Go for your dreams?

Someone on goodreads asked a good question in a poll about what people’s personal dream jobs would be if money wasn’t a concern for them. I had responded to the question, but then decided to delete my post; however, I’m re-posting it here because I think the issue is very important.

Here was my answer to the poll question:

...A writer with an audience of people reading my work, as opposed to a writer without that for over three decades....

Making at least a small part-time living was only a minor factor for me for most of those years. My main goal always was to at least have a small audience of people who read and enjoy my work, so I could muster up enough physical energy to keep at it and not feel as if I was talking to myself in a mirror. (I have very limited physical energy and can't afford to waste it....)

But after so many years doing so much on-the-page work, I would like to be paid at least some money as a profit, and, to me, getting some recognition is even more important; that will never happen, and so I'm retiring from writing next year. I’ve simply run out of time to get where I wanted to be in my life.

Over the years, I've spent over $8000 in ads to make around $1300 back lol. A business person, I am not. I did sell over 1350 ebooks of my fiction and have had over a hundred thousand pages of my work read through Kindle Unlimited--and I appreciate every single one of those sales and pages read that people took time out of their days and lives to read.

But the problem is: I still don't have a "following" (I don't like that term--it reminds me of a cult leader!), so my work only sells when I advertise and attract readers who are randomly browsing. My work doesn't get word of mouth. And soon, I just won't be able to afford to lose so much money on advertising while living on a fixed income.

The audience part just never materialized for my writing. It happens to a lot of writers, maybe to most...or maybe to nearly all.

I write all of this here not as a complaint but as a warning to people that, if money is a factor or not, choose wisely toward what you spend your lifetime on. You only get one of those.

Best to all of you.

(By the way, I don’t mean to be a frigging buzzkill lol. But your poll clearly struck a chord with me. If you want me to delete my post, I will. I might do it anyway….)”

--The thing is, I think that for many people, they’re probably better off keeping a dream as a dream. There are these popular sayings/notions that are supposed to make people feel good, like how if you don’t try, you won’t succeed; you’ll never know if you would have failed until you try; keep trying, keep persisting—huh? The people saying those kinds of things are almost always already-successful people. It’s easy for them to counsel other people to go for their dreams when those doing the counseling won’t have to live with any potential failures.

I wish that I had kept finding an audience as a goal only and had never acted on that; I’ve never really believed in dreams—I always had goals. 

But the same thing still applies: if you go for your dream over your lifetime, and you fail at realizing your dream, then you’ll have to spend the rest of your life living with NO dream anymore and having a mountain of failure behind you. But if you don’t go for your dream—at least you’ll have your dream world and dream life to live in for the rest of your life!

In my opinion and experience, people need to know that in the arts or wherever, having a lifetime of failure behind you is always a risk--and is often a high one, which failure is very fucking hard to live with.