Depending on who is asking, Dominic has two standard answers. Either:
I work as a customer service advisor
(He works on the shop floor at B and Q and sometimes shows people where items are to be found)
Or, he says:
I am an artist; a writer.
To some extent the selected response depends on where he is and what he is wearing. For example, he is far more likely to be a writer if wearing his battered Lenin cap and drinking in an unfamiliar pub.
Dominic has a tricky problem. This can be dated to the time when someone asked him where his writing had been published and into which genre his writing fell.
Since then, Dominic has sent off a number of stories, think pieces and even letters to newspapers, but publication has proved elusive. His current strategy has been to send short stories to very local groups with competitions extended beyond their membership.
For sure the prize money is not the attraction, nor is the promise of fame and recognition. Publication is a goal in itself.
Another problem Dominic experiences is poor self-belief. He has always found it very difficult to imagine himself as an achiever in life. He would like to be in a position to attract some kudos (although he was once awarded a badge which announced him to be ‘employee of the month’).
So he was more than excited when, after sending a story accompanied by a ten quid entrance fee, he received notification of having been shortlisted for a local fiction writing prize.
The prize money was peanuts but the big reward was having the work included in the prize giving committee’s slender, annual collection of short stories by local writers. It more than met the goal of a ‘publication’.
The competition result would be announced at 7:30pm in a room at the back of the Jug and Goat on April 29th. The winner would be announced and invited to read their work. The slender volume would be available two months later.
He arrived early in order to summon up some Dutch courage and merge with the clientele. At 7:30 on the dot the chairperson of the prize giving committee stood and gave a short address before announcing the winners.
In third place was Dominic, who was commended for submitting a ‘brave and sometimes humorous’ story. All was over. Why wait to hear the winning story and watch the victor claim their laurels?
His self-assessment was accurate all along: third place, third rate, nowhere man.
But then he came to consider that this experience was part of the pain he shared with most artists whose work was underappreciated. He would go forward with his mission to become a published writer, maybe not a very famous one but someone quietly appreciated by a few discerning followers. He pulled the Lenin cap down at a cheeky angle and strode onwards towards his laptop for the next round in the fray.
