Education and Me

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.