{"id":1173,"date":"2025-05-07T15:03:42","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T05:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/?p=1173"},"modified":"2025-05-07T15:03:42","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T05:03:42","slug":"a-will-of-his-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/2025\/05\/07\/a-will-of-his-own\/","title":{"rendered":"A Will of his own\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Story by Sam Eyers
Photo by Ryan Low<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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In his youthful wisdom, Will decided to\u00a0email publishers saying he had\u00a0written\u00a0a book that he\u00a0actually\u00a0hadn\u2019t. To seem more professional, Will\u00a0used his\u00a0\u201chome email\u201d that he had made in Year\u00a03,\u00a0but\u00a0his youthfulness made him naive to the fact that the email may have been a tad\u00a0inappropriate. He was shocked when\u00a0six minutes later the publishers responded\u00a0eager\u00a0to read his \u201cnew\u201d book. When he\u00a0brought up\u00a0this issue with\u00a0the long-serving Newington librarian\u00a0Mrs.\u00a0Jagger, she\u00a0brought\u00a0him to a room in the library and locked him in there. She\u00a0told him to write the greatest first\u00a0chapter\u00a0that he had ever written. Throughout the day Will slaved away at\u00a0the first chapter of the soon-to-be novel\u00a0and produced a masterpiece. He sent this off to the publishers who had been avidly asking for a taster of his new book, expecting to receive a response in\u00a0six\u00a0months after he would have time to\u00a0write\u00a0the book.\u00a0He was yet\u00a0again shocked when 10 minutes later the publishers responded even more\u00a0keenly\u00a0than\u00a0the first time, asking for the whole book.\u00a0Will, obviously unsure what to\u00a0do,\u00a0emailed the\u00a0publishers about how busy he was at the time with his HSC. They responded saying that they knew he was\u00a0nervous,\u00a0and it was ok if he only wanted to bring in a little bit of his book, he could. Happy\u00a0with this outcome,\u00a0he worked on\u00a0six\u00a0pages of his novel whilst he was doing the HSC. He brought this\u00a0into\u00a0the\u00a0publishers,\u00a0and\u00a0they thought that it was not as good as its first chapter. They\u00a0told him to scrap the whole rest of the book he\u00a0had\u00a0supposedly\u00a0written\u00a0and gave him some time and\u00a0money\u00a0to\u00a0rewrite the rest of his book.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year later, he returned to the publishers with his book and \u201cLoathing Lola\u201d which was released as his first book. After dousing himself with lynx to disguise his school uniform, he returned to the publisher only to be informed that his book had not sold as well as they hoped for. The publisher encouraged him to maybe pursue a different career. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Distraught that a year’s hard work had now been flushed down the drain, Will decided to try pursuing different avenues of work. He was a journalist at Channel 9, which he despised, he also wrote websites based on \u201cthe Block\u201d and other TV shows. He hated his work and wanted to return to creative writing, a place where he felt happy and free. Drawing on his past experiences, he created more novels that were packed with humorous moments from his childhood.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of these moments was when his\u00a0Yiayia\u00a0went to\u00a0Spotlight\u00a0to buy some new sheets to sow with. In a thick Greek accent, she asked a worker if they had\u00a0any \u201chigh quality sheets\u201d.\u00a0Will bent over,\u00a0gagging at the swear word her grandmother had\u00a0subsequently\u00a0said. The store person asked\u00a0her\u00a0to repeat\u00a0what she said,\u00a0as he could not decipher her Greek accent. \u201cHuh,\u00a0this\u00a0guy stupid\u201d she thought; so, she\u00a0shouted,\u00a0“do you have any\u00a0high-quality\u00a0sheets\u201d\u00a0seemingly to\u00a0the\u00a0whole store.\u00a0These funny moments with his\u00a0Yiayia\u00a0encouraged him to create his book \u201cThe First Third\u201d, but instead of paying out his grandmother, he gave her a bucket list.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The loss of his best friend Ben inspired him to write \u201cSidekicks\u201d which is about a guy who dies, and\u00a0all of\u00a0his friends must band together to deal with the loss.\u00a0On a sadder note,\u00a0it was only at Ben\u2019s funeral that Will learnt that his best friend\u00a0was\u00a0gay.\u00a0Will\u00a0lamented on\u00a0his own\u00a0experience about\u00a0coming\u00a0out, he was shunned by schools and not allowed to talk. Yet his mood had lightened as gay\u00a0marriage\u00a0had been voted\u00a0for,\u00a0and more inclusive mindsets spread.\u00a0However,\u00a0he has recently noticed that some negativity has returned\u00a0as Big\u00a0W\u00a0wouldn\u2019t\u00a0stock his books and he was forced to put a \u201cMature Content\u201d\u00a0sticker\u00a0on his newest book \u201cWe Could Be Something\u201d because it included\u00a0homosexual\u00a0scenes.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Story by Sam EyersPhoto by Ryan Low In his youthful wisdom, Will decided to\u00a0email publishers saying he had\u00a0written\u00a0a book that he\u00a0actually\u00a0hadn\u2019t. To seem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,76,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cover-stories","category-litfest","category-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1173"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1183,"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173\/revisions\/1183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newington.nsw.edu.au\/student-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}