I will sing you a song

'I will sing you a song no one sang to me; may it keep you good company ...'

Today's blog comes from a song - Everything Possible - by a folk singer called Roy Bailey (the album is What you Do With What You've Got, as you rush to Google it) and I have thought about why that line caught at me, snagged my thoughts as I listened. The song is a lullaby, sung to a child to tell them that they can be anything they want, grow up to live any way they wish, and that you will always love them whatever choices they make. It is witty and warm-hearted and very much a real-life alternative to the songs Written to Inspire - the sort which all too often are played in school assemblies and at which my daughter pulls faces when she's made to sing them.
That line 'I will sing you a song no one sang to me ...' In it, I see a parent full of dreams for their child, but equally full of their own uncertainties, aware of their shaky foundations but determined that their child will have self-assurance. So often I meet women - like me - who admit that they can't drive on motorways, can't speak in public, are scared of heights or planes or water or spiders or large black beetles, who hate leaving answerphone messages and reversing down country lanes. I know them all and some of those fears are mine. We all have children and we all want our children to be more than we are, to go forward with the self-assurance we lack. We give our children terrific messages that we can't seem to take on ourselves.
Some of us want to be writers. Some of us have children who want to be writers. One of the reasons I take my own children to see authors speak in public is to prove to them that everything IS possible. Look, authors are people. They sign books, they make jokes, they talk, they sometimes fluff their words. They don't drop into the world fully-formed; they are all different. They come to writing by different routes but it is a real job held by real people and it is as possible as being a nurse or a computer technician.
When I was a child, authors were a few words on the back of a Puffin paperback. Once I wrote to one, Monica Edwards, and got an answer - I was utterly amazed. I can no longer find that precious letter but I can still remember the beautiful handwriting. I named my son after a children's book, such was the power of the words I read as a child. I always wrote but had no idea how to start turning myself into a writer.
Now my children have websites, blogs, author tours and signings. As I continue to make reality of my own childhood dreams, I make sure my children know it's possible for them too. It's a job, it's a business like any other. If you work, you can get better at it; if you try hard and learn, you have more chance of success.
I am singing them the song no one sang to me; may it keep us all good company.