You know what I tell my kids?
‘Don’t listen to a word I say.’
I give that advice to you now. If, having read this book, you think, ‘This woman is a genius: I am going to do everything she suggests’, or ‘This woman is a lunatic and an idiot: I can’t believe she’s even allowed to operate a hair-dryer. She is giving dyslexics everywhere a bad name’, please remember: what would I know?
Do what works for you.
You know how I say, ‘Don’t ask anyone how to get somewhere unless they have been there?’ Well, I have been there – I have written, been published, found success, and experienced self-doubt, frustration, anger and disappointment along the way … But you know what? I have not been to the place you’re going to. This is your journey. Your destination. Disregard everything in this book. Or embrace it. Better yet: cherry pick. It’s your life. All I hope is that you live it as a participant, not a spectator. It is not too late to change, to embrace your life and suck the marrow out of it.
Jim Carrey once gave an incredible graduation speech. One part in particular struck a chord with me. In fact, it didn’t just strike a chord; it vibrated every single fibre inside me. It was about failing at what you love. Oh my god. It totally summed up my decision to make a life, not a living:
So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect, so we never dare to ask the universe for it. I’m saying: I’m the proof that you can ask the universe for it … My father could have been a great comedian but he didn’t believe that was possible for him, and so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant and when I was twelve years old, he was let go from that safe job and our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.
My mum was like Jim Carrey’s father. She was born in the 1940s and raised to be a good girl, a good daughter, a good mother and a good Catholic. She was rewarded for following rules and punished for questioning or rebelling. Something inside her responded to this and she got sucked in. Others didn’t: feminist Germaine Greer was born in the same year, grew up two streets away, and attended a neighbouring Catholic girls’ school.
Mum was sold a loyalty program that never paid off. I think it did for some women. But my mother had horrible, disapproving parents and a husband who was a messer, and her loyalty conflicted with her sense of fairness. Growing up Catholic and raising us Catholic involved a lot of cognitive dissonance for Mum, which resulted in serious depression and unhappiness. She left my father years ago, her parents are dead and she doesn’t miss them, yet she still clings to some sense of god. The more you invest in something, the harder it is to give up. She’s alone, has a lot of medical issues, is pretty poor, has no body of work or career, and she’s never travelled – she’s never even had a passport. She’s made peace with her past, I think, but it’s much easier to swallow it than digest it.
A friend once said to me, ‘You are a response to your mother. It’s like you set out to think about what your mum did and do the opposite.’ It’s true: I saw my mother’s life and vowed not to have one like it. I saw her sublimate herself for ‘the team’ – the team that never supported her, just used her as a supply line. Marriage, to me, meant losing your identity, your financial independence, your social life, your sex life, your intellectual life. I saw it as a kind of jail. And I thought, ‘Even if I fail, I want to have lived the life I want, not the life other people want me to live.’
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Before I leave you – or you leave me (Hold me! Don’t go!) – I give you this guarantee: your happiest moments, your biggest triumphs and your greatest loves are yet to come.
Fail while daring greatly.
That’s it, my darlings.
Don’t worry about messing up, making mistakes or getting it ‘wrong’. You will! Embrace it. Go towards it. Sit down to write and set out to fail while daring greatly.
The saddest face is what might have been.
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You will not be the first person to write.
You will not be the first to author a book, write a play, complete the final draft of a one-person show, finish a film script or ‘how to’ manual, or the first with a story worth telling.
Brilliance is simply getting it done.
You will be brilliant because you did it. You will navigate the obstacles of procrastination, self-doubt, distraction, fear of rejection, desire to please, imposter syndrome and feelings of being unworthy. You will ignore the social construct of what a good parent, good child, good sibling, good partner or good person does or is. You will walk past the pile of clothes that need folding and the dishwasher that needs to be packed. You will drag yourself away from Facebook, Pinterest, porn, Twitter, eBay, comment threads or surfing the web ‘because research’: instead, you will write.
You will navigate all the social rumble strips, emotional cattle prods and ‘Wrong Way, Go Back’ signs, choose a detour off the main road and take the risk you know you would regret not taking. You will forge your own path and sing from your heart. The handful of friends who have shared your journey will applaud you and cheer you on.
Most people can’t get past the dreaming of the dream to the doing. As soon as they encounter a doubt, distraction or obstacle, they take it as a sign they should stop. A message they don’t have what it takes. A warning that it’s time to pipe down, princess, because you’ve gotten a bit too big for your boots and you’re being a bit of a show-off.
You, on the other hand, will get past all this, because you know it’s a test. You know if it was easy everyone would do it. You know all the obstacles, detours, doubts and delays are normal and not a sign you should stop. They are a sign you are doing it right, a sign to just keep going.
Go get ’em, tiger!
I have something in my eye.
Love Dev x