The Frustration of An Aspiring Author

I started writing at the ripe age of 9. My father, a former college professor, had read me stories of greatness, inspiration, and dedication.

I remember sitting down with him at our kitchen table, entering a writing contest for our local community college. Surprisingly, I won, and had the opportunity to dig a little deeper into my dreamworld of literature.

As my life continuted, writing was the one thing that kept me sane. It was somewhere that only I was accessible to. I could write whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and make a life between the pages, my mind, and my little pen. It was somewhere I felt safe; no one could take that away from me.

The problem with society, is it seems nearly impossible for young authors and writers to be able to pursue their dreams in the literature world. It is hard to make a living off of writing. Unfortunately, many people are on social media, caught up in the news of politics, war, and fear. It can be hard to sit down and read a good book, completely, with no distractions. Even I struggle, sitting down with my book and coffee and trying to stay off of the internet.

I guess I could say I’m frustrated. I’m frustrated with the way society is structured. That the Arts are something some people find “unrealistic” in the 9-5 capitalistic society we live in. I am still young, still freshly learning new things and absorbing what I can from the “real world”.

One thing I do know, is I cannot imagine a life of a Monday-Friday job, repeating the same thing everyday, going home to sleep, and wake up to do it again.

Life is so much more precious than that. Although the world is full of so much hate, fear, and sadness— there is so much beauty surrounding us. There is so much to see, to do, to learn. Yet, we are stuck in this programming of thoughts to where success is defined by the amount of money we take home, by the materialistic clothes that we own, the most popular and liked pictures on social media. I feel, truly, so disconnected from the core values of life. Now, social media is not fully to blame.. that would be missing the point.

I have spent my entire life dreaming of becoming an author. “Someday, I will write a book”, I tell my friends and family. I can feel their support, but also their concerns. They ask me what I am going to do with my life, what career path I’m going to take if I cannot make a living off of my writing. To be quite honest, I don’t know what I will do. I cannot wrap my head around living my life in a system designed to keep us sick. I can’t imagine myself working a corporate job that makes me miserable. However, as my family says, “you may need to do just that in order to have enough money to write a book”. Yes, I do understand that, and I’ve pondered it, but truly why?

Humans are not meant to be isolated from each other. We are meant to be in communities, dancing around in the grass between our toes, fruits on trees that we eat from, water from rivers that we drink.

But, it’s just not like that. We are sent to school, to pick a career, to go to college and find a job, and then we survive by spending our days, our time on earth, for money. Because yes, we must pay bills, we must get groceries, we must make car payments.. and the list goes on.

That is what I am struggling with. I am only 19, I already know what I want to do with my life. Write. Write about everything and anything. It has been my passion since I figured out how to use my imagination and thoughts to create a story, to always have somewhere I can escape to and in the long run, hopefully inspire other young authors to chase their dreams.

Even if I don’t write that book, even if one day I wake up and I am 70 years-old, looking back at my life that I spent working.. I will never stop aspiring to write and to teach others to do the same.