晨讀英語(yǔ)美文 The Shadowland of Dreams

The Shadowland of Dreams

[00:09.04]Many a young person tells me he wants to be a writer.?

[00:16.25]I always encourage such people,?

[00:18.99]but I also explain that there a big difference?

[00:22.37]between being a writer and writing.?

[00:25.12]In most cases these individuals are dreaming of wealth and fame,?

[00:31.12]not the long hours alone at the typewriter.?

[00:34.08]You've got to want to write,?

[00:36.69]I say to them, not want to be a writer.?

[00:39.44]The reality is that writing is a lonely,?

[00:44.28]private and poor-paying affair.?

[00:45.66]For every writer kissed by fortune,?

[00:48.41]there are thousands more whose longing is never requited.?

[00:52.45]Even those who succeed often know?

[00:56.31]long periods of neglect and poverty.?

[00:57.92]I did.?

[00:59.02]When I left a 20-year career in the Coast Guard?

[01:03.83]to become a freelance writer,?

[01:04.49]I had no prospects at all.?

[01:06.55]What I did have was a friend?

[01:10.01]with whom I'd grown up in Henning, Tennessee.?

[01:12.46]George found me my home ?

[01:14.33]a cleaned-out storage room?

[01:17.34]in the Greenwich Village apartment building?

[01:18.26]where he worked as superintendent.?

[01:20.46]It didn't even matter that it was cold and had no bathroom.?

[01:24.61]Immediately I bought a used manual typewriter?

[01:29.52]and felt like a genuine writer.?

[01:30.63]After a year or so, however,?

[01:33.47]I still hadn't received a break and began to doubt myself.?

[01:37.84]It was so hard to sell a story?

[01:41.66]that I barely made enough to eat.?

[01:42.76]But I knew I wanted to write.?

[01:45.18]I had dreamed about it for years.?

[01:47.68]I wasn't going to be one of those people who die wondering,?

[01:52.16]What if? I would keep putting my dream to the test ?

[01:56.01]even though it meant living with uncertainty and fear of failure.?

[02:00.81]This is the Shadowland of hope,?

[02:03.54]and anyone with a dream must learn to live there.