I'm giving up the day job. By the time you read this, I'll have handed in my notice. I'm going to write that long-threatened play/screenplay/ novel, carry on studying, and hopefully live off the proceeds of a couple of little businesses that started off as hobbies. It's exciting and terrifying at the same time; like taking a step off a cliff, not knowing whether I will land or take wing.

It's not been the worst dayjob I've had; in fact I feel indebted to them for being so flexible with the hours, so accommodating with requests for time off. I've certainly made good friends there. They've almost been so helpful that I don't notice how badly paid it is, or how the boss regularly forgets to pay us on time, or how Christmas invariably fails to have any effect on our pay packets. Almost. That indebtedness has been a curious sticky trap; it has kept me there longer than has been good for me.

It will be hard not to appear churlish or ungrateful to my colleagues when they realise what a relief it will be when I leave, how much I desperately crave an end to the banality and drudgery of office work. The resentment is not directed against them, really, of course; as the song says, it's something to do with soul. And the concept of soul is a hard one to keep hold of when you're doing the filing and packaging and answering the phone for a mail-order company. It's a difficult thing for others around you to hear that you want better for yourself, better than what they have settled for. It can bring a frisson of implied criticism and condemnation.

Begrudgery is everywhere if you choose to look for it; only if you're very lucky, and/or if you've been careful enough over a period of time, do you find yourself surrounded by people who are willing to support you if you choose a path that implies that you believe you can do something creative.

filthy lucre

I believe I have been lucky; perhaps the greatest obstacle I've faced is my own resistance, my own lack of faith in myself. But it's also related to the uneasy relationship between art and money, between the artist and society. Is art valuable only when someone pays for it? Is someone who claims to be creative entitled to support to enable that creativity to blossom?

To be honest, part of me believes that I shouldn't have to dirty my hands with filthy lucre; that someone should recognise my astonishing genius right now and become my patron. Or husband. But most of me acknowledges that I'm not living in the Star Trek century at the moment, that a living has to be made first, before I can get on with my own stuff. And I'm getting on a bit; the day I hope will be my last screechingly mundane day of employment is my 35th birthday.

I reached a stage when I feared my own stuff would never get done. I've been in a monumentally foul mood ever since Christmas; I blamed it on the shortness of the holiday, but it was more to do, I think, with the prospect of another year filled mostly with days in which I have to turn my brain off to survive them sane.

As I'm sure many of you know, that's an exhausting occupation. At the end of each of those days, to try and get any serious personal work of any kind done is an uphill task. And when it mounted up, and I was frustrated by my inability to make any inroads into it, then I'd escape by picking up the phone and dialling S for sex. After a day in which passion plays no part, at night I would do my best to make up for it.

swallow it

As I got angrier and angrier with myself, I asked myself who in my inner cast of thousands was getting angry with whom. And when I looked, the angry guy looked rather like a combination of God and Morrissey, if that's not tautological.

"The 21st century is breathing down your neck," he said. Who am I to argue with Mozzer? There comes a time for everyone, I imagine, when mediocrity makes you want to retch. Some people throw up, some, perhaps most, swallow it back down and try to forget about it. I've done it a few times in my life, most notably at school; but a fat lot of good that did me. If I'd studied for my exams then, I wouldn't be in this crap job now.

Let that be a warning to you, dear reader. I guess I'm about to throw up again. Let's hope I feel better afterwards. Perhaps the knack is in the timing. Maybe one should make plans for a serious bout of vomiting up mediocrity. It should be taught at schools. Insurance companies should cover you for it: indemnity against illness, loss of a limb, soul corrosion and death.

I'd pay that premium, if I could afford it. n