The New Direction

It's been close to three weeks since I had the brilliant idea to enroll in a Diploma of Journalism. I admitted at the time that it seemed impulsive, yet somehow convinced myself that I had been thinking about it for a while, I was ready to study again and it would be a great career, combining one of my greatest loves, writing, with a career. An exciting career!

So why did the wheels fall of this sensible although slightly impulsive desicion? The answer came to me whilst pondering it on my morning stroll from the train to the office. It was a desicion based in my head and not my heart. It sounds airy fairy, I know, but that is what it came down to. I was so busy weighing up the financial outcomes, the job opportunities and the social status that I forgot to remind myself that I wouldn't have freedom in the things that I wrote about. I would be writing to strict deadlines, I would be competing against 21 year old guns with honours degrees, clawing their way to the top and taking no prisoners.

I am a creative writer. I love making up stories, embelishing facts (which is quite different to lying!) and creating images with words. One of the best pieces I ever wrote was my year 4 project on Ned Kelly. My overall mark was a C-. Not a brilliant start, but I can guarantee the teacher marking it would have had tears of laughter rolling down her face. Here is an exerpt (spelling errors left in, just for kicks):

.Ned was sort of good looking for a bush ranger. Specking of good looking peopl, sometimes I look at my boyfriend and think yuk! Ok, lets go on to Ned again. My brother thincks that he was good becaus he fought with the rich pepol WOW! How nice of him. I hate my brother. Ned wore a metal suit. It was black with a big helmet with an eye peas, hay thats handy. I don't know if he had a horse. Mum and Dad sayd he wold have one. I thort that he was an escapeed convict. No, he wasn't. His mum and dad came across as convicts. He was about 25 when he dide so he wasn't a mean old bushranger at all, he was more of a mean yonge bushranger. I was going to call him a little rascal but he's not little enough, but I'll call him a young man.

As you can see, I was not only a wordsmith, but an artiste to boot!

I would like it to be known that I have an excellent relationship with my brother these days and as for the boyfriend, well, things clearly didn't work out between me and the ugly sod, but I hold no ill feelings and wish him well....whoever he was!

As you can see, poetic licence and freedom of opinion are both qualities that I value in my writing projects and I intend to hone these skills to a more polite level than displayed above. There is a few courses I am looking into to help to perfect my art. I am also persuing photography as a hobby/potential income earner. I am over aspiring for things that are sensible, stable and socially normal. I am old enough to be jaded about the corporate big wheel but young enough to follow my dreams.

So from here, I am not quite sure what the next step is, how big or how risky it will be or how successful it will be, but I am excited to see where my heart will take me. I plan to document that journey here.