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The Shadowland of Dreams

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Many a young person tells me he wants to be a writer.

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I always encourage such people,

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but I also explain that there’ a big difference

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between “being a writer” and writing.

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In most cases these individuals are dreaming of wealth and fame,

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not the long hours alone at the typewriter.

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“You’ve got to want to write,”

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I say to them, “not want to be a writer.”

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The reality is that writing is a lonely, private and poor-paying affair.

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For every writer kissed by fortune,

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there are thousands more whose longing is never requited.

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Even those who succeed often know long periods of neglect and poverty.

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I did.

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When I left a 20-year career in the Coast Guard to become a freelance writer,

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I had no prospects at all.

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What I did have was a friend with whom I’d grown up in Henning, Tennessee.

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George found me my home —

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a cleaned-out storage room in the Greenwich Village apartment building

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where he worked as superintendent.

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It didn’t even matter that it was cold and had no bathroom.

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Immediately I bought a used manual typewriter and felt like a genuine writer.

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After a year or so, however,

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I still hadn’t received a break and began to doubt myself.

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It was so hard to sell a story that I barely made enough to eat.

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But I knew I wanted to write.

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I had dreamed about it for years.

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I wasn’t going to be one of those people who die wondering,

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“What if?” I would keep putting my dream to the test —

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even though it meant living with uncertainty and fear of failure.

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This is the Shadowland of hope,

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and anyone with a dream must learn to live there.