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| My favourite writing place - home! |
I am a writer because I write. I don't call myself a professional writer, because I don't write for a living. At least, I do, but within the context of the work that I am expected to do as a property manager - which does have it's occasional and welcome moments of creativity. I have great admiration for those who have taken a decision to make writing their career, whether as jobbing journalists or copywriters for a publication, freelancers or novelists and so on. Unhappily I do not have the courage nor the conviction that I can succeed that is necessary to give up the day job and dedicate myself to a career as a writer. Perhaps that is partly due to self-confidence although a large measure is down to having no option but to earn a reliable living in order to raise the kids. And there are many writers across the decades who have had to write in their spare time and yet have published successfully.
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| Work - uninspiring and constrained - or a route to inspiration and success? Photo "Business Image" courtesy of Pong at www.freedigitalphotos.net |
Or perhaps, as in my case, work provides the opportunity to observe people and situations, to use snatches of dialogue to inspire stories, or characteristics to blend together to build characters, or situations which can either inspire whole stories or poems or help unravel and episode in a novel. It also disciplines me to use the little time I have to knuckle down and be productive.
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| Work places vary - as do characters and story lines. Work can provide ideas for stories. Photo courtesy of "Construction Building with support frame" by Keerati www.freedigitalphotos.net |
As a property manager for many years, I have seen things and heard things that curl the toes, bleach the hair and curdle the milk. I have encountered odd and unusual people and have become a very firm believer - despite being a reader of fantasy novels - that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. In fact, it is unlikely some of the situations I have encountered could be replicated in a novel because it would stretch reader believability just a bit too far. But it is possible to develop ideas: what if that person were like this? What if the boiler had burst and flooded the apartment below - again? What if no-one had answered the door and the police had to force entry and a decomposing body found? What if that mild-mannered secretary turned out to be a lap dancer at the weekends?
Workplace inspiration has struck and won me second place in a competition a couple of years ago with the story "Predictable Me", which I've set out below - hope you enjoy.
Perhaps the moral of this piece then, is not to let the frustrations of having to spend day in day out at work instead of creating a literary masterpiece slow you down: use it to keep the ideas flowing and the literary masterpiece will come.
PREDICTABLE ME
“You’re going to love
not coming to work anymore,” says Emily.
She places my cup of coffee exactly in the centre of my coaster. The coaster is old now, edges curling,
a perfect circle marked in its centre from the countless cups of coffee placed
there by a parade of assistants over the years.
I try not to
cringe. Eight years of Emily’s
gunpowder-strong concoction and I have never complained. And I shan’t today, of all days.
The telephone’s
bleeping jars the peace of the morning and Emily scuttles. What a ridiculous statement. Half a century of crusty offices,
whinging clients and cringing clerks; of course I’m delighted never to have to
come in again.
I sip at the
coffee, shudder and leave the rest.
Emily has her back turned and is taking painstaking notes of her
telephone conversation. Whoever is
talking to her must be desperate with frustration.
I sigh and
flick a switch. Despite the early
hour the heat is suffocating. The air-conditioning groans into action and then
buzzes like bluebottles around carrion. Within hours the sounds that will come
to my ears will be the sizzling of cicadas in the day and the grunt of
marauding lions at night.
“Here early as
usual,” says Michael, his round, shining face appearing round the edge of the
door.
“And why wouldn’t I
be?” I ask. Michael is flushed and
the pink of his cheeks contrast with the bland grey and magnolia of the office,
a colourless place that drains life.
I ease myself into my chair.
My hips ache slightly and remind me that my aging body welcomes
retirement.
“I thought you might
take it easy today,” he grins and enters the room, a slim file in his
hand. He’s my boss. A clever lad really, half my age with
appalling taste in ties and generally a bit of a fool. A sickly yellow number
hangs from his collar this morning. Perhaps he thinks the girls will like it.
“I’ll be answering emails
and then tidying my things off my desk,” I reassure him.
“Great, and please
take a quick look at this file,” adds Michael, “we’re going to miss you.”
The hell they
are. By tomorrow lunchtime they
will have forgotten I exist.
“Just leave it with
me,” I say. He breezes off,
whistling. I cannot help but shake
my head. In a place where the boss
blows air through pursed lips in tuneless sounds there can be little hope for
achieving professional success.
“So, have you booked
your sessions at the golf course yet?
Wouldn’t want to risk getting bored, would you?” roars Mr Fernandez a
little later. Emily hovers,
smoothing down her beige skirt, although it would be better if she made an
attempt at smoothing down the beige skin of her face.
I attempt to smile at
Mr Fernandez’ jollity, aware I only manage to lift a corner of my lips, which
must give the impression of a snarl to the man who lauds himself for
introducing the arbitrary corporate performance reward scheme I hold in
complete contempt. I put down my
pen. I have finished with
Michael’s file and have added a note which he will find later: ‘to an idiot
from a fool’. I ignore the gold
issue; where I’m going, I won’t be playing.
The day wears
on and as I empty my desk of the insignificant symbols of years at work, I
contemplate just how vacuous my professional life has been. The shareholders grew immensely rich on
the back of the drivel I typed and I managed to buy a flat. Home ownership of a leaky apartment was
all the rage for a while.
At the end of
the day there is a little speech and a gift: a pair of silver cuff links. Also not needed where I’ll be going,
but I am too decent, or dull, to say.
There’s a ripple of
half-hearted applause and the pop of a cork from a bottle of supermarket Cava.
“So, come on, let’s
know your plans,” urges Mr Fernandez, with a self-satisfied smile.
“My plans….,” I
pause. I glance out of the window to the street beyond and catch a glimpse of
my car.
“Don’t tell me,”
giggled Michael, “you’re going straight on a cruise? You’ve always been predictable.”
Perhaps I have:
predictable, dependable, reliable Francis. But it’s not really me.
“I’m going away, to
Africa…” I begin.
“An African cruise?”
says poor Emily.
Something about her
featureless face, the clothes that would have better adorned a woman half her
age, the inanity of her comment chaffs at my frustration.
“Try not to spend
your sorry life being ridiculous,” I say.
The sudden silence simmers.
My mouth dries and my throat tightens. I look at the car again. Kim, my woman, waits for me there, black skin smooth and
oiled and glistening, her breasts pressing against her light dress.
“I’m going to Africa
with my lover. Marta and I are
divorced. We wanted to keep it
quiet,” I press. Even the motes of
dust that have circled the office for the past fifty years pause in their
drifting. “I’m spending a few
years in Ghana helping set up small businesses with micro-finance. Kim is a doctor and setting up a
clinic. The idea is to help women take control of their sexual health, avoid
AIDS, death in childbirth and so on.
We might even be able to reduce the trade in sex slavery. Ambitious, maybe….and not very
predictable.”
They stare at me,
mouths slightly agape, but they are no longer important. They probably never were.
“You see,” I
carry on, compelled to explain myself, “no-one is too old to change, no-one can
be dependable for ever. We all
need meaning.”
I step out into
a blaze of afternoon sun and breathe as if I had just been born, leaving the
stagnation behind the office door.
From the car, Kim smiles and waves. I hurry onwards.
There is much to do.
