by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Let me be clear, the likelihood that there is some alternative universe out there where I went into acting instead of journalism as a young man is very dubious to some extent.
Some pretty big things would have had to have changed at a very early age for that to have happened. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to make a living off of writing. And, for sold 20 years of my life, I thought that meant being a journalist.
But there were a lot of problems. I’m 100% extroverted. My personality is too out there. I’m something of an eccentric. I like to daydream too much. All the successful journalists I’ve ever met were introverts with very “dry” personalities. They see journalism as strictly a job, not a part of their identity like I did.
And, yet, as I grow older, I do sometimes idly think that there was, a small possibility that under the right circumstances that I might have gone into the creative arts such as acting. Of course, all the other problems in my life that eventually threw me for a loop would still happen, but I might have gotten farther in my career before they happened.
There are other problems. It’s just not in my DNA to be able to quickly memorize lines. So, that obviously would be a problem. I also just wasn’t focused for much of my youth. I was all energy but no direction other than the general one of writing.
I guess why I think about what could have been is I’m a decent entertainer and I enjoy the spotlight a great deal. And now that I’m trying to break into showbiz via novel writing (and maybe eventually screenwriting) I long to live in New York City or LA. Ugh.
I know that even if I one day get my wish, I’m so fucking old now that the context will be totally different. It’s not like I’ll be Young In New York City or LA. I’ll be just another old fart. Or, even worse, if I become as successful as I hope to be, that, in itself, will be part of The Story.
Old Man Makes It Big, At Last will be the hook that book journalists (or whomever) will use to explain what happened. Or they’ll make comparisons to Stieg Larsson. Hopefully without the dropping dead at 50 part, of course.
