Hold On To Your Dreams

[Mythsaje]

I decided I wanted to be an author in 4th grade. It was the only thing I ever truly wanted to be. Oh, sure, I dabbled with the idea of being a lawyer (even now I think I'd make a good one, though I couldn't say whether I'd rather be a prosecutor or a defense attorney), or perhaps a journalist.

I wasn't motivated enough to be anything except a writer. I'd rather be writing, or reading, than doing my school work all through school. I guess one might say that my preoccupation, my obsession, pretty much short-circuited any other opportunity I may have had. I simply couldn't really imagine doing anything else.

Believe me, I listened to my share of "it's a pipe dream," and "you've got your head in the clouds." Even people who said I had talent never seemed to think I would ever amount to much as an author.

All through it I held onto the stories in my heart. I KNEW that I had stories to tell no one else had ever told. I had my ups and downs, believe me. There were times I thought I would always fail. I would have this great ideas and I'd be writing on them, but they'd peter away to nothing as the impetus died.

I finished a few novels along the way, but, unfortunately, lost them in computer crashes, or lost them before I managed to transfer them from long hand to disk. I lost three novels this way.

In the meantime I designed and play-tested a role-playing game set around the very universe my books are now written in. The fact was that I'd hoped the game would help me on my path to success as an author. Oddly enough, I might have flipped it and, with a bit of effort, could use the novels to springboard the game. It's a saturated market, but if I go with the right system (looking at the open source d20 system) I could find a nice niche there too.

Throughout everything that's happened to me I've learned one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt. No matter your dream, the one thing you have to do is stick with it and not let anyone pry it away from you. It's YOUR dream, and the one thing every successful person in any field has ever said is that to attain success, one can never, never give it up.

So the one piece of advice I can give any person out there with a dream is to stick by your guns. Don't let anyone tell you that it's impossible, because the only thing that will make it impossible is allowing someone to tear you down.

Stand by your dreams and they'll stand by you.

[hsher]

1. K&R

You BETTER stick with your dreams. You're too fucking good a writer. Pick up a copy of "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron and see what happens. You encouraged me to stick with mine; I will fight to see you reach yours.

Sorry, but you've made a forever friend, Saje. :kick:

[Mythsaje]

2. Well, that seems a damn silly thing to apologize for...LOL

I love to write. I'm getting to the point I don't even care WHAT I write.

My wife wants me to start putting together a book of my DU political essays.

Oh, as far the "Artist's Way?" I wrote long-hand for years. There is NO way I'm going back.

:)

[bananas]

3. That's why I sleep late. nt