Career Options
Making 'when I grow up' happen"I want to be a _____________ (writer, dancer, astronaut, fireman -- you fill in the blank) when I grow up." The idea may have struck at an early age or later in life, and it probably changed several times while you were growing up, but we all had our own "when I grow up" scenario in our imaginations. |
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 [ 2002-07-03 ] |
Aprille Janes
For many people as they get older, the ideas lose their lustre, the dreams fade, and the saying becomes a less-hopeful "I always wanted to be a ____________." But not for everyone. For some, there's nothing that will stand in the way of them following their bliss.
"My passion is for writing and the arts," says Aprille Janes of Port Perry. "I started writing four years ago. I realized that if I wanted to do it, I had to take positive steps toward it."
Writing was miles away from what she was doing full-time back then. Having graduated with a computer programming degree in the '80s, she began working as a business consultant, helping companies with their computer systems.
But beneath the techie surface was a writer bursting at the seams and, in '98, at the age of 46, she made a go of it.
"It started with a creative writing class at Durham College," Janes says. "My teacher, Dorothea Helms, encouraged me to get involved with the Writers Circle of Durham Region (WCDR) -- now I'm the president."
Her teacher proved to be a valuable resource, and introduced her to contacts at The Toronto Sun, for which she now freelances on a steady basis.
She also writes for At Home in York Region, a local quarterly, for the Minute Maid newsletter (her current client), and is helping a singer put together a business brochure. In addition to her freelancing, she's also working on a fictional book about child abuse, seen from the perspective of the child, but meant for adult readers.
While she enjoys working with her clients and computers, she is slowly but surely heading toward doing what she loves most.
"The plan is to replace my consulting income with writing income, and I've set goals according to that," says Janes, who, with her freelancing income, has been able to cut her consultant work to four days a week.
According to Janes, writing is both a pleasure unto itself, and pleasing when others respond to her work.
"I'm one of these few people who enjoys rewriting. I enjoy crafting it and making it the best I can make it," she says. "I enjoy helping people as well.
"It was fun when I did a story on audiology a while back -- the woman in the story was so excited that her picture was in the paper. It feels like you've done something to make people's lives a little more fun."
Putting a little fun into people's lives is something Luisa Durante, a part-time actress, lives for.
"I am a huge giver and I love to entertain people. Through acting I hope to give to my audience a sense of wonder, joy, sorrow, fear ... basically just one hell of an emotional experience."
By day she is a sales assistant for Sun Media, but by night (and, of course, weekends!) she lives out her true passion on the theatre stages in and around Toronto. To date, she has performed in four plays, two of which were in the Toronto Fringe Festival.
She has also taken steps to advance opportunities for female stage actors by establishing No Model Type Productions with two actors, a producer and a director.
"I and several other girls realized that there weren't enough good roles for women and we were tired of waiting for them to show up," she says. "So we decided we would find them, act in them and produce them ourselves. We had no agenda we wanted to push other than wanting to work in a field we all loved."
Durante is currently preparing for her upcoming role in another Toronto Fringe production, Character Assassination -- a one-woman show about a romance novelist who falls in love with her own hero.
The play premieres this evening at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse and will run seven different nights (call the Fringe hotline at 416-966-1062).
The play was written by another fellow bliss-chaser, Annette McLeod. Getting the first play she's written produced was a good break for the 32-year-old, who considers writing to be her first love.
"I love writing, and it's definitely what I want to do as a vocation," McLeod says. As an editor in The Toronto Sun special sections department who writes weekly features, McLeod is already close to doing what she's passionate about. But she says the double dose of writing -- at her day job and then nights and on the weekends -- proved to be the biggest challenge.
"Because my day job involves writing and editing too, although of a very different nature, I was sometimes reluctant to keep writing when I got home. But I knew I had to get the play done by a certain date, so I just made myself put bum in seat and got it done," she says. "It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't have a choice."
While the play has been a one-of-a-kind experience, McLeod says her heart lies with writing fiction. She is currently at work on a short story and a novel, and, like most bliss-hunters, is striving to get as close to her own "when I grow up" scenario as possible.
"I would love to be writing fiction full-time -- my natural body clock would have me getting up late in the morning and working late into the night, but you can't do that when you work at an office. I also hate being cold, and writing fiction full-time would mean I could spend winters in Mexico."
Would you ever work for a social or charitable enterprise in the third sector?