Exquisite Arts Magazine Vol 3 - Nov/ Dec 2016 | Page 55

And sometimes taking the job working in a
kitchen is the best job that you can leave at
work, allowing you the space and creative
mindset to still be there when you get home
instead of having it washed away in a barrage
of stress and upset from the day.
So what about my story? Well, after my
“series of unfortunate events”, I decided to
just take off to England for a couple of
months. I had always had an affinity for the
British Isles for a number of reasons. This
particular trip though ended up being lifechanging in the fact that I met my future
husband and a year later moved to England
properly. Previous to this, during and before
my unfortunate events, I had been writing a
novel which I never had much luck with, and
in truth, I was terrified of letting anyone ever
read anything I had ever written. Ever.
Fast forward to a year after I moved to
England and I had joined a scriptwriting
course for playwrights. I wasn't a playwright,
I just thought it would be something quite fun
and possibly inspiring to do. I had thought
that maybe I was at a dead end with the novel
and imagined it would be absolutely fantastic
to be seen come alive on stage. This was
legitimately one of my dreams – albeit
perhaps a far-fetched one. Get a huge book
contract and win a film contract off the
success of the book. Did that ever happen? No.
But that didn't stop me from still exploring
other avenues with the story.
A little over a year later and I was presented
with the opportunity to have the first ten
minutes of the story (now play) shown at the
most prestigious playhouse in town along
with a few other pieces. Of course I jumped at
this, but had to be picked out of a number of
entries to win a chance. A month went by with

“JK
Rowling
received
something like 10 rejection
letters for Harry Potter and
'Game of Thrones' was once
worth ten cents in a discount
bin”
no word on whether I was in or not, when
suddenly one day I receive the much anticipated
email saying I was in and the details about what
to do next. I was ecstatic, if also fairly nervous.
This wasn't just my class having access to my
writing any more, but now it was strangers and
family and friends. Something about that was
terrifying, but I went through with it.
This was one of my first forays into writing for
an audience – and not in book form. It was highly
enjoyable while it was happening, and I received
some very good bordering on great reviews,
which really boosted my confidence. I wanted to
take it further and do more playwriting, but my
day job got in the way progressively more and
more, and I eventually dropped the course due to
stress and time constraints from work. That and
I also went home for over a month in December.
When I went back to England, I steadily lost
interest in writing and art in general due to
stresses associated with “the day job”. Over the
course of the next two or three years I worked
and saved money, occasionally travelled and
eventually, after a bout of depression, started
slowly getting back into visual art.
One day before heading out on a larger trip to
Asia as my visa was expiring I thought “I'll make
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