Just Keep Swimming

I have to admit that I think I have moaned quite a lot so far on this blog, but it is very therapeutic - so I recommend you set up a blog and do the same.

I am going through quite a challenging time at the moment as I feel like I have spent so much time planning my life only to find that someone else somewhere has something completely different in store for me. From being a child I have suffered from OCD and it was only a couple of years ago that I have been able to control it, rather than allowing it to control me. However old habits die hard, and so there are still some things that creep in to my everyday life.

I have always had the plan to work my way through education and constantly look to progress and improve. I completed my BA and a few years later did my MA and have looked into PHDs. I am traditional in the sense that I wanted to be married, get a mortgage and a successful career, and I have worked my way up a ladder in a respected profession. But somehow I have just achieved my PGCE (teaching qualification) and realised that its not the career I wanted to have. Of course my dream career would be writing professionally, but we all know how hard that can be, so until then I have had to 'work'. I can't be the worst teacher in the world as I wouldn't have got to where I am, but my heart just isn't in it. I now feel that I have failed because I feel like I have wasted many years when I could have been working towards something else.

There are also other aspects of my life that have changed, which I will go into at a later date, but they have led me to realise that 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'; there is more to life to work, and there is no one that I need to prove myself to. Now I just want a stress free job, which gets me by, so that I can focus on more important things in life. However now I find myself in a new job desperate to get out, and wondering how hard it is going to be applying for jobs in a different field, now that my CV is so tilted in another direction.

The Writer

I thought it was about time that I actually shared a little more about myself with you, then maybe my posts might not be so random.

I live near Scarborough in the UK (you know the one, 'are you going to Scarborough fair?') It is a small seaside town and live in a village on the edge of it and on the border of the North Yorkshire Moors. I am so lucky to live here, as it is utterly beautiful and no matter what kind of day you have had it is only a short drive to somewhere to put you at ease.

I have done my fair share of studying and I have attained a BA, MA and more recently a PGCE. I have been working in education for nearly 7 years now, however over the last few months I am beginning to think that maybe it isn't the right career for me. Obviously a job writing would be ideal, but I haven't had a lot of luck there...and then there is animals, I would love to work with animals! Again I have been lucky with being able to progress within my industry, but you've got to do what makes you happy and with the way that the education sector is ran, it just doesn't make me happy.

I live with my amazing husband with our menagerie; a Husky called Esme, German Shepherd called Dexter and two cats called Figo and Bowie.

My family really do make me happy.

 

When I was at uni the first time I thought that I wanted to be a film director, but then I realised that I actually wanted to be writing the stories. So I went on to do my masters degree in Creative Writing. I had so much fun on that course and it was all for pleasure. I had previously written a screenplay and wanted to rewrite it as a novel - which I have now complete (though it is more of a novella). And that brings me to where I am today, waiting for a response from the literary agents I have pestered.

 

I know that writing won't necessarily make me famous, or save me from the boring everyday, but it does give me hope. It allows me to think that I can do anything. It doesn't matter if nobody reads my writing, what matters is that I have achieved something at the end of it. There were times I was really worried that I wouldn't finish it, because of time, commitments or that I'd give up. But I've done it now, and I can't wait to do more!