I wasn’t always a creative writer.

For most of my adult life, I wrote computer programs. I never imagined I'd become a coder. It’s a job I fell into when my writing gig fell apart and I needed cash. It was only meant to be a stop gap while my husband finished his doctorate and started earning money but by the time he got a job I’d fallen in love.

It was the early 70s. A time when people my age wanted to create a better, more equitable world. And like my generation, IT was young and eager to take over the world. Desperate for staff, the computer industry became a magnet for young working women who were equally desperate to avoid the typing pool. When I interviewed with a software company, I thought they hired me because of my intellect and my ability to stand up for myself. Years later I learned that it was because of my boobs. I was much younger then and so happy to get my foot in the door that I chose to ignore that the room was still labelled Men Only. The word Only may have been scratched out but it was still there for those who chose to see.

Nevertheless, I ignored the unequal pay and the feeling that I wasn’t completely welcome, and fell in love with programming.

And why wouldn’t I? In the early days, programmers were gods. Non techies, the company’s owner, the sales staff, their customers, were at our mercy for we controlled the machines. Not that we held our bosses to ransom but we knew they needed our expertise as much as we needed the pay checks they gave us in those little windowed envelopes. Little did we know that techies would take over the world, including us but that is now and I’m talking about then.

Back then, the more you learned about your craft, the more powerful you became. Techies squirrelled away bits of information like wizards hiding their spell books. If you were lucky you got an apprenticeship with a guru who gradually taught you the inner workings of the machine. Source code was where the magic happened. It was also  where bugs and glitches were created. They appeared, seemingly out of nowhere and that was how you earned your grade level. If you succeeded to squash a particularly insidious bug, one that had eluded other programmers, you could reach legendary status. Learn enough spells and you could become a guru.

Now, I never became a guru. I didnt even achieve legendary status but I gained a reputation that earned me better wages than most of the men I knew. The idea of becoming a writer meant not only returning to poverty but obscurity as well. It was like making a pact with the devil and so the industry held me in its thrall for over 30 years and during those years, the good ones and the bad, the creative writer in me slept but she didn’t die.

During those years, instead of writing, I told stories. Little tales to entertain my children or amuse my friends. Occasionally I’d joke about writing a book. After a visit to Hemingway’s house in Key West I felt inspired enough to stock up on pens and notebooks. I wrote the first lines of stories I would never write and  plots that would never be developed. I haunted writer’s groups the way bored spouses troll dating websites, looking but not willing to take the risk of actually making contact but what I never stopped doing was reading.

Then, after all those years of staying together, programming dumped me. There’s no other way to put it. Not that I was fired. No, our relationship had run its course and we mutually agreed that we were no longer suited for each other. Programming had gotten a facelift and was hanging out with a much younger crowd. They used terms I couldn’t relate to. But it was more than looks and language. Something more fundamental had changed. In my day, we controlled the machines but now it was all pick a setting, click, click, click. If it doesn’t do what you want it to, change the setting. The machines, and their big business owners were in control. Meanwhile, the code we wrote generations earlier continued to function but there were fewer and fewer of us who could speak its language. Those backend heritage systems became sacrosanct. Changing a line of code in them was like mispronouncing a word in a magic spell. No one knew what might happen. It was easier to build around those systems and that’s how many of them sit today. Aging relics of a time gone by. I woke up one day and like Puff, the magic dragon, I sadly slipped into my cave.

I said goodbye to trchnology and immersed myself in sustainable living. In hindsight I suppose it was my way of saying that if the modern world didn’t want me then I didn’t want it. My little patch of dirt was as far from the modern world as I could get. No electricity. No running water. No heat. Just hard packed clay, a couple of sheds and a rain water tank. My friends that I’d lost the plot. I figured I’d found heaven.

During those years, before I installed a wood stove, and had a bore dug, before I learned how to generate electricity, I collected manure and started fertilising my new home. That hard physical labour also stimulated my brain. Between digging, planting and watering, the story teller in me woke up. Maybe it was the self-imposed isolation or living in the rough but I began to pay attention to the world around me and the more I looked the more stories I saw. I wrote about my hen and rooster falling in love. There was the day the ducks invaded the chickens house oblivious to the fact that chickens were doing the same to them. I documented the antics of the stray cats who came my way. I was surrounded by life and death struggles far more interesting that what was on TV.

These days, I’ve come full circle. I have lights, hot and cold running water and a gas stove for cooking. I’m connected to the internet so I can stream movies and music. My library is mostly electronic these days and I no longer try to grow all my own food. Oh, my orchard still keeps me stocked with fresh fruit most of the year and my veggie garden gives me fresh produce but I no longer raise poultry for eggs and meat. My life is simpler and it’s that simplicity that allows me to write. It’s the journey, however, that gives me something to write about.

Now, I’d love to hear from you. What twists and turns have led you to be where you are today?