It is unwise to ignore the precepts of fate

When I was six I decided I wanted to be a writer. I spent a great deal of my time reading, writing, or otherwise creating the characters I wanted to write about. I had whole reams of paper on these people, their character, family, place they lived. I suppose it was in a way a type of imaginary friend, only there were many of them and once I had sussed out their person and reason for being, I moved onto the next one. 

One can also posit that this was in place of a sister who was present but lacking in general, shall we say, friendliness. But I digress.

Anyway. Sometime over the ensuing years, I became convinced that being a writer was Too Hard. That is was hard and rather impractical to make a living as a writer, so I abandoned that life goal. I don't even know where this came from, but it was unerringly accurate for such a young child -- making a living as a writer, particularly as a writer who writes only what they want to write, as opposed to writing for a specific audience, IS hard to do. It just hadn't occurred to me at that time that writing what OTHER people wanted might in fact be a reasonable career option. 

I opted instead to try being an academic. An Arts academic, which is really just a type of being a writer, for what does one do as a researching arts academic? Read. Research. Write about it. After completing my Master's degree I decided that this too was a hard way to make a living, especially being the academic that *I* wanted to be, and so I gave it up. (There's no work in writing all day, right?? Despite the fact that lots of people DO IT.) And went into publishing. 

I started off working in the Marketing department of an academic publishing house (seamlessly knitting together one failed career attempt with the new one, ha ha). And in a short while ended up ... reading and writing marketing copy. But what I really wanted was to be an editor, and kept hoping over the years that a position would open up. That was my new Life Goal.

After a few years of that, life blew up and I left publishing and the publishing capital of Canada for home, and decided to change career paths. I got a few jobs as an editor, which I was thrilled about. Woo! Life had imploded, but I had some good jobs! 

And hated them. I'm just not cut out for editing all day. I find I either read the stuff, because it's good, or it's so boring that I can't actually get through it. Another career option scratched.

Through a strange twist of fate and a few heretofore unpredictable networking events, I happened upon a job. As a writer. And desperate as I was for work, having not found anything suitable in the six months I had been in the city, I took it. 

See, I've never thought I am a good writer. I'm fair, I admit, I understand grammar and I have a few reasonable rhetorical tricks up my sleeve, but I don't think I'm necessarily better than many other people. For another thing, writing for a living is a pretty thankless job. Everyone thinks they can write, and so they don't tend to value the writer much -- if everyone can do it, then there's really no need to make the writer feel valued. There's always someone else. And what other job do you spend your day putting something together only to have everyone and their puppy criticize it when you're done? I mean really, this ain't a job for the faint of heart. So I took the job with the full intent of moving through it into something else.

So I have toiled around this job for a few years, working, in my mind, out of writing and into middle management. Perhaps not that much of a step up, but there you go. And earlier this year, about eight months ago, a management job came along that I was perfect for. Or so I thought. I applied, got an interview, and impressed them enough ... that they offered the job to someone internal and then offered ME the job of ... 

Senior Writer. 

I thought about it, and ultimately, I turned it down. There were lots of reasons for this, but the primary one was that it wasn't the way I wanted to go in my career. Plus my own boss was going on mat leave soon, and they would likely put our manager into her position leaving his open and there was really no one else in my department better suited for his position than me, so by just waiting a few more months, I'd get what I wanted. 

Fast forward a few months, and as predicted, the manager is taking over the director's job, and ... oh, and yet there's no manager's job. There are lots of reasons for this, none of which I need to go into here, but as a consolation prize of sorts, the director tells me brightly that she *has* arranged for a promotion of sorts for me, more money and more responsibility and isn't that great! She's sure I'll be pleased! And guess what? My new title is ... 

Senior Writer. 

It's been eight and a half years now. Eight and a half years through which I have spent the majority of my day writing for my paycheque. I may have no confidence in this career path or my ability in it, but apparently someone does.

And finally, with this last promotion, I have surrendered. This is something I have wanted my whole life, and I have it, I've had it for years. I've pushed it away for almost 30 years. Maybe it's time I just gave up and accept it for what it is. I'm not writing what I want to, I'm not writing any novels or the things I thought I would as a six year old, but the fact is that it is much easier to make a living as a writer when you write what other people want. And so I do. Day in, day out. And maybe some day I'll get round to those stories. But for the time being, I think perhaps I just need to accept that the universe has decided for me who I am. And I need to run with it, and see where it takes me. I am obviously not in control here.