I Think I Accidentally Built a Career

I think I might have accidentally built a career.

Which is quite funny, because I don't remember deciding to.

There wasn't a five-year plan.

There wasn't a beautifully organised spreadsheet telling me where I'd be by the end of 2026.

There definitely wasn't a moment when I sat down and thought, Right, I'm going to become a self-employed creative practitioner.

It just sort of… happened.

One poem became another.

Then I started reading them out loud.

Then I created a spoken word night because I wanted somewhere for people to share their words.

Then came workshops.

Projects.

Applications.

Meetings.

Funding forms.

Invoices.

Another spoken word night.

A weekly writing group.

Quiet Space.

Community projects.

The Fringe.

Somewhere amongst all of that, I wrote and published my first book.

And now there's a second book too — a journal book.

Even writing that feels a bit ridiculous.

Two books.

Actually, now I've written that list down, perhaps accidentally isn't entirely fair.

I've worked bloody hard.

But I don't think I've always recognised it as work.

That's something I'm learning.

Because when you love doing something, it's very easy to dismiss the hours behind it.

The emails.

Planning.

Writing workshop prompts.

Printing.

Replying to people.

Making posters.

Finding venues.

Doing the accounts.

Applying for opportunities.

Sitting staring at a form wondering why a perfectly normal question suddenly makes absolutely no sense.

And then rewriting your answer fourteen times because your dyslexic brain knows exactly what it wants to say but has apparently decided not to tell your fingers.

There's a lot that happens before anyone walks into a workshop and picks up a pen.

For a long time, I think I saw all these things as separate.

I write poetry.

I run a spoken word night.

I facilitate workshops.

I'm involved with the Fringe.

I've written a book.

Apparently I've written another one.

I've got this little idea.

I'm applying for this thing.

But recently I've started looking at it differently.

They're not separate things.

They're pieces of something I've been building.

A creative practice.

A working life.

Possibly even — and this still feels strange to say — a career.

But there's another word people keep saying to me.

Community.

People tell me, quite often actually, that I've built a beautiful community.

And every time somebody says it, it still comes as a bit of a shock.

Because I don't think I ever set out to build a community.

I just wanted to create spaces where people could come as they were.

Where somebody could walk through the door on their own and not feel like they were on their own for very long.

Where people could write.

Share.

Listen.

Laugh.

Sometimes cry.

Sometimes say nothing at all.

And somehow people kept showing up.

That's the bit that matters.

Because I couldn't have done any of this without them.

You can create the event.

Book the room.

Write the workshop.

Put out the chairs.

Make the poster.

Send the emails.

But none of that creates a community.

People do.

The people who show up.

The people who come back.

The people who tell somebody else about it.

The people who clap for the person nervously reading their first poem.

The people who notice when someone hasn't been for a while.

The people who stay for another brew.

The people who trust me with their words.

Maybe I've helped create the spaces, but the community has built itself inside them.

And I'm incredibly grateful for that.

Perhaps that's why this strange little career of mine doesn't look anything like I once thought a career was supposed to look.

There isn't one job title that quite covers it.

Some days I'm a poet.

Some days I'm a facilitator.

Some days I'm organising events.

Some days I'm writing.

Some days I'm sitting with a group of people and watching somebody discover a sentence they didn't know was inside them.

Some days I'm doing admin and wondering why I didn't choose a career involving significantly fewer forms.

And some days I'm sitting quietly with an idea that hasn't become anything yet.

Those might actually be my favourite days.

Because I've learned that ideas have a habit of growing.

Not all of them.

Some are ridiculous.

Some disappear almost as quickly as they arrive.

But every now and then, one sticks.

And then I think:

What if?

That's probably how most of this started.

Not with a business plan.

Not with a career strategy.

Just:

What if I tried this?

And then trying it.

There are still loads of things I don't know.

I'm learning about self-employment as I go.

I'm learning to put a value on my time.

I'm learning that being good at the creative part doesn't automatically make you good at the business part.

I'm learning that sometimes you need to ask for help.

And I'm learning that putting yourself forward gets slightly less terrifying the more you do it.

Especially when, occasionally, somebody says yes.

There are things happening behind the scenes at the moment that I'm ridiculously excited about.

Some I can talk about.

Some I can't quite yet.

But they all seem to be pointing in the same direction.

Forward.

And I suppose that's the biggest difference.

For years, so much of my energy went into surviving things.

Now I'm building things.

Rooms.

Projects.

Words.

Books.

Opportunities.

Community.

A life that actually feels like mine.

Although perhaps I need to correct myself there.

We're building things.

Because none of this happens without the people who keep walking through those doors.

So no, I don't think I planned this career.

But perhaps I didn't accidentally build it either.

Maybe I just kept following the things that mattered to me.

And other people decided to come along.

One day I looked around and realised we'd made something pretty bloody special.

I'm still not entirely sure where it's going.

But bloody hell, I'm enjoying finding out.