“You can still find a job,
go out and talk to a friend.
On the back of every magazine
there are those coupons you can send.”
After three years of posting — mostly posting — detritus, blather and all things personal to this blog, I decided it was time for some reflection.
There – I’ve reflected. Moving on….
Since I started A Change Of Venue I’ve produced a few television documentaries and secured a book contract with McClelland & Stewart – not bad, on balance. But I still feel entirely unfulfilled, creatively.
Plus, I’m bored – bored with my work, bored with my apartment in Deep Cove, bored with my lack of income, bored with the lack of a social life and all the related accoutrements usually associated with having one, and mostly bored with this sustained absence of travel.
I’m pissed that I finally secure a reasonable solution to the financial straits I found myself in with the collapse of several television pitches in September 2006 (yes it took that long to manifest itself), only to be hit with a GST audit caused by the misguidance and misrepresentation of a floozie accountant.
Normally, I’m not one to complain… much. But enough is enough.
I’ve theorized, downsized, subsidized, minimized, magnetized (?), even Simonized (???) and decided it’s time for a change, not only of venue, but of direction.
To what? To wit…
The first draft of the book doesn’t deliver until roughly Christmas of 2010 – a bit more than a year away. To have ‘run the table’ this quickly with a story that is amazing, complex, funny, awe-insipiring and so dramatically entertaining has been an eye-opener. Where once I used to frame stories in terms of timecodes and videotapes, I now find myself — and happily so — considering those same stories in terms of pages and e-book screens.
I find I am quite content to live a ‘downsized’ life – less furniture, fewer knick-knacks, smaller digs … a more frugal existence if truth be told. If the result — the reward, in fact — is the time, talent and ability to tell fascinating stories, albeit in a more, how shall I say, Gutenberg fashion, then count me in.
Not that I’m turning my back on television and film. Perhaps at this point in my careening career I’ve just shuffled the priorities a bit and decided that the chicken really does come after the egg. The egg being the book, and the chicken… being the… well, you get the point.
I’m not sure what will transpire over the coming four or so months in terms of ‘regular’ work and the income that is naturally derived from it – there’s certainly nothing on the horizon after January. But work (of some description) followed by money (containing either pictures of Prime Ministers or Presidents – I’m not that picky) is a necessary priority. There – I’ve stated the obvious.
My best guess is that a move, either out of necessity or muse, is in the offing, sooner rather than later I imagine. Plus, it’s entirely conceivable that a r… re… reg… (sorry: it’s hard to actually speak the words)… REGULAR job could also be in the cards.
All grist for the mill, goose for the gander… whatever.
And so it goes.
End of rant. Kirk out.