Jeff Erno’s Unashamed prompts this post – and I truly hope this doesn’t make you see me any
differently.
I’m going put this out there though it’s a pretty well
known fact, I don’t know I’ve ever spelt it out so plainly before.
If you’ve read any of my books, you will have
noticed the great differences in how book 6 was written to how book 1 was
written.
You would therefore come to the right conclusion
that I have no idea what the hell I was doing. And I’m not saying this in
general, I can tell a story, that’s not the problem. And its not my style I struggle
with, the style is different and no matter how hard most people want different
they really don’t and they will condemn you for being so.
Just as some will understand, embrace and love
what’s written.
I say this, as well, for the fact that they can look
past what’s written down, or how it’s written to the story itself, and judge
you on that.
I have a lot of people judging me for the first
Moonlit Wolves book. I can’t fault them for that. Book 1 is a horrible mess
that needs a re-write, most importantly into something that starts as romance
like, as it ends, and with a few choice lines getting a little bit more clarity
to them. Because even though they are meant how they are written, they aren’t.
or they aren’t my words but the characters, which is hard to separate from,
especially when people aren’t impressed from the get go.
The thing is I barely finished high school.
I’m not sure if this is something I should be saying
in the midst of all you brilliant people, but I didn’t. I left in year 10 and
went off to TAFE.
The simple fact was that I struggled with school and
it wasn’t going to get better. By the time I was in year 10 I was told that it
would be better if I didn’t bother showing up for my finals and just had them
take the scores from my year as I’d get a better mark. Mostly from the fact
that the teachers liked me and helped me out, and that I was simply there,
showing them that I wanted to learn, but mentally couldn’t.
I want to add here, that it was an oddity for
someone of my ‘social statuses’ at school to be in class, and that most of my
friends weren’t. Which meant having me there, every day, was something most
teachers weren’t expecting.
I have the horrible memory of getting called into a
room with all the other ‘underachievers’ I remember one of the people’s dad
calling us, yeah, nice how it stuck, right?! I was told about the fact that
there wasn’t any way I was going to pass year 10 if I didn’t go into a program
– fuck I can’t remember what it’s called. Like everyone else in the room, I had
a choice and like 3 of the 5 of us I had to take them up on it. I had to use it
for English.
This is what prompted my need to leave. I wasn’t
getting threw year 10, not without this program and if I didn’t finish all of
year 10 like everyone else I’d have to go back into this program to finish the
HSC and therefore I’d have ended up wasting two years of my life for a
certificate that was basically worthless.
So I did the test and I got shit scoring (I passed
tho), even with it, which I think might help you figure out how much I sucked
at this whole school business, and left. I ended up going to TAFE where I got
my certificate 3 in hospitality, which is a higher learning and therefore
cancels out my HSC (or lack thereof).
I had so many plans when I was younger, another
memory has me sitting in a room with a councillors talking to use about our
plans for life. school wasn’t happening for, like I said, the 3 of us, and
because of that it had already come to their attention that we wouldn’t be
going on, so the school wanted, or had to, I don’t know, make sure we had
plans, and if we didn’t, to help us find them.
I had plans, big ones, ones that would have me
travelling, and getting paid for it. Ones that works with money and alcohol and
the hospitality industry. I always had them, these big plans. They followed me,
twirled around me, but it was hard to get there.
You see, and I’ve spoken about this a lot, but I
hated my friends. It’s come to that conclusion now, I hated being around them,
and so to be able to deal I drank. I got a boyfriend, my first, and he was
older and he spent a lot of times in bars after work, which put me there, with
alcohol in front of me, and so…
Well you know the rest, and if not this isn’t about that
part of my life. This is about education.
I don’t really know if there’s any more to tell you
that might help. but I learnt all I could on my own, by reading but it wasn’t a
great deal. I’ve learnt more from editing, more still from proofing and I will
continue to get better as I write and write and write some more. Because I
don’t plan on stopping. I don’t plan on giving this up.
Not any time soon, anyway.
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