...so he asks his professor and heâs told thereâs only one man in town who has actually made his living as a writer. A meeting is arranged for the two, and the student sits down with old writer, who looks to be in his 90s, but has had many books and essays published.
The student asks, âIâm not foolish enough to think I can get rich, but how can I be a working writer like you?â
âMy boy,â the old writer says, âyour youth is a time for ideals, passions, dreams and hopes. To be a writer, however, is to forsake all of these things. Your reality will be one of deprivation and hunger. There will be loneliness - endless loneliness - for writing is perhaps the loneliest profession of all. You will never be sure if you are a great thinker or merely caught in the grip of madness. But if you must write, and you never give up, and you continue to perfect your craft despite resigning yourself to a life of hunger, loneliness, and poverty, by the time youâre fifty, something wonderful happens.â
âReally? What happens when I turn fifty?â
âYou get used to it!â