What a week it’s been – I’ve been running all over London every day this week, battling one of the nastiest colds I’ve had for a while. Its been a brilliant week, despite my transformation into a growly voiced honking weirdo (apologising to everyone for not ‘being myself’). It started on Tuesday when I had a meeting with Deaf Unity as I’m hopefully going to be working with them writing articles and conducting interviews for their website amongst other things, and then it ended last night hopping over to East Croydon to the Warehouse Theatre to see The Signdance Collective’s performance of New Gold.
Its been an interesting week, not least because I’ve finally done one of the things I’ve wanted to do for ages – set up a Deaf Writers and Book Group (our first meeting was on Wednesday) – and because the future feels exciting and everything seems to be going somewhere. I mean, I’m not going to be earning bucketloads of money, which isn’t really a huge goal in my life, but I’m doing something that makes me happy, which is all I’ve ever wanted. I know that eventually money will start coming in, if I persevere and work hard. Two years ago, I was going through a lot of soul-searching and worrying about money and where I wanted to go. Its been a hard slog through lots of midnight hours of panic and worry, but pushing through it has got me here. I guess I’ll be okay so long as I have self belief and know that I can do it. So can you – if I’ve got this far, I bet you can too!
I’m slowly learning to be more optimistic in the way I think about things. Being optimistic isn’t the same as being unrealistic, its just trying to see the bright side of things and learning to take chances when they come along – going out there and making your own chances. Its been a learning curve to be a freelance writer – because I felt quite reticent about pushing myself to think up ideas and pitch them, but I’ve learnt that if you don’t do that, you’re not going to get any work. You have to go and get the work, rather than waiting for something to come along. It has taught me to be less afraid of going out into the world – of saying that this is who I am and this is what I do. I’m still a bit of a shy and self deprecating person, but I’m learning to be quietly confident and when I need to step up. Confidence isn’t easy, especially when I’ve spent most of my life being a shy introvert who has often hidden behind a shell. Confidence comes when you learn to just be yourself, and accept that everyone is different, and it doesn’t matter that I’m not a loud extrovert who knows what to say in every situation.
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. ~ Douglas Adams.
Cats and Chocolate 