By Brian A. Rendell
After thirty years of building a financial career, I did what any self-reflective CPA would do – begin an MFA and focus on creative writing.
Huh?
Twenty years ago, a career coach suggested I take a personality test to discern why my professional career wasn’t satisfying. The results revealed my left and right brain functioning were relatively equal, 54% left-brained (logic, facts, and math) and 46% right-brained (imagination, creativity, and rhythm).
I call my left brain, logic brain (“LB”) while right brain is rhythmic brain (“RB”).
My coach said, “You’ve focused too much on analytical LB actions and ignored creative RB activities.”
Upon hearing this diagnosis, both sides of my brain had strong opinions.
RB: Cool! We should be having more fun!
LB: Nonsense, get back to work.
Since LB was slightly dominant, I went back to climbing the corporate ladder. It was my dad who influenced me to pursue a safe, stable LB profession like finance. Born in 1930, he valued stability. After forty years of shiftwork at the mill, he wanted more for me. I was the kid who did what was expected of him, always wanting to please.
I still am.
Eighteen months ago, while LB was distracted trying to solve an inconsequential problem – something to do with matching my belt and monk strap shoes – RB saw a post about a low-residency creative writing MFA program. Intrigued, I signed up for an information session. I loved what I heard – learn the craft and publishing skills to produce the novel welling up inside you – but doubted whether I had the skills, or the guts, to enter this creative world.
LB reminded me, “You’re not a journalist, academic, or English major and haven’t spent your life with a book in hand.” The truth hurt. What if I failed in this RB pursuit? It would be humiliating.
RB said, “Take a chance and enjoy yourself! Life can be short .”
My mother passed away twenty-seven years ago at 58, not much older than I am now. My closest childhood friend died recently at 54.
Dad will soon be 94, has mild dementia and is quickly losing his short-term memory due to Alzheimer’s. His long-term memory, however, is intact. He’s always been a storyteller, something I inherited.
The stories start with my grandfather leaving a meagre subsistence on Fogo Island and journeying to a new company town in 1908. The Englishmen who created the town paid him an ungodly $1.43 per day. When he informed his mother, she slapped him across the face and said, “Don’t you lie to your mother! Nobody makes that kind of money!” Later, on medical leave in London during WWI, he learned his employer had been topping up his wages during the war. And what did this young man do with this newfound cash? Have a suit tailor-made and sit for a portrait!
I have that portrait hanging in my home office today. I felt a magnetic force pulling me to write a manuscript based on Dad’s stories, and I don’t have a lot of time to capture Dad’s memories and for him to enjoy my work.
Once again, Dad was nudging and shaping my career path.
But could I really do it? Did I belong in this RB world? The university’s MFA leader suggested I begin writing in earnest and see what happened.
I allowed myself to begin writing, too embarrassed to tell those close to me. Then words started flowing and wouldn’t stop. Soon, I was waking early on weekend mornings excited to write and waking in the middle of the night with ideas.
I applied to the MFA program and held my breath. The evening I learned I had been accepted, I hardly slept. My mind was racing about my story and the reality of what joining the program would mean. I would need to devote at least twenty hours each week to the MFA and my manuscript. I didn’t think I could do the MFA and maintain my 50 hour/week career; I began investigating early retirement. With the support of my spouse, I took the big leap, three years earlier than planned.
It was the most excited I’d felt in years.
I’m now in the last year of my degree and recently hit the midpoint of my draft manuscript. On social media I’ve changed my title from “financial executive” to “writer.”
LB is dazed and confused. RB has a new swagger.
When I remind Dad that I’ve retired to write about our family stories, he lights up. I hope the first draft is complete in time for him to be cognizant of what I’ve done. Maybe I’ll go home to Newfoundland to read it to him. If not, I’ll know his stories are captured.
LB has served me well over the past 30 years, but it’s time he buckled-up safely in the back seat. RB is behind the wheel and Dad is riding shotgun. The road ahead is curvy, bumpy, and unclear.
The new me is smiling.
_______
Brian A. Rendell is a Canadian writer writing historical fiction set in his home province of Newfoundland & Labrador and London, England. He recently returned from the British Library archives where he found intriguing details about the founder of his hometown, Lord Alfred Northcliffe and his wife Lady Northcliffe. Brian was thrilled when a NYC agent told him his story reminded her of Julian Fellowes’ HBO series, The Gilded Age . He is in his second and final year of a MFA at the University of Kings College in Halifax, Nova Scotia and is determined to have his manuscript’s first draft completed next year.
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