Australiana

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The last week or so I’ve been trawling through the last seven years of writing that I’ve belched out, and trying to work out if any of it was even any good. For the most part, the answer has been “no”.

I can’t work out if this is because it’s actually true, or because of my own exacting standards - something that has been with me, more or less, since birth. If I couldn’t master something instantly, I wasn’t interested in continuing. Out the window went piano lessons, cake decorating, acting, guitar lessons, CSS, tertiary education, Wii bowling, old school hip hop dance lessons - you name it; if I couldn’t get it just so straight away, I wasn’t interested in continuing.

My problem has always been the inability to effectively translate ideas swimming in my head into reality; what - in my mind - looked like the greatest painting ever, in reality, usually turned out to be a few limp scribbles. My creative career has been wracked with fury and disappointment. I have torn up many pieces of paper and thrown many things into the sink or rubbish bin in a fit of pique. I once attacked a DVD with scissors and a hammer because I couldn’t seem to get it open.

A combination of pride and impatience, I guess (that’s what you get for being born in mid-June), but I know it about myself and move on.

Writing, which I fell into by accident, was the one thing I seemed to be able to “do” properly; an idea for a piece would spark, and hours later, there it would be on the page. Suddenly, I felt I’d found the one thing I could take from inspiration to result in a smooth, clean line. I decided that writing was my thing, and more specifically, writing about music; I became, as Lester Bangs sagely put it, a crusader on behalf of neglected genius.

Seven years later, I’m not so sure. When I have a thin period, thoughts turn now to “perhaps it’s because I’m actually not such a good writer” instead of “fuck those bastards, they don’t know what’s good for them!” The insecurity is hopelessly cliched, and utterly consuming.

The pattern is simple: I write and submit something I feel reasonably pleased with or proud of (they are not necessarily the same sentiment), then a week or so later, I can’t believe I wrote it. Much of my work is churned out in such a maelstrom that I used to regularly forget writing things; I’d read over the singles and go “huh?” These days, I wish I could forget writing so much of it.

In the past year or so, I have plateaued; there’s a certain level of writing work I can achieve, and others that seem so out of reach. At the core of my work I find the same publications I’ve been writing for since 2004. Does this mean I’m dedicated and I am lucky to have faithful, supportive editors, or does it mean this is it for me?

When I was 22, 23, I used to work dilligently towards a goal involving reenergising Australia’s music criticism culture; towards establishing myself as a leading voice in criticism; towards books and anthologies and what have you.

At 27, I’ve stopped thinking any of those things are possible - but the realisation has been more freeing than I would have initially thought. I know I’ll keep writing, but not necessarily like this. I’ve realised the book I’ve been labouring over would make a better documentary. I’ve realised I’d rather be a ‘Musical Advisor’ than advise people what CDs are out this week.

Honestly? Fucked if I know how it’s all going to turn out. You spend so much time convinced you know exactly how your life is going to turn out, and then it doesn’t work like that. The irony, after so long working towards the one goal, is that I seem to be edging ever closer to where I said, in my high school yearbook, I would be “in 20 years” (hint: it involves film). It’s been ten years exactly since I finished high school, and while these ten years have had nothing to do with that yearbook goal, having spent them doing something I’ve realised I’m not that interested in pursuing for much longer means I’m now more resolved to head back towards that original dream.

If I’d ricocheted out of high school and tried to “make it” in the movies, I probably would have ended up deciding to become a music critic ten years into it all. The lord, whoever he is, works in strange and mysterious ways.

Here’s to the next ten years.