晨读英语美文 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.