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No Regrets: The Bottom of The Food Chain
I never thought I would start "The youth of today..." rant aged twenty six, but as a teacher I never cease to be amazed at the blank faces of my British students. I am a qualified teacher of further education, which means I teach only post-16 education, from those teens who've just left school right through to adults. I've taught AS, A level, VCE and NVQ and even had students in their sixties. However, without a shadow of a doubt, it's the sixteen to eighteen year olds who shock me. And not in a good way.
I taught AS English Language all last year. A creative writing element has been introduced in a lot of the syllabuses now, something I personally would have killed for when I was at a college (one of my exam questions was: "Barriers. Discuss." No word of a lie! BORING!), yet a lot of my students exhibited belligerence and even fear when I broke the news to them. When I enquired why, here was the standard response:
It's a waste of time.
These are the same kids who spend three hundred hours a week on playstations, watching DVD's and televisions, reading magazines, listening to iPods and trawling the internet with their 5 gazillion K Modem and faster-than-light connection. All the product, at least in part (combined with technology, yes, yes...) of creativity!
Grrr.
I have always found the idea that creative output is somehow "accidental" quite extraordinary. Some people believe that only "worthy" subjects like Physics, Maths, History etc should be covered in curriculums, forgetting the very valid point that all those Physicists, Mathematicians and Historians NEED things to do in their leisure time. There's a notion, amongst some, that being a writer is a "hobby", something one chooses to do for fun, not a "real job" - and that anyone who actually makes a living from it is just really lucky.
Being a writer is hard. Don't let anyone tell you any different. You'll spend a day at work or with the kids then put in two or three hours a night on your script or novel. If you're particularly unlucky, you'll spend hours in the dole queue, being compared to the likes of the tramp in front of you who regales you with boastful stories of how he's "never had a job and never will". You will lose money and pay out for things that never pay off. You will spend hours chasing up opportunities, only to be told you're chasing ideas above your station. You will be insulted, ignored and even possibly humiliated along the way. You will have so many doors slammed in your face your ears will ring with it and there will be times you look at your work and brood about the point of it all and whether you really are the charlatan everyone seems to say you are.
Yet still, it's the best job in the world. People say to me now, "Yeah, you say that cos you've had something made" and sure, maybe that's part of it - but promo stuff, a couple of professional short films and a few CD-Roms were never the height of my ambition. Like everyone else, I want a movie of mine made or a commission for one that doesn't fall apart due to the usual financial problems; like most people, I want to work on TV; like many screenwriters, I also want to write a novel. I have enough things on my "To Do" list writing-wise to last me until I'm seventy. I've barely started as far as I'm concerned.
But I'm optimistic. You have to run the race to stay in the race. Sure, I've been rejected by The BBC a startling amount of times recently (I worked out nearly once every month!), but people are beginning to recognise my name and I have made a couple of useful contacts. Several production companies have asked for a second screenplay to read and I've made it through a couple of first rounds competition-wise. The script reading too has been going really well, with lots of new things lined up for BANG2WRITE this summer (watch this space!). I can read and write for a living and do some teaching on the side, instead of the other way round.
I never thought, eight years ago as a single Mum working in Superdrug, that my career would be as cool as it is now. This means, even if I never get any further "up" that screenwriting ladder, I would have given it my best shot. No stone left unturned. No opportunity wasted. No contact unhassled. No regrets.
So when yet more rejection slips land on your doormat, don't be too downhearted. It is the death of a dream each time someone tells you "No!" but instead of brooding, get back to that drawing board and find someone else to send stuff to.
Who knows...they might even tell you "Yes"!
bang2write at 10:34:00 o'clock BST Blog about this entry |
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SEX in BED?? What are you? English??
Ooops, sorry. -
Happens to us all, my martian friend.
Do you EVER go to bed by the way?? What bloody time is it in Carolina? Given your comments on sex and (lack of it in) marriage: y'know, this might be a radical idea, but if you actually went to bed more, you might get more, know what I'm saying...? -
Oh no, I'm guilty of vague pronoun reference. Also guilty of the logical fallacy of imitative form.
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Hey OSM. Koko the chimp's family are our replacements???? Actually, that could work...In fact, one of his relatives looks like he's in The Whitehouse right now! ; )
06/05/06 13:54
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ma