Growing up, I did not want to be an accountant. I was an English major, and I had decided that years before college (but after dissecting things in middle school biology made me realize I did not have what it takes to be a veterinarian). I wanted to be an author, and I had also accepted that my English major would probably lead to teaching.
More literally: I wanted to be like Christopher Paolini, best-selling author at age 19.
Spoilers: that did not happen.
Anyone who knows me can tell you I do not have the patience for teaching. Now, I knew that going into my freshman year of college, but I still enrolled as an English major with a concentration in creative writing. That lasted a year. My style of writing was just not a good fit for the program I was in, so I switched to Business and eventually Accounting.
Don’t get me wrong. I like accounting. I like math. But I LOVE writing. I haven’t put as much time in as I used to because of the CPA exam and working full time, but I still find ways to practice my passion. This blog is one of them. National Novel Writing Month is another, although I have not come close to the 50,000 words needed to win the challenge since 2013. Part of that is because I am a writer who uses a notebook first before typing, so it takes double the time to get the words into a word counter, BUT I edit as I type, so lose-win there.
I have a few novel-y projects in progress. I honestly don’t see myself ever seeing my dream of becoming published at the moment, but the stories I write are for me anyway. It’s one of the ways I like to escape. And who knows, maybe my current crap will be crap that someone likes (note: I think most of my writing is crap, even when others tell me it’s not. That’s how I get myself to improve).
Maybe one day I’ll have a panel at Dragon Con about the world I created and my characters. Gosh, wouldn’t that be amazing. I went to Brandon Sanderson’s panel a few years ago (another side note: Christoher Paolini was also there that year and I did not get in line early enough to make it to his events. So sad), and that was so much fun. How often do you get to hear from your favorite authors like that? If I ever become a published author, that’s the kind of author I want to be- open to fans and willing to talk to them about their theories and questions.
So, yeah. That’s my “secret.” Accounting is not my dream- writing is. I just happen to be really good at numbers and accounting pays the bills. And once I get this CPA thing done with I will have more time to dedicate to my dream. Lord knows I already have more than enough notebooks to use.
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