heard the dreaded words. "You came runner up," they told me. Some girl called Nicole got the part.

I was gutted. I considered giving up. But I didn't. I persisted. Audition after audition. Week after week. My mother deserved a medal. I deserved a role in a McDonald's commercial. A guest part as a corpse on The Young Doctors. ANYTHING.

And then, another Big Audition. A lead role in an eight part mini-series for the ABC. Butterfly Island. I was auditioning for Sally, the nearly-eighteen year old who wants to become a flight attendant. I was fifteen. I didn't know why my agent sent me. But she did, and I gave it my best shot.

And there I am. Sally. That's Bob, my boyfriend. Bit of a spunk.

I got a call back. And then a screen test. And then the meeting with the director and producer. And then a phone call. "They apologise, but they need to see you in a swimsuit," my agent said. "It's set in Queensland - you have to look good in a bikini."

I didn't eat for a week. I borrowed a black, faux-leather two-piece. And I went back to the office and paraded around in my cossie in front of those men for all I was worth. It was terrifying. Then, abruptly, one of them held up his hand. "Thank you, that's great, you can go get dressed now." Which I did.

And then they called me back in. "We are definitely going to use you in the part of Sally," he said.

Oh my god. I felt it. Oh god, how I felt it. A wave, a delicious rush of joy, rolling over me from my limbs up to my head. It was happening. It was real. It was intoxicating. It was pure thrill.

I got the part! I GOT THE PART!

It was a natural high. I flew out of that office and I levitated through the next days and weeks. To this day, that moment back in 1984 remains one of the greatest of my life. And I feel so grateful for having had it. It was magical. It was my own personal Oscars moment. I was crap in the TV series, and I never worked again as an actress, but I got that part. And I loved every minute of it.

Besides, that whole episode taught me something important. If one of my wishes could be fulfilled, then others could too. And that is a lesson indeed.

Next week's topic: My First... Time Drunk

Finished. The Truth About Being An Author

So I finished writing my latest book. I’m not sure how, because I can’t quite remember writing it. I know I sat down at the computer nearly every day for eight months and typed, but I can’t remember the words coming out. They sort of appeared on the page as if by magic, 65,000 of them, at the end of last month. I am hoping this is a sign that it is a work of genius, and not simply that I wrote most of it at night after a glass or two of wine.

I guess we’ll see.

 

There is a huge sense of satisfaction in finishing a manuscript, often compared to giving birth. Well, I’ve written three books, and given birth to three babies, and I can’t see many similarities at all. I mean, each time there was pain and a massive effort, and a lot of screaming for it to be over, but that’s where the comparison ends.

Creating a person from scratch takes nine months (or nine and a half, if you’re me). And then you push it out, and you have a new baby in your arms, and absolutely everything changes from that very first moment.

Finishing a book is completely different. Yes, this last book also took nine months, and yes, there was a definite high when I finished. I stared at the finished draft for several minutes feeling very clever, much like one would stare at a new baby. I had already decided what to name it, so I typed the name on it and closed the file. Then I treated myself to a cup of tea and a lie down, much as I did after giving birth, and rang my mum to tell her the good news. She was very excited, though not quite as excited as when I told her her grandchildren had been born.

Strange, I know.

But then that was it. Nothing else happened. I sent the file on to my agent, and that was the end of the story. Nothing changed. My life stayed exactly the same.

I have had two books published and this one will no doubt be published too. It’s a good book. I’m proud of it. But I know enough now to know that publishing a book isn’t the life changing experience one imagines it will be.

Becoming a published author is a crazy dream for so many of us. We imagine that everything will look different when we have achieved our goal. We will be successful, glamorous, perfectly fulfilled. But nothing much looks different. Sure, we have the excitement of seeing our book in print, and – if we’re lucky – the thrill of receiving royalty cheques in the mail. There may be a launch party, and some press. There may be minutes, even an hour or so, of glamour.

Essentially, however, life stays the same. Unless we are J K Rowling, or E L James, or Tom Wolfe, chances are we are not going to be propelled to super stardom. And we are not going to be propelled to great wealth.

But that’s not why we write. We write because we have to. Because we itch to be read. Because we cannot be happy doing anything else.

And for several minutes after we finish a manuscript, we feel very clever indeed.

Brilliant Advice, Whoever You Are

The other day, I was in my lovely local bookstore, where my Little Book of Anxiety is still one of their Top Ten bestsellers. It got as high as number four, and is now down to number nine, which is still a pretty great achievement.

I was feeling happy about my little book, until I glanced up at the books selling at number one, number two and number three.

Fifty Shades. Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed.

These books have sold about a billionty copies (okay, 20 million, but who's counting?*). And suddenly, my own tiny little book seemed, well, grey in comparison.

'What's the point?' I asked my four year old, who was browsing through Dora books and had nothing constructive to say.

'What's the point?' I asked my friend Kylie, who's a writer and understands exactly how I'm feeling. What's the point, I meant, of being in this business? What's the point, I meant, of writing books, of working my arse off, when my greatest successes will be so far removed from the dazzling heights reached by others?

And Kylie said something that struck a chord with me. She said, 'Don't compare yourself to others. Swim your own race**. YOU are your competition, and no-one else.'

And I felt better, immediately.

I can't write a Fifty Shades, and I really wouldn't want to. And I may never sell a billionty books (though that certainly would be nice). But I can keep on trying to be the best me I can be, which is ultimately the only role I'm qualified for, anyway.

And I think that goes for you, too, whoever it is you are. Agree?

*Me

**This was a metaphor. Kylie's daughter is a swimming champ. I avoid the water whenever possible.

Is Ambition A Bitch?????

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actress. I succeeded (as you can see here), and then, just when things were getting started, I decided to give that ambition away. Instead of pursuing my dream of auditioning for NIDA, I chucked in the acting and enrolled at university.

I tried to convince myself that I didn't really want to be an actress, and that I just wanted a quiet life in the suburbs*. In reality, though, I think I wanted to bow out of the fight. Acting is fiercely competitive, and I just wasn't up for it, because the thought of not succeeding was too awful. Better to have never tried at all, than to try with all your might, and fail.

Later, when I was at university, something similar occured. I was studying Social Work, and we had to do several weeks of prac. Being all politically correct, as social work students were, we had to 'negotiate' for the placement we wanted with the other students. There was one hospital prac on offer, and I probably had a good chance of negotiating for it, but I couldn't bear the thought of wanting it so much and potentially failing to win it. So I decided not to even try. I picked a far less appealing placement that no-one else wanted, and left the hospital placement to a student prepared to fight for it.

Once again, I pushed that ambition down.

Fast forward to the year 2009 and I couldn't force my ambition down any longer. I'd had a mediocre career for my entire adult life, doing jobs I didn't really enjoy, in fields I wasn't passionate about. Finally, I acknowledged the drive within me.

I started blogging, and then I started writing my book, and once that was published I started writing another. Now I write columns, and I give talks, and I'm going to write a third book, and I want to take this career as far as I can.

But I hate my ambition. It makes me want success so desperately that it leaves me intensely vulnerable. What if I don't succeed? What if I fail? What if I work my arse off and I still don't make it?

I wish I could shake this ambition. I wish I didn't want so much. I wish I could be happy with a normal, easy job, where I could work a few hours every day. I wish I could be content to focus on my kids and my husband, and not be forever striving, pushing, breaking through the next barrier.

But that's not me. I'm ambitious and I recognise that now. I just have to keep at it, with all the exhaustion and challenges and occasional triumph that ambition brings.

And hope that in the end, it will all be worth it.

*okay, I never thought 'quiet life in the suburbs', as that is something you only read in a book, and I'm not a novel, but you get my drift.