Fame, Fortune and Roadkill

Sonia, You'll Never Stop Me From Loving You 

Once upon a time, I wanted to be a singer. No, I'm not kidding. With the beautiful lie "you can be anything you want to be," tucked firmly under my belt, I was utterly convinced that I would eventually be  very successful and very famous. I loved to sing, mediocre voice or not and would, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, wail along with whatever happened to be playing. One of my favourites at the grand old age of seven, was Sonia.

No? Not coming with me on that one? I'm shocked. However, Sonia was a big ginger inspiration to seven year old me. I had her album on cassette tape and listened to it until I not only knew all of the words, but had worked out fairly complicated (and I must say, jazzy) dance routines in my head to go along with them. I have a distinct memory of singing along to one of her songs - back of the car, headphones in, bopping wildly from side-to-side as one of our many caravanning holidays began, wondering what my parents were laughing at in the front. I assumed it was a grown-up joke, though now of course, I realise it was probably my singing and bopping that had them in near hysterical tears.

My singing career progressed with the meeting of friends at the beginning of secondary school. A few of us would sit on the field at lunch-breaks doing what we thought was a good impression of harmonizing to Gabrielle songs. I'm fairly certain we called ourselves "Illusions" and even solicited the advice of our music teacher, Mrs Rundle. She seemed unconvinced of our obvious talent.

Alas, Illusions, broke up shortly after year seven was done. As with The Beetles, all good things must, I'm afraid, come to an end. However, my passion for music was not quite done (Hurrah! I hear you shout) and by the time I reached my tenth year of school, I felt I had matured as an artist and was ready to climb back on the proverbial horse. I thought a good way to ease myself back into it, would be performing at my school's end of year award ceremony. Not until my microphone was being assembled, and one of my closest friends at the time mouthed 'good luck' at my as she set up her violin, did I realise that singing in front of people was definitely NOT something I wanted to do.

Too late by that point however, and so I stood in front of a 700 strong crowd of peers, teachers and parents willing the songs to be over. Unfortunately for me, one of the chosen tracks was 'Everything I Do' by Brian Adams. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but that is THE LONGEST SONG IN THE WORLD. I also developed a nervous twitch during the performance wherein I tucked my hair behind my ears about 70 times a second. This wasn't the usual butterflies-while-doing-something-you-loved fear. I was terrified.

Luckily, the performance was received quite well - meaning of course, that people were generally complimentary and I didn't have to kill myself to avoid the onslaught of ridicule I was certain was coming my way. However, after the revelation that singing brought about a particularly hideous form of stage-fright, I decided it was time to let the dream go. I came, I sang, I shit myself. Brush self off. Run AWAY.

Alongside the singing, I also fancied myself as an actress. Oh, yes. I know what you're thinking - is there no end to Gemma's creative flare? For a few years, I enthusiastically threw myself into whatever small part I was given in drama lessons - no doubt looking like a prize bell-end in the process. I even wrote a play after school had finished to reunite our cast of 'Arsenic and Old Lace'. It wasn't until I saw how successful that was in production (sold out for three nights, thank you very much), that I began to understand that perhaps writing was where I wanted to be.

And so as I explained in the first entry of this blog, I came full circle and got back into writing.

It occurred to me this morning though, that there is a lot of competition and my life of mediocrity may well never produce the fruit of my passion for the tap, tap, tap of a keyboard. And so, I have decided to concentrate on more achievable prospects.

These are the first few - I will update whenever another perfectly mundane, yet satisfyingly easy life-goal occurs to me:

1. See a badger, before it has been hit by a car (this was inspired by my journey to work this morning)
2. Sit and watch every Lord of the Rings movie (hindered thus far by my ability to stay awake through the first one)
3. Get through a Jamie Oliver recipe without uttering the F-word and setting the smoke alarm off
4. Attend a divisional Sales Briefing without playing Solitaire on the iPhone

Living the dream, people. Living the dream.