Meaning of Success? 07
Success? Dream — Being a Programmer and Being a Writer!
Being a Programmer
I don’t know whether to call this a dream, an accomplishment, or something in between. When I graduated from junior high, I barely knew what a computer was. This was 1977—the PC was still a few years away. That summer my parents got their first computer for their company: an IBM 5100. My cell phone today is probably a thousand times more powerful.
I quickly found I could program it and make it do what I wanted. I was also good at finding and fixing bugs. One night my father woke me up because the program he was running had crashed—and I fixed it.
The next morning he told me he paid his programmer $50 an hour to do what I’d done, and since I wasn’t as experienced, he’d pay me $25 an hour. Not bad for a high-school sophomore, even today.
That was it. While in college, I got my first programming job—data entry and code work—and I’ve been doing it ever since.
I wish I could tell you what pulled me toward programming, but I can’t. I’ve never felt entirely in control of this career—it just seemed to happen.
Being a Writer
My dreams of being a writer didn’t start until after high school. In fact, they began with that mystical experience in the darkroom. I took two things from it: faith that I would someday find the girl I loved, and the idea for my first (never-published) book, The End of the Beginning and the Start of Eternity.
At first, I thought I’d write just that one book, publish it under an assumed name, and move on. Later, when my muse came more often, I started to believe that something I had to say might be worth saying. My friend Weaver encouraged that belief—without telling me—by publishing pieces I’d written in our parish newsletter.
I found there was nothing as fulfilling as answering the call of my muse and writing what she wanted me to write.
Even when Weaver introduced me to Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, and I realized he’d done a far better job expressing the same themes I’d tried to capture in my book, I wasn’t disappointed—only inspired. Maybe someday, when I’m a better writer, I’ll try again.
When I found the internet and could self-publish, I loved it. People from all over the world wrote to thank me for what I’d written.
The problem is that I haven’t taken it far enough—and I’m not sure how. My little “net kingdom” is wonderful, and I’m grateful people read my work, but I still dream of being published in the real world. I just don’t know how to make that happen.
So I remind myself: it’s the writing that matters, not the publishing. If you’re a writer, then write.
- The ability to find something inside and connect with it.
- The pride of creation.
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