I suppose I always felt as if I was the creative sort. Even in the absence of any hard evidence, I thought that one day my hidden talents would become so glaringly obvious that I couldn’t pretend not to notice any longer.
In the meantime real life intruded and I took the words of my headmistress literally. ‘Girls who are not up to par should become hairdresser’s or air stewardess’s.’ My career path was decided even though the nearest airport was fifty miles away.
My creative streak was consequently numbed by journeys to outlying airports, twelve hour shifts and early morning starts in a car that often wouldn’t, and hindered by the many, many plastic mini bottles of leftover airline wine shared out at the end of the night.
But when I set eyes on a pilot who was just on the wrong side of handsome and therefore in my eyes attainable, I discovered the only way to achieve the happy ending I was looking for, was to write it myself. The real pilot, for some reason chose some willowy brunette over the slightly dumpy blonde, (me!) But once he was in my story he had the sense to choose the right girl (me!) and became attentive and caring too. Soon, the pilot was history and my creative streak was finally free to invent more gorgeous men and beautiful women to have the ‘happy ever afters’ I hadn’t yet managed to achieve.
But now, here I am with my own ‘happy ever after’ husband, two wonderful daughters, an adopted cat and time to “be serious” about my writing. More than a few of my hero’s and heroine’s have been left in the limbo of a half written novel and some were doomed to languish forever. The dashing millionaire was thrown in the trash along with the gorgeous redhead who was not so much feisty as just plain nasty, and some just wouldn’t do as they were meant to, so have no-one to blame but themselves for disappearing down dead ends, never to return.
But I’m still here, getting closer to my dream of being published. My hero’s are piling up behind me waiting to be loved, oh and I’m still drinking wine, although these days it tends to come from a glass bottle with a cork and a proper label.