Becoming a professional story teller has been my goal for as long as I can remember, and although I'm not there yet, it's taken me years and several careers to find the courage to try.
In the beginning I wanted to make films and
ended up completing a BA in Television production. The Degree resulted in
becoming a Technical Director for several metropolitan television networks in
Sydney, high paying, well respected jobs that are about as far removed from
creativity as possible. They're also utterly soul destroying.
I redeemed myself by travelling and becoming an
English teacher in Korea, on my second stint there I wrote my first novel,
'Sangoo's Phone', about a boy whose first mobile phone is possessed by a ghost.
It steals his family, he needs to get them back. The novel was an achievement
but is plagued by problems which I don't yet have the craft skill to fix. One
day, probably after my third novel is finished.
I retrained as a primary school teacher in
Sydney. This is what I consider my 'solid back-up plan', and is something that
if writing doesn't work out, I can still do, earn a living, and feel good about
myself. Working in television won't satisfy my soul, it will destroy it.
Now I'm living in Chiangmai, Thailand, where
life is easy and cheap enough that I can afford to take a year or two off work
and dedicate the time to becoming a writer. There's a lot of things that I'm
terrified about, particularly that I'm slowly eating through my life's savings
in order to pursue a likely unprofitable career with a high chance of failure.
(Even the best authors don't make a lot of money) But the driving force and
reality behind my decision to do so is that if I don't take the time now, I know
that it's something I'll regret for the rest of my life. If I fail as a writer,
I can deal with that, but if I don't try, if I condemn myself to live with the
'what if?' hanging like a guillotine over my head, well that's something that I
simply can't accept.
Presently I'm working on a second novel,
tentatively titled 'The Boy, The Shadows and The Numb' and have a few short
stories kicking around. If you'd like to find out more about me, please check
out my blog at www.andrewirwin.net
Thanks for stopping by.