David Hewlett jump started my life on September 24, 2011, and here’s the story.
On that day, I saw an announcement that David Hewlett (a very good actor most recently known for his role as Dr. Rodney McKay on Stargate: Atlantis) was going to auction off a lunch with him and his wife and donate the proceeds to charity. That is, if you won the auction on e-Bay, you would get to go to lunch with Mr. and Mrs. H and talk to them, pick their brains about Hollywood and about acting. You would get to be in the presence of someone you admired. Mr. Hewlett was someone I admired, mostly because I adored the character of Rodney McKay like crazy.
So what fun, right? I created an e-Bay account and joined in the bidding as soon as the auction opened.
Keep in mind that about that same time, work had become so dreary (my Dad had died only the year before) that I was floundering in a haze and couldn’t figure out what direction my life should take. My fiction writing, incidentally, had drifted down to nothing.
I loved my Dad very much, and when he left, he left suddenly and without warning. And my family, being the way we were (and are), well, we never seemed to be able to mourn properly, let alone at all. It was almost as if it wasn’t allowed. I did manage to convince my mother to allow a USAF-based memorial, but that was at least six months after the fact, and another story altogether. Basically, my writing life was on hold.
Enter David Hewlett’s lunch auction.
When I saw the notice about the auction, I suddenly became jazzed about actually doing something different and interesting, because meeting Hewlett would give me something to think about. And I needed something new to think about, I needed it very, very much. And good grief, the rush of energy I had at the mere thought of it was almost enough to get me writing, then and there.
So the auction started. For a time, I was in the lead, can you imagine? I was going to be able to meet someone I admired, whose work made my mind start having positive thoughts again. (These poor actors; if they even knew half the emotional baggage that we fans throw at them.)
Towards evening, as the auction wore on, needless to say, the bidding skyrocketed way over my budget, and soon I was out of the running. But even as I tried not to have sour grapes about it (and believe me, it was hard), I still felt invigorated. And I thought to myself, if I was willing to spend that much money on a meal, no more than an hour or so long, with stranger and his wife (by all accounts and attractive and amiable couple), then seeing as how that opportunity was now gone, what else might I do with it?
I remember asking myself this question, while watching the auction on my computer wind down to its final figures. And I remember feeling the top of my head come off, and all this energy come racing out. I always wanted to be a writer, still wanted to be one, had been writing for years. But I wanted to be a writer for real. A published writer, a writer that people read. Nothing else was as important.
Boldly, right then and there, I imagined what that kind of life might be like. Why, I would write every day! My books would sell like hot cakes! My blog would be among the most popular that Alexa had ever seen!
It was this last thought that stopped me. In this day and age, most writers have a web site, so of course, I needed to get me one, so that’s what the money would go for. Initially, I was hesitant to spend the money directly on myself (even though it had seemed perfectly reasonable to spend it on the David Hewlett auction, but thus is my Puritanical guilty feelings about money), so I tried to build my own website, on the cheap.
I think the learning curve was too steep; moreover, the time I was taking to build the site was taking away from my writing. I began to research web designers, and came across Heather Goff, who is a web designer. At the time, September 2011, she seemed the perfect choice, but she was already booked up through the New Year. So in 2012, I contacted her early, and was glad to be able to work with her. I had some money in the bank, which came from the proceeds of my mother selling Dad’s beloved town car.
When one of my sisters kindly enquired (she was puzzled, I think) as to why I was spending so much on a website, when I could easily download a ready-to-use one, I told her it was “because I am taking myself seriously as a writer.” My sister raised her elegant eyebrows, looking somewhat dubious about the whole thing. But, since she too had gotten a small chunk of Dad’s town car money, perhaps she understood the significance of how it might be spent.
The way I saw it, that town car money was a gift directly from Dear Old Dad. If I’d asked him what he thought about how I was spending that money, he, being the kind of Dad he was, would have jingled his change and keys in his trouser pocket, and said, “If you want it, get it.”
Well, I do, and so I am. There is nothing more important to me than being a writer, and this website will help me practice my craft, communicate with other readers and writers, and create an internet-based footprint for when I’m ready to sell my book.
So thank you, David Hewlett, for being so popular that I could not afford you. And thank you, Dear Old Dad.
- Fredric L. Pilz