Personal Career List
This blog is really becoming a weird hybrid of looking into nerdy storytelling and personal posts. Not sure how well it is working out, but it’s how I’m letting it roll for now. Warning in advance, this is going to be more of the type that is all about me.
I’m 29 now. Which means I’m close to 30 (it took some calculating, but I figured it out!). And while, yes, I know that’s not super old, it is a big milestone. It’s the first start of a decade where you’re supposed to be a full adult, with your shit at least sort of together.
What all that jabbering means, is a lot of internal freaking out over where my life is going. Full disclosure, it specifically centres around my love life and my career. Unfortunately, I only have (partial) control over how one of those things can go.
As I look to where I want my career to take me, I thought of a quote from Neil Gaiman in a keynote address back he did back in 2012.
“Looking back, I've had a remarkable ride. I'm not sure I can call it a career, because a career implies that I had some kind of career plan, and I never did. The nearest thing I had was a list I made when I was 15 of everything I wanted to do: to write an adult novel, a children's book, a comic, a movie, record an audiobook, write an episode of Doctor Who... and so on. I didn't have a career. I just did the next thing on the list.”
It is definitely worth the reading the full thing (and you can do that here!). As I think about where my future to go, what I want to do with my time, there are a few things that stand out, but for the most part it comes down to different sorts of things I want to have written or otherwise worked on. I’ve never been the kind of person to only do one thing. It is part of why I love writing. I finish a job, and I move on to a whole new world with brand new possibilities.
So, this very ego-tastic post is all about just that, what my personal list of what I want to do with my career would be, as my nearing-thirty-mind spends way too much time obsessing over it. I have no idea how Neil Gaiman made his list, but I’m overly anal so will be organising my list into categories. Just about everything on this list will be specifically writing, but I’ll break down the types of mediums I would love to write for, the genres I would love to write in, and then some big swings at the end.
Mediums
Television: I am unbelievably excited to say that I have actually accomplished this one. I got my first ever writing job on a tv show just a couple months ago. It was non-fiction, which isn’t something I ever guessed I would be doing, but I’m thrilled to have gotten the chance.
Novel: This is one I’m getting close to. I am onto the third draft of my first novel. A fantasy story that first entered my mind in my final years of school and persisted to stick with me. The idea that I might someday have a physical copy of a real published novel with my name on it is one that pushes me through all the hours spent trying to hammer it into shape.
Short Story: This one is arguably done. Hell, I’ve posted a couple short stories on this site. It comes down to a matter of wanting to be more formally published. Whether or not that means anything in this highly digital age can be debated, but it is still a goal I want to see through.
Comic: Either of my own creation or adding into the canon of someone else’s work, like something by Marvel or DC. It shouldn’t shock anyone to learn I totally have a list of characters that it would be a dream to work on.
Short Film: I’m at the point in my career that shorts feel like a kind of steppingstone, not only for myself but for an entire team I enjoy working with. To get something we’ve worked on into a festival, to have it seen by a large crowd while it’s projected on a huge screen, that would be an experience.
Feature Film: I’m not sure the feature world is fully for me. Though it doesn’t seem to be fully for many people these days, as more and more screenwriters seem to move toward television. But it is one of those things that I want to do at least one time. As with every other medium in this list, there are things that can be done within it that can’t in the others. They all have their advantages and disadvantaged, and I know I can tell at least one good story in this way.
Anime: Here is one that is less likely, given my geographic location, but I would love to write for an anime. Even just to come in for a single episode. While I’m getting less realistic, let’s add in that I definitely wouldn’t mind a chance to try voicing a character, even if just a single line. Though I’d be more than happy to stick with just writing.
Podcast: Yeah, sure, I hosted the Unsupervised Nerds Podcast, but it was forced into a state of hiatus far too soon! I do really miss doing it. I want to find a way to get something going that can be longer lasting, whether it is reviving the UN Podcast, or beginning something new. To get more into something written, I have been at least considering figuring out a fun audio drama.
Direct: Okay, this isn’t exactly a medium, but it fit better into this category than the others. Much like the idea of a feature film, it isn’t something that is my main focus, but it is something I want to do at least once. The idea of being a director is something that used to be a much bigger thing for me, but over the years has mattered less and less. Even still, I would love the chance to do it, especially for something I have wrote myself. I’ve done some minor things, in school, or short scenes when I have done AD work, but to do something of my own would be the goal.
Genres
Horror: Knowing me, even if I began a project aiming for pure horror, I would probably eventually shift into horror-comedy (intentionally or not). It isn’t my favourite genre, but it is one I have had an on-again-off-again relationship with for most of my life. Slasher flicks especially.
Murder Mystery: Here I’d lean toward a kind of Agatha Christie locked door kind of thing. Something like Murder on the Orient Express where the suspects are all trapped in a small space, limiting the scope and creating a lot of restrictions. This type of story feels like a puzzle more than any other, and there is something I love about that.
Heist: I absolutely love a good heist movie, for a lot of the same reasons I love murder mysteries. They are a puzzle that need to be built up in fun and unexpected ways. I already have ideas on how to dip my toe into this genre, even if just in small ways.
Romantic Comedy: I feel like this is the one that would surprise a decent amount of people who know me, but I love romcoms. Again, this is one I already have a few ideas and would love to get the chance to make them real.
Sci-fi: Space is fun! This one leans more toward the area of not knowing what I would do with it but knowing I would love to play in its sandbox for a while.
Fairy Tale: I’ve always been drawn to fairy tales. The magic, the morals, the princesses, the dragons, the talking animals. There are so many interesting places to go with them. The idea of making more modern versions has always appealed to me, though, I could just as easily see myself writing something more fantastical and outside of time.
Fantasy: This is one of the biggest for me, and most likely that I’ll get to. Most things I work on in my spare time are fantasy to some degree (my novel, for instance). This is probably the genre I’ll spend the most time in.
Superhero: Much like fantasy, this is one where if I make a real career at being a writer, there is no doubt I’ll cross this off the list. Superhero stories have always appealed to me. I’ve definitely come up with more concepts for heroes than the number of total stories I’ve written in any genre.
Big Swings
Marvel: Literally anything for Marvel. For the longest time I said I would love to the be one to create a Moon Knight show, thinking it would never get made, but now someone else is getting to do it first. This is one of those that feel super unlikely, but, well, this list isn’t meant to be likely.
DC: Though the list of characters I know well enough to write for is quite a bit shorter than the list for Marvel, this is still a place I would love to get to tell a story. I especially love where DC’s TV situation is currently sitting, with all the ArrowVerse shows. Hopefully they stick around long enough for me to have a chance!
Doctor Who: I’d be happy to get even just a single episode of Doctor Who. I’m so torn on if I’d want to create my own kind of monster for it or bring back a favourite. There are so many great possibilities inside of this universe. Maybe even getting to write one of the novels. A novel would be a ton of fun, because I could write for any Doctor or companion, opening up even more great stories to tell.
Showrunner: I want the chance to be the creator and showrunner of a TV show. I have a few spec pilots written, though I mainly think of them just as writing samples, if I could get the chance to actually bring one to series it would be a dream come true. I’d probably lean to a kind of serial-episodic monster of the week fantasy series (to get way too specific with my hopes).
The Unexpected: If there is one thing I know for sure about life, it is that things will pop up from time to time that you never would have expected to happen, let alone that you would enjoy them. This was a fun list to make but I hope that wherever my life takes me, I pick up some more things along the way to add to it, rather than only crossing things off. I want the things I never could have imagined today, the things that won’t even exist as possibilities until sometime in the future. I want to go in directions that keep me excited and keep me unable to predict exactly where I’ll end up. When I’m old, I feel like many of the stories I’ll want to tell of where my life took me will be from somewhere in this category.
So, that’s my list. At least, right now it is. I’m sure if I wrote this at any other point in my life, it would have some differences, be they things added in or taken away, or the importance of a particular item.
Thinking in this way is reminding me of something I’ve heard a few people say about writing, and how they outline a season or series of television. That their outlining style is that they come up with how it will begin and end, and a few points along the way, but not how they’ll get between them. And, well, that seems to be the way I’m sort of outlining my life with this.
I’m curious to know how many of these I’ll have gotten the chance to cross off in the next 30 years, or if this website will even still be online to be able to see it at all.
If you were interested enough to read this far, do you have a list of your own? What’s on it? Let me know!