Please welcome Sangu to Books for Company!
Sangu is a debut author of The Lost Girl, a YA Dystopia read.
Thanks so much for such a light hearted and funny guest post.
I really enjoyed reading it and find it adorable that you wanted to be a Psychiatrist!
Before I Became An Author
By Sangu Mandanna
Before I Became an Author, I Wanted to Be…
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’
As a child, you’re asked that question more than any other. At least, I was. It was The Question of my childhood. I got it from friends (whom I would then ask it in turn), I got it from teachers, from distant relatives, occasionally even from my parents who wanted to see whether my answer had changed since the last time (it probably had).
The thing is, no matter what I said, I think my parents knew what I’d eventually be. I wrote my first short story at the age of four. It was about how we went out into the forest and an ‘elefit’ chased us and I got ‘sked’. I wrote things all the time. I made up the most outrageously elaborate and unlikely stories and tried to convince people that they were true. I made my best friend cry one time because I told her I took an overnight trip to Africa on my purple flying motorcycle and didn't take her with me. So I think my parents knew what I’d grow up to be. I, however, didn't To me, writing was what I did because I had to. I wanted to tell stories, I loved telling stories, so I was going to do it and it was an essential part of me. I didn't think about growing up and becoming a writer because I believed I already was. I was as much a writer as I was human. It wasn't something I could do with my life.
It wasn't until I was about fourteen or fifteen, and actively decided I wanted to be published, that I began to think (and chirp) ‘Author!’ when someone asked me The Question.
And before that, I wanted to be a lot of thrilling, exciting and entirely unlikely things. Here are some of the most absurd.
Psychiatrist
When I count this among my funniest aspirations, I’m in no way mocking psychiatrists! I just mean that I must have been about eight. At eight most of my friends wanted to be fairy princesses. So the fact that I latched onto psychiatrist just seems hilarious and random to me.
Tinkerbell
Okay, you know, who didn’t? But still. Funny.
Cinderella
Ditto Tinkerbell.
Actress
It’s probably not surprising this came up, because my father is an actor and I spent inordinate amounts of my childhood lurking backstage at theatres. And then I played Lady Macbeth in our class production of Macbeth once and thought I was the bee’s knees, so that probably didn’t help. But I am terribly shy and am likely to throw up at the very thought of public speaking, so WHAT WAS I THINKING?
Ballerina
Oh, ha, ha, ha. This, from the skinny child who a) was so inflexible she couldn’t even bend down and touch her own toes, and b) was considered such a poor dancer that she was only one of four kids in her class not to be chosen for the ‘Joseph’s Coat’ dance in our massive school production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat…?
Eponine
As in, Eponine from Les Miserables (the musical).
As in the girl whose parents abuse her, who is in unrequitedly in love with a boy who doesn’t notice her, and who in her attempt to stay by that boy’s side ends up dying tragically by gunfire.
Yep. I wanted to be her.
Stunt Motorcyclist
That’s not a typo. I did actually want to be a stunt motorcyclist. I watched this thing on telly once about someone jumping the Grand Canyon on their bike and, for no rational or sensible reason whatsoever, thought ‘oh, THAT seems like a good idea…’
And I’m going to stop there before I embarrass myself anymore. What weird, funny and wacky things did you dream of becoming?
Find Sangu
Buy The Lost Girl
Thanks for featuring me here today, Jodie! I had so much fun writing this :-)
ReplyDeleteOh that is hilarious! I laughed at both 'stunt motorcyclist' and 'Eponine' :)
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