Somone famous once said -
'Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.'
I have always liked this quote very much.
I had visited Washington DC on my last trip to the United States, and I walked around 'The Basin' where the famous cherry blosoms were still closed for the season and the monument to Thomas Jefferson was being overrun by tourists. I decided to walk the entire way around the lake to take photographs, at various points, and have them developed in black and white to use as a momento of the trip. It was while I walking that I came across a dedication to Elanor Roosevelt - 'the someone famous' who made the above quote.
More about that later...
Over the past week I have experienced a myriad of emotions regarding to '209 A Story'...
On Monday I was still smarting about the decision to go with the Australian Publishers rather than the bigger name from elsewhere.
On Tuesday I was delighted to receive invitations from the publicist Jillian Bowen to attend a launch for 'grlmobile' in the city and from Trevor Jones - the pianist who has just returned from a world tour and is performing at 'Chapel on Chapel', this coming week.
By Wednesday morning my back was finally feeling much, much, much, much better... (THANK YOU!) ... and that is when it happened ... I managed to cut my lip when I opened a plastic packet with my teeth. I then wanted to know why is it that the most inconviently painful things in life are often the most simple... for example, a paper cut, a sore back or ... a cut lip?
I was also looking forward to my trip to the capital of New South Wales; to visit Sydney Grammar School, to have a meeting with a jounralist about an interview for their program re:'209 A Story', and also to have catchup's with family members of one, Arthur Gordon McCrae.
However, on Wednesday afternoon I recieved an email from someone who questioned my credibility as to 'writing such a story of significance'. They also criticised my efforts for the various launches of the novel in the UK, Australia and in the USA. This rather captious email really did get to me. It also scared me somewhat becuase it made me realise that this is the type of thing that people will say and write as we get closer and closer to 21st March 2009...
I went to bed at the end of a long day as I had also been applying for various positions and had completed several phone interviews which lasted for almost thirty minutes each... as I do not like being out of the workforce and I sometimes find writing incredibly isolating.
The critical email came back to me as I lay in bed Wednesday night whilst trying to read. Apocryphal seeds started to sprout in my mind... What if they did not like me? ... put it out of your mind Rafter and keep reading... What happens if they ask me questions about members of their family and I did not know the answers? What happens if this 'nobody' and 'commoner' was somehow not good enough for the prestige of one of the oldest schools in the country? ...Grrrrr ... READ! Did people think my idea silly? Who was I to have written a novel in the first place? What happens if people did not like it? This negative germination of thoughts continued until it annoyed me so much that I had had enough.
Placing Tim Winton's 'Breath' (great book btw)on the bedside table, I got up and went into the lounge and did something that I do not usually do... I watched television!!!
After surfing the channels for several minutes I suddenly was becoming more anxious regarding the lack of anything to watch than the bountiful harvest of self doubt that had just occured in my mind. I was about to switch the television off and then ... I heard mention of the name of a person whom I have admired for quite some time ... And this is what I heard...
'We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot.'
... I smiled again for that was all I needed to hear - again ... several words of encouragement from the former First Lady of the United States, Elanor Roosevelt...
I was received at Sydney Grammar School at a little after 10am on Friday. The reason I was there was due to it (Grammar) being the school that Arthur Gordon McCrae attended between 1894-1898. Following 5 handshakes and many smiles all round (ouch ... the lip!)- I then was offered a cup of coffee that I proceeded to spill down the front of me due to the sudden shock of the hot cup touching you know what ... OH GOD COULD IT GET ANY WORSE? ... at least I was lucky that I had a tissue.
Like my meetings later with the members of the McCrae family and the journalist, we discussed many things about Arthur and the school, my journey with the reasearch for the novel, the launches in the United Kingdom, Australian and the United States and the ways in which some people find the story most incredible... and even some doubt it all. Nonetheless, time will tell and this is what I have learned from the offerings of this week...
I have always tried to look on the brighter side of life and at no stage do I boast about myself as an individual becuase as far as I am concerned - it is not about the achievements of my past - it is about what I do today and the excitement of my tomorrows. Like Arthur, I have not lead an 'ordinary life' and at some stage I will write about it. But someone else said it better and it makes me realise that everything will be alright...
'The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.'
Yeah... once again thanks Eleanor Roosevelt... you really are an inspration.
Have a nice week everyone
Peace
Steven
ps the other thing I learned - don't open plastic packets with your mouth!!
