What you want to do in 15 years?

15 years is a long time and especially so for one who has not lived that long yet. Today teens like me are expected to know what they want do later in life. Maybe if it were not the twenty first century I could be imaginative but that would be childish (In case you didn’t know this is a CHILDRENS essay competition). However after a decade and a half I would like to be in a profession that is considered neither here nor there in terms of childishness. I would like to become a fiction writer. A fiction writer is a person who invents stories, a non-fiction writer is a person who has had the experience he has written about. The fact remains that you can’t become a full-time non fiction writer it is next to impossible. You’d have to hear about in detail or experience everything you write about.

To Dickens, it came naturally. He simply sat down and wrote Pickwick Papers which became an instant bestseller. Debut books written by normal authors do not become bestsellers but Dickens was a genius. We aren’t all Dickens and that brings us to the deciding factor of almost every profession these days; the financial part. If you are an adult you must make a living and to do so as a writer you must be no less than Agatha Christie or Louis L’Amour. It is no wonder that all authors have other jobs. The moral of the story is simply -you MUST get a job that gets you so much money a month and that’s the part that I don’t like about the whole author business.

Getting a book published I have heard is nothing short of hell. Odds are that you’d spend a year and a half writing the book only to be rejected by the publisher. And if you are accepted odds are that you’d make next to nothing and sell not more than a few thousand copies and if that’s not enough to discourage you then odds are that by the time you publish your next book you’d most likely be in rags.

Being a writer is demanding and you must have stamina, imagination and a sense of humor. Also as you are working alone there is no one to prod you or give you a dressing down if you become lazy. There is nobody breathing down your neck to make sure you’re on the right track. You are your own boss.

All this might be daunting to a reader but the moment in writing that I live for is when I am completely immersed in the story and am actually living it and I know what the character is going to do next because that is what I would do if I was the character. I am actually living the character’s life and it is for that experience alone that I want to do this.

Roald Dahl in How I became an author describes what it took to find the right story. Nothing. He said that he had almost never had to think of a story. All he had to do was just live life normally and whenever a stray story pops into his head he’d grab it with both hands and write it down as soon as he could. He said that writing the whole thing wasn’t necessary. You could just write a few lines to remind you of it. The author in question used to keep red notebook with a lot to two or three liner stories and this (as the tabloids would say) is allegedly the cause of his success.

Of course let’s not forget my second job, the one that should give me the toner cartridges for laser printer I need to write my stories with. It needn’t be boring, complicated or government but should be flexible and preferably not nine to nine. It took me no longer than 0.38258(approx.) seconds to find my job on Google. A programmer. It fitted the bill perfectly and I could work in the field I wanted (I love computers) I have experience (I’ve designed 13 programs) and it’s the second best thing to do in the world. I can easily work away from the office and I take a genuine pleasure in solving problems through computer programs.

Of course being an author isn’t simply about writing stories, a lot depends upon the type of stories. I would also like to write what I would like to read and currently I am much taken with Christopher Paolini’s Eragon and Robert Jordan’s Eye of the World. Children’s fantasy is a good field for me because I like to dream up worlds and decide each one’s characters as of now that is. I am quite sure my tastes will change later as over the years I (and everybody else I know) graduated from Enid Blyton to Franklin Dixon to J.K. Rowling and currently on John Grisham.

After a lot of this aimless rambling about let me tell you what inspired me to become a writer. Once upon a time in my living room I was surfing the net when I came across a website offering a webcast of the Booker Prize ceremony. Without further ado I clicked on it to see in grainy dial-up internet quality; John Banville receiving the Man Booker prize 2005. As their website proudly describes it is “pinnacle of ambition for every fiction writer”. I couldn’t agree with them more and promptly changed my ambition from rocket engineer to author.

I’d like to write more about the topic but the word limit is drawing close and my teacher has instructed me not to cross the word limit and as she is yet to give me my term grade I must concur. With my writing skills I’d like to push my country ahead in the field of literature and of course become famous. Also in case I do become an author I sincerely hope you like my novels.