My Hero

Magnus Mills, Booker Prize winner. Not exactly my hero, but I admire him. A bus driver who has written 6 books. He doesn't want to give up the job driving buses to write full-time because that would be solitary and boring. Amen!

I also admire T.S. Eliot, whose former office I pass on my way to work. He left teaching, and took an 'easy' job at a bank so he could leave at 5pm and write in the evenings.

One morning long ago when I was at home on summer break, my father ambushed me and made me sit down at the kitchen table and write out my goals: short, medium and long term. He is a very philosophical, gentle man who never 'made' me do anything before, so this was a surprise.
At age 20, I was very irritated. I harumphed and sulked, but I was not allowed off the chair until I had written them. At least three items per category. I scribbled the first things that came to mind so I could get off the chair!! Felt like I was being forced to do my homework.

He kept it, and gave it to me when I got married. I wrote things like,

Short Term: Number 1 'Finish this stupid list!' and went on to things like, finish university; travel.
Medium Term: live abroad; get a job that pays bills, go to graduate school.
Long Term: Get job I am proud of, with comfortable salary, which helps humanity in some way; get married; have kids; write a book.

I have done all the things on my 'ambitious' list save one: write book (if current job counts as helpful to humanity, sadly it lacks comfortable salary).
Write a book. That is the big thing I want to do before I die.

I don't want to be famous, or rich. I'd like to create a lasting thing that outlives me on a library shelf. Someone comes along and sees the spine and thinks, 'Huh, might be worth a read,' and they read it and love it, and when they finish, it was time well spent. Maybe libraries will be obsolete in a few years. Still, I want to type my name in Amazon and come up as 'author'. Is that too much to dream?

Now, I am expecting the writing fairies to come tonight and pull the ideas out of my head as I sleep, and put them on paper. Then I will wake up and find them there beside the bed, and all I have to do is edit them.