By Douglas Kruger
OVER his lifetime, adventure-novelist Wilbur Smith sold more than 140 million copies of his novels. When I was 16, I offered to wash his socks.
It was a naïve move, but I was determined to take my dream of becoming a writer seriously.
So I penned a sincerely worded letter asking if I might spend a few weeks camped out at his mansion in Cape Town. There, I proposed to observe him like a shadow, study his process, and pay my way by scrubbing dishes, folding laundry, and otherwise performing domestic slave labour. I addressed the letter to Mr Smith via his publisher, gave the envelope a hopeful kiss, and spent the next few weeks haunting my parents’ postbox.
Did the renowned writer surprise everyone, and invite a strange and pimply kid directly into his sanctum sanctorum?
No. Because life is not like a Wilbur Smith novel.
And I will say that once it arrived, the inevitable “take a hike” letter was terribly polite. Unequivocally firm. But terribly polite.
For years after that, I felt deep embarrassment about my juvenile attempt. Sure, I’d earnestly wanted to learn from a legend. But my approach was as tactless as it was foredoomed.
Lately, though, I’m viewing my younger self with a smidge more kindness. Indeed, I’m starting to think that the heedlessly determined, cluelessly barrelling 16-year-old may have had a point. For several reasons.
The first is: you’ll never know if you don’t ask. Trying is better than not trying.
The second is that ambition in young people is a net positive. It may look tactless, clueless, clumsy. But that’s preferable to its absence. I hope the next generation will also err on the side of embarrassing artlessness, rather than the safety of resignation. Fail, if you must. But try.
The third is that it takes an awfully long time to learn a high-skill craft. Longer when you must go it alone, shuffling in the dark. Writing is like that. Stephen King relates the story of one person who changed his life by editing a piece of writing right before his eyes. He describes the immediate feedback as being “like a revelation”, spurring him on. Ambitious young practitioners in any field desperately need that kind of feedback, and it’s hard to obtain.
The fourth has to do with how much lifespan is available to each of us. As we get older, we begin to appreciate that it’s less than we thought. Indeed, it’s frighteningly finite. If you are possessed of a lofty goal, the sooner you can begin, the better.
I did eventually achieve my dream, without ever scrubbing a single sock, famous or otherwise. In 2022, Penguin published my first novel. But it took me 25 years to get there. A quarter of a century. When I think back on it now, that doesn’t feel like a learning curve. That feels like abandonment.
I promise I’m not feeling sorry for myself; I’m very happy about the professional speaking career that filled up the intervening dates. It’s more a case of looking at the path in retrospect, and honestly appraising the disproportionate difficulty of the process. I wish that starry-eyed 16-year-old could have had more help. It simply shouldn’t have taken that long. And it sets me to wondering what might have accelerated the process, in order to understand how it might be accelerated for others.
Perhaps there was something to be said for the old apprentice model by which our forebears tutored the next generation. The Sith and Jedi did it too, and each ruled a fictional galaxy in turn.
That model has essentially been replaced by: school, followed by varsity, followed by entry into the workplace.
Precious few industries these days make use of an apprenticeship model, but in many instances it would make a lot of sense.
Say you wanted to make movies. Would it help to go to uni, then start an entry-level job?
No, that’s just haemorrhaging years, pushing back the start date.
Instead, you should begin washing socks (figuratively) for an experienced movie-maker. That would be a more direct path. You have an entire craft to learn, and the only way to learn it is directly from those who do it for a living. You also need to begin making the connections, learning the language, immersing yourself in the milieu.
We’re a small island, intimate enough to entertain such a notion. What if we made a programme out of it? Picture a central body, entrepreneurially inclined, handling introductions. Kids approach on one side, the body reaches out to an appropriate potential mentor on the other.
No lifelong commitments entailed, unless you want one. A single week of shadowing could change the trajectory of a young person’s life. A single day could make a difference. Stephen King still remembers two critical minutes, in which an interested person corrected his writing before his eyes. As an aspiring author, I’d have killed for that. Direct feedback from a more experienced scribbler could have carved years off my learning curve.
Could we do that for others? Jersey Business already does something similar at an adult level, helping to launch businesses. How about a model promoting modern-day apprenticeships?
In South Africa, we had an annual “bring a girl-child to work” day. The point was to expose them to what it’s all like. To open doors in advance.
Here’s the essential point: kids need hope. It feels ludicrously hard and endlessly lonely to chase a big dream from a small island. But the reality is, our size should be an asset on that front, not a liability. Where else do you find communities small but vibrant enough to introduce you directly to someone who knows the ropes?
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Douglas Kruger lives in St Helier, where he wishes the rain would let up for five blessed minutes. He is a professional speaker who has been inducted into the “Speakers Hall of Fame” for excellence in his craft. Visit douglaskruger.com.
