HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
May 31, 2004 Bought and not quite paid for, my Bachelors Degree at Indiana University has not served me quite like I had hoped it would. Though I was an older student and supposedly wiser and more mature than much younger classmates, I still had dreamy eyes for the future. My dream was to change careers. I had worked in social services for fifteen years and was worn from the work of love I had done for so many years. I wanted to become a writer, still do for that matter. I have written four books, all unpublished. I have written a series of short stories, all rejected by even the worst of publishers. My stacks of poetry are gathering dust in drawers unopened for several years. I am beginning to write a few articles now. Thus far, I haven't written for any paying markets (what's new, huh?). I do think I have a sense of my own abilities and that might just be the reason for my persistence. Someone said, darned if I remember who, “Published writers are just writers that haven't given up.” That's me. I haven't given up yet. After all, my creative writing professor said she thought I had some potential. That was enough for me. My wife likes my work and most of my friends that I can pay to say it, tell me I write well. Of course I have only three friends and I think one of them is dead now, the other committed suicide, and my wife is the third. Great audiences are difficult to find. Nevertheless, I'm not quitting. Persistence will prevail. It did on Omaha Beach in World War II, it did for Lance Armstrong, and it did for Walt Disney. You'll never make it to shore if you quit swimming. If you believe you have talent, don't give up. If you don't think you have much talent, take a class and learn to write. At whatever cost, don't give up. I started drawing little picture stories when I was six years old. It entertained a latched-door kid when televisions didn't come into the living room of every home in America and radios played only Lawrence Welk music. I haven't stopped drawing those stories inside my head. They still entertain the kid inside of me and if I never sell a single one I will still write with the imagination of a youngster and the passion of a latched-door child.
Now, to finalize this future shredding machine
fodder, I must say to those of you critiquing
this fantastic flash of encouragement. Don't let
the readers down. Give them the fertilizer they
need to nourish their small dream seedlings.
Give them hope (how's that for throwing on the
guilt?). After all, just because an old man like
me can be rejected a thousand times doesn't mean
that all new lambs (I mean writers) have to be
slaughtered before arriving to the that big hot
dog factory in the sky.
|
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
