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It’s amazing how lucky you get if you work really hard.
It’s the family motto. My father, one of five children, left school after grade 9 and immediately started work. In his early 20s, Dad went back to night school and then served in the public service for more than 40 years. Mum had a career as a secretary too, and together they worked hard to ensure we had the best education they could offer us.
My parents’ work ethic had a powerful effect on me.
Through school I worked in a department store, a health food store, at a ship chandlers and as a gardener. I wrote a column for the Hobart Mercury, too – my first paid gig as a writer.
Later, travelling in Asia and then Europe, I pulled beers, waited tables, cleaned hotel rooms, ran a youth hostel, planted trees, picked grapes and herded goats.
Sometimes I lamented not going to university, but I learned to work to make my adventures possible. I’ve endeavoured to pass this on; my children, their friends and writing students have all been exhorted to commit to whatever is close to their hearts and to work hard for it.
Work, duty and responsibility are not always seen to yield joy and delight, but there is a deep satisfaction in achievement. I spent many years in advertising working as a copywriter, and there was fulfilment in crafting words and meeting deadlines. I knew I was increasing my skills with language, even if it was by way of a hardware catalogue or a commercial for jeans. Now as a novelist, I’m still meeting writing deadlines, and with each completion, I feel as if I’m living into my future with agency and clarity.
There are financial rewards for hard work, but money hasn’t been my motivation. Love has. Love of what I do and the contribution I am making. I have gained so much from parenting, for example, the great unpaid work. There has been untold hours volunteering for my local community, reading manuscripts for fellow writers, baking for friends, bottling and preserving food, keeping house. Contribution is its own particular remuneration.
Some assume it’s not hard work being an artist. It takes me years to craft a book. My first novels were written at night after a day of work and mothering. I have learned to love the labours of research, reading, thinking, drafting, crafting, fumbling, exploring, questioning, striving, writing more and more words year after year, book after book. That pursuit has me expand both my knowledge and my perspectives, and seems to expand my luck. Thank you dear readers.
I am older now, and the children are grown. I have the luck of being able to write in the daytime, and that rarest of things as a writer: a sliver of security that comes with an expanding readership in Australia and beyond, and a dedicated publishing team. Still, there are years between books so we live simply. We grow much of our own food. I write. It’s my work and I feel lucky to love what I do.
I think a creative life still requires extra hard work for women. All my life I have observed women eking out creative lives amid the time-bound, food-stained walls of duty and responsibility. I have been that woman, too. Recent statistics from the Stella prize show that 47% of women (compared with just 17% of men) report their creative work is restricted by caring responsibilities.
It’s unbelievably hard to write a good book. Sometimes I wish it was easier, but the fulfilment for all the effort is reassuring. When I look at the books I’ve written sitting on the shelf near my desk, I see my commitment. It has been a long road. Meeting my fellow authors, receiving enthusiastic notes from readers, having the support of passionate booksellers and devoted library staff, seeing my work published overseas and translated into other languages, these are all unexpected gifts.
I’ve chosen to be a writer and, as my dad still reminds me, I never know how lucky I might get, if I just keep at it.
