Funding hurdles

A disappointing blow to my project today.  The Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand has opened this year for applications for $16000.00 worth of media grants.  Unfortunately, unlike previous years, this year the grants are not available to creative writers like myself, but are set aside for journalist projects exclusively.

      Writing a book is bloody hard work.  I have spent the last four years of my life studying for my degree in creative writing (two years full-time, two years part-time), so I could learn the craft and deliver my story in the most effective way.  In that time I’ve funded myself by getting up at 3.30am five days a week to sort mail, and have taken on second jobs, which means I am taxed at the highest  rate and pay full repayment rates on my student loan, irrespective of the fact that my two jobs put together do not even come close to meeting the average income in this country.  But there is much more to writing a book than the physical funding of it. 

     There are endless hours of research, of gathering information, or interviewing others in order to make sure that you are accurate with dates, settings, etc.   There are sleepless nights, where it seems you can’t turn the words or ideas off, no matter how late it gets or how badly you need to sleep.  There are times when the subject matter and memories can reduce you to tears, and other times that leave you laughing or feeling warm with nostalgia.  There are the days we yearn to return to, and other days we had vowed never to revisit.  There are the difficult questions and the sometimes even more difficult answers. 

     But there are the rewards.  There are those moments when we see evidence of growth or learning staring back at us in words we have written.  There are the times when our words connect with a stranger and moves them, and has an impact in their own life.  There is the reward of knowing that the story has a happy ending and important messages to tell, to those that may still be stuck in the mires of depression, addiction, or abusive situations. 

    While there was never a guarantee that I would be awarded a grant, I had been preparing for this opportunity for several months, and more intensively in recent weeks, securing letters of recommendation etc and had identified areas where I could make use of the money if I had it.  First and foremost would have been the purchase of a laptop.  I have a (now very outdated) computer, on its last legs, which has never been connected to the internet.  Sometimes I wonder how I have managed to get this far through my degree, relying only on library computers.  Secondly I had hoped to make a series of research trips in coming months to interview people and visit locations that are more pertinent in the later books, but will have to come up with new ideas to generate the income to do this.

     To all the people who have helped and supported me with the writing of this trilogy so far, I give my commitment to seeing this project through regardless of any impediments that may come along.  I thank everyone for believing in me and this project, and rest assured – to the first one hundred people who have liked my page ‘The Sound of Broken Voices’ – you will not be the last one hundred people to like it.  I have an important story to tell, and I am going to tell it.