A goal of my own

Here's the headache post. Is it the post that's been giving me headaches...or is it that laptop and low energy light bulb cocktail that I'm sure I've been indulging in too often? Hmmm, not sure. Anyway I've worked on this a bit and I've tried to stop the whole thing getting too whiney but I'm not sure I've managed that completely. This is very much one of those 'should I really post this?' moments but so far, when I've had similar doubts, things have all worked out well in the end. Fingers crossed this is another one of those times. Most of you know me by now...I'm never whiney on purpose. And I love you all. You don't believe me...but I do.


In a recent post about Steve Martin's book 'Born Standing Up' I mentioned how Martin had worked really hard to get where he wanted in his career. Martin had one thing that comes in handy in this regard – he had a very clear career goal. From quite young he wanted to be successful as a comedy performer and, from his own account, whilst he developed his ideas and methods over time, his goal pretty much stayed the same until he achieved it (that is...if you can achieve a goal...it's all sounding a bit management speak all of a sudden). Anyway, once Martin had achieved this sought-after success he then moved sideways into other related fields (comedy acting, writing, movie directing...) but thinking about this 'career goal' aspect of the book made me think about the whole business of goals and ambitions (especially when applied to work) and some of the, let's say, issues that I have had in this area over the years. I think I'm a bit envious of people who have such a clear goal in sight – I don't think I've ever really had anything quite like that. Have you? Is life easier (or more straightforward) if you do? Or is it worse if you then continually fail to score where it matters? I really have no idea.

So to think this through I'm going to start at the beginning...well, my beginning anyway (didn't Julie Andrews once sing that we should?). When I was, let's say, a pre-adult I didn't have a clue what I would do when I grew up - although I did always assume that I would grow up (maybe that was my first mistake...). I had vague ideas about journalism and writing from fairly early on but they were so vague that they were something approaching faded watercolours in an art gallery that's closed up for a very long holiday on a street that you know used to be here somewhere (see – just thinking about clear goals brings on a vagueness attack!). In some ways part of my career goal problem was that I got the impression from very early on that I didn't need to worry about it – something would just occur to me when the time was right. There is another possibility too – maybe I just peaked too soon. What? Well, the thing is I found schoolwork really easy and came top in class...a lot...and when this happens people assume that of course you will go on to something marvellous (details to be filled later). People also assume that as you're 'so clever' you'll be able to sort this all out for yourself (and I suppose some people can). I was aware that these assumptions were going on around me when I was a kid but at the time I had no idea what it meant. I think I expected to be carried along forever on some kind of giant wave of success or something - silver cups falling into my lap on a regular basis. I didn't really think about it much but when I did that's probably what I thought. Not so clever, see?

It didn't quite work out that way of course. In fact when I used the Friends Reunited website a few years back I lost count of the number of old school acquaintances and friends who wrote 'bloody hell, I thought you'd be some high-powered business woman or something'. I never wrote anything on my FR profile about what I had done since school but just the fact that I didn't have the big show-off 'great career, mob of perfect kids' CV online really surprised people (and made them think I must have really messed up somehow, I suppose...I'm sure some of them were thrilled...). I found that all really odd when it happened though. I was only good at schoolwork, for heaven's sake! Anyone who thinks passing school exams prepares you for life outside school is...a Careers Officer, obviously. And as for Irvine Welsh and his 'If you liked school, you'll love work'...well, Irvine, with all respect...that's just bollocks, dear, and I am living proof. Catchy title for a book though I suppose.

After school I took the usual next step for kids who do well at exams (and whose parents think there is no alternative...) – I went to university in 1986...all the time waiting for the big career idea, goal or inspiration to appear. What would I do next? I had absolutely no idea. In the end I did very little studying (aimless, you see), got involved in some student politics, had a few crap boyfriends, did a few tiny bits of (I suppose you'd call it humorous )writing and waited...still no goal. It got to the end of year three and all the other arts students were heading off for law and academia and the media and...stuff and I got all the brochures and all the information (no websites then...) and just really didn't know what to do next. The opportunities a lot of the brochures promised sounded more like barriers to me - I didn't want to follow one path...I wanted all the paths! At one point I remember seeing a Careers Officer (or two) and I remember crying a lot at one of the interviews. I can't even remember why now (maybe I was tired...I always did like a lot of late nights) but I've tried and I can't recall one word of the conversation. I have always been a good crier though (a skill not often mentioned in job requirement specifications...fascists!).

A couple of months after uni I ended up working at an advertising agency. Looking back (again) I'm not completely sure how that happened or why on earth I thought it would be something I would be able to do. I had to get a job (obviously) but advertising...was that the best I could do? I hated it. The only jobs I have ever been able to bear are the ones where I feel I am being of some use to somebody (and in advertising...well, a person is about as useless and surplus to requirements as ever a person can be!). But I had read or heard about writers who had started in advertising and so somewhere the vague writing idea persisted and led me into this job. Plus the pay was quite good and I had discovered serious nightclubbing by this point so I went out every weekend and most of the week and got really very good at avoiding thinking about anything at all. I think I thought I was doing important research for a novel (and who knows, I might have been but for the fact that Irvine Welsh and various others were doing the same research but...crucial difference...they were managing to write down some of it down as well...kind of important for a writer, you know...the writing...). I always remember a Chilean musician friend I knew in Spain when I was 19. He used to say to me very seriously 'if you are going to be a writer you must practise every day.' I suppose I do that now (some way or another) but I'm not sure I did back then. I always have been very easily distracted...and not many jobs ask for that in the specifications either (double fascists!).

Somewhere in this whole post-uni/pre-baby section of life I did produce some journalism (but nothing very well paid) and I think I managed OK but I also did enough to know that I didn't really want to pursue it as a career. You've really got to be very ambitious to go and hunt down journalistic work and whilst I enjoyed it I wasn't desperate to do it (and plenty of others were) and it wasn't the kind of writing that felt like what I should be doing. So instead I wandered about and did some bits of teaching, spent long periods 'unable to work due to general uselessness' and also, as I've mentioned here and there, DJed in nightclubs with a friend for a couple of years because...it seemed like a good idea at the time. We used to meet a lot of very ambitious DJs out and about – people who wanted to be record label bosses or record producers or just rich, old, fat DJs – but although I managed to act like one sometimes I never was anything like a DJ with a goal! It was a bit like an acting role I think looking back...I tried it, talked the talk, walked the walk (hard with the heavy record boxes...this was before bloody laptop DJs!) but it really wasn't me. Nothing like. Partly I just wasn't a big enough arsehole (have you met any successful DJs? There are a couple of friendly ones but really...the rest are unbearable...). Probably the most fun I had during this period was the daft job we had in a big Leeds city centre bar on a Wednesday night. We did a night called Maxi where we ran alternative 'Never mind the Buzzcocks' style quiz nights (before the TV show, I would add) and also, now and again, put on cool karaoke (don't laugh - it is possible!). We got paid quite a lot of money too! We even talked about a new take on Bruce Forsyth's 'Play your cards right' but I don't think we ever actually got that one together. What was that about life and cabaret..?

But then things changed (too many to list), one of us had a baby (not me, at that point) and so there I was again jobless with no career road leading anywhere. I got an office job (too dull to even detail) but I ended up sitting at my desk crying for days at a time so that didn't really work out. Then I found myself coming back to writing (well to writing and nervous collapses...but you can't really make a career out of those, can you? Answer – only if 'Heat' magazine takes your picture while you have them...and I've never fancied that...). It was at this point (about 1997) that I started writing poems regularly and this then (eventually) turned into 'the thing that I do' now (as well as bringing up baby and all that). But I'm still not sure if I have any goals in this area (poetry). Is poetry an area where a person can have goals anyway? Sometimes I can pretend (to others and myself) that I do. Sometimes I even feel like I do. But do I really? I'm not sure. It's interesting. I enjoy it. I get my share of good feedback but then also I am in this 'not in the literary/not in the performance' middle place ('polymorphous', a wise man said) and I'm not sure where the goals are in this weird bit in between. I can aim to write as well as I can (and I do try to do that...of course...what other kind of writing is there?) but beyond that where do I head exactly? And how? And why? I'm still trundling along the poetry road at the moment but unlike some of you more fanatical poetry devotees, I am aware that I might change my tack at any point. For a start there is quite a lot about the world of poetry that really doesn't make it feel like home to me (the reams of rules and all their fans, the so-often-focussing-on-competition element, the sneering and snobbishness that creeps about). I hate snobbishness, more than almost anything, and it turns out that poetry has some of the world's worst snobs (common knowledge apparently – I never knew). I know, I know...you get arseholes (or people who seem that way to you!) anywhere and not just in nightclubs. There is no perfect employment, no promised land...but I'm an idealist, always have been (again not something you'll be reading on lists of 'essentials' for many jobs!) and I can only take so many arseholes in my life. So is poetry really the best place for me? I don't know, I don't know...I float on...and on and on....and a lot of the time I don't think about how and why and I just get on with it...whatever it is. I'm only one little soul, rambling away in a blog corner after all.

Well, as you can see this just goes round and round (hence the headache)! I wonder so many things - could I have done something much better with my life so far (workwise at least)? Could I still? Are my goals my own or are they really bits of nonsense passed on from my parents (past and present)? Can a person have other goals when their main job is looking after small children anyway...or is that (in my case at least) more of an excuse or a cover-up for failure? I don't worry about all this too much...well, not all the time... after all I'm healthy, I'm not in constant danger from some kind of military or other attack, I'm not forced to do a job I hate, Small Girl is healthy, my lovely man is healthy, I look after my Mum (and vice versa some of the time) and maybe success in all those areas is more than enough...but I don't know. What is success anyway? What do you do when you have it? Everyone looks at young Jen Hadfield winning that big poetry prize this week and says 'look there's success' but does she feel that way about it (probably not...she'll be thinking about her next book or her next trip or the fact that her carpets need cleaning or something....OK, maybe the carpets is more me...). She sounded just lovely on a Radio 4 interview I listened to via Andrew Philip's Tonguefire, by the way, so gentle, so thoughtful, so long may she do well! Maybe, for me, I won all my prizes in school and now I'm destined to be more 'Jack who tries lots of trades and does OK at them' than 'mistress of one'. Maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe I'm just the goal-less type and therefore I've already achieved my goal. Oh, now that just sounds like nonsense. What do you reckon? Any thoughts, any stories, any goals of your own? (Because, bloody hell, that's quite enough about me...)