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Cornelia Funke
Most adults will want to make you believe that with 18 at the latest
you should have figured out what kind of profession is the right one for you.
Don’t believe a word of that!
Of course there are people who know already at the age of six that they want
to become a doctor or a teacher. Just don’t worry if you’re not one
of these people. Take your time finding out what kind of work gives you so much
joy that you could imagine doing it for the rest of you life. And then you can
still change your mind completely halfway through you life and do something completely
different. Why not?
I love my work. I love writing books and telling stories so much that I could
not imagine doing anything else. But it took me a very long time to figure out
that this was what I wanted to do, let alone that I could actually do it well
enough to make a living from it. At first I wanted to become an astronaut. But
then I found out that you had to go through military training first and that
of course made it look a lot less fun!). Then I thought I could become a pilot.
Then I thought I wanted to marry a Chief of a large American Indian nation and
live with him and his people in the wide prairies.
Of course I also wanted to do something that would make the world a little better,
a little cleaner, a little less violent. I did work with children on a activity
playground for a while, building huts and generally teaching them no to hit others
as soon as they didn’t get what they want. But slowly, very slowly, did
I realise that I needed to do something with the talents I was given or otherwise
I could never be completely happy. That’s when I decided to become a book
illustrator – because I always enjoyed a good story and I always enjoyed
drawing pictures.
But when I read most of the stories I was given to illustrate I got more and
more bored. So I decided to write stories of my own. And it was only when I started
writing stories that I would like to draw pictures to that I discovered that
telling the stories was even more fun than drawing the pictures. And so I became
a full time storyteller and writer and now I am completely happy. And I only
write my first story when I was nearly 35 years old! I was ancient!
Now I am 48. Together with my children Ben and Anna I live in the City of
Angels - in beautiful Los Angeles.
We have a wonderful and wacky dog named Luna (nowadays we call her Loonie - that’s
much more appropriate!) and a biting turtle which my son Ben called Hercules
(although she’s a girl) Our house is crammed with books and DVDs (we are all
completely addicted to watching movies) and dragons made of all sorts of materials.
I am very lucky in that my children like what I do and that their friends like
to read my stories. Otherwise life would be rather embarrassing for them, don’t
you think?. |
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