Figuring Out Your Purpose In Life

This is going to be slightly deeper than my usual drivel. Apologies in advance. So. Back when I was a kid -- 8 years old, to be more precise -- I knew what I was going to be when I grew up. And I knew I was going to be fabulous at it. And I knew I was going to get my foot in any door I wanted to walk through. And by the time I was 21, I'd done just that. And as soon as I'd done that, I started to feel miserable, because I didn't have anywhere else to go from there. You see, in my particular genre of music, there's no MTV star, no Hall of Fame unless you're black and 100 years old. I'm not sure these things would have appealed to me even if they were available, but they weren't and I got bored very quickly.

Having met, performed with and become friends with everyone I'd idolized as a child really took the magic away for me. Performing for Presidents and other dignitaries did the exactly the same thing. I'm someone who likes to live in a dreamworld; someone who likes to aspire to greater things that aren't within reach -- so when I get to whichever pinnacle I've set for myself and I see that everyone else up there is just as common as everyone still down in the valley behind me, it's kind of disheartening. What's there to strive for after that? And how fucking dull to have nothing else worth striving for.

When I started to write books it was new and exciting. I'd never written much of anything before because I hated to write because I was so retentive about details. But now I like being that way and I think it makes for a better story in terms of my novels. But even the new writing path got old quickly, because my first book was written in just a few months and published soon after. I didn't have to work for anything. I was back to wanting something more exciting, and, frankly, sex is so fucking easy to write that it gets really, really boring after the first novel or two. So I started a new band, got back into the swing of things, performed for a new President, was back on the radio... and again I was bored to tears. And that's when I realized WHY I was bored to tears. With singing, anyway.

I spent a long time getting my voice exactly the way I wanted it. I spent even more time making sure I didn't sound like anyone else. When I performed and the house stood up for me, it was nice but the feeling never lasted beyond the last song. And I realized that I was singing for the wrong reasons. I always have done, if I'm honest. Being a little white girl singing blues is hard in terms of getting respect from people and I'd spent my whole life proving over and over again that I had serious soul and that my life gave me the right to sing blues like any black singer might do. I wasn't singing to make other people happy, I was singing just to prove that I could do something everyone had always told me I couldn't. Mind, I do love to sing and I do get some joy out of it, but when I sing, I sing for me - and if you happen to be there, and if you happen to like it, so be it. But that's as far as it goes. I am not an entertainer; I'm just a singer.

So now that we've covered all the miserable shit, let me get to the point. About a year and a half ago I started to write a romantic comedy. It doesn't have any sex in it. It doesn't have any kidnapping nor real BDSM elements in it. Not really. Most of my books have had a big focus on dialogue, but this one really has a major focus on it. It's witty, it's clever.... and it's actually written to entertain. Other people, I mean, not just me.

This book is so complicated and complex that it really makes my first books look like twaddle. There are about 10 characters who are written about indepth (as opposed to the 4 or 5 in my previous books) and at the moment the book is 500 pages. It will be a bit longer when I finish, which I plan to do in the next few weeks. The agency I am working with for this book is quite major and this book is being primed for mass market, instead of the BDSM community I have always written for. But I have realized that even if I didn't have an agency and prospective major book contract on the table waiting for me, I would actually be happy just to give this book away if people who read it enjoyed doing so. I want people to read this book and laugh. I want them to smile. I want it to inspire them. I want the book and characters to mean something to them.

This is relatively new for me, as I've never given a toss about audience reception -- and I don't think that's a bad thing, either, cos many artists would give up on their art if they let criticism get to them. But my point is that I am writing this for the audience as much as I'm writing it for me. And I love the challenge of this type of book; and I'm not happy unless my work is challenging.

I think I'm going to retire from music this month. I've been feeling this way for a long time and my heart just isn't in it anymore. I'm not the same person I was when I starting gigging. I don't need to sing for an emotional release anymore; I'm not the angry kid I was 20 years ago. Instead of being a miserable blues singer living in her art, I want to write romantic comedies that are clever and not insulting to the average intellect the way so many current releases are. And that, my friends, is what life purpose is. Finding something you love which also brings joy to others.

Have you found yours yet?

xx Isabella