I, Writer

broken clock
Originally uploaded by ananasbacke.

I am a writer. That is now where all my money comes from, rearranging words and letters and selling these specific arrangements to other people, who say things like “Those words in that order! We could never have rearranged them like that!”

It wasn’t always this way. I did a lot of “normal” nine-to-five work on the twisty turny road that lead me here. And in my spare time, and sometimes even when supposedly at work, I wasted a lot of time. I watched a lot of TV, played a lot of computer games and read a lot of comics.

However, now that I am a writer, I can retroactively re-categorise much of this time wasting as research;

Lying on the sofa in my underpants for that three hour Simpsons marathon? Research. Reading the text files of Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan books while supposedly processing customer service complaints for Royal Mail? Sticking it to the man. And research. Playing Counter-Strike until I viewed every dustbin on my street as potential cover? Research.

Obviously, had I never become a creative of any sort, this would all have remained time wasted. Now it’s all grist to the creative mill. Even striking out in my teens is valuable raw material.

If I ever have to write a script about a teen striking out.