But Will I Ever Be a Writer?
I grew up romanticizing what the life of a writer would be like. I dreamed of nights filled with red wine and cigarettes and eccentric friends on New York City rooftops discussing my work. In my fantasies, I typed out velvety words on a loud typewriter and paid for everything in cash. There was barely any money but always just enough to get by. I knew that a writing life wasn’t going to be easy. I never had any illusions. But I certainly glamorized what the struggle would be and feel like. To clarify, I don’t come from money. I have thousands and thousands of dollars of student loan debt and don’t have any sort of trust fund or savings to lean on. I’ve been worrying about money for as long as I can remember. But for some reason, when I thought about not having enough money and being a writer, it sounded more bearable. We were supposed to struggle, no? We were supposed to be penniless and scrappy and resourceful.
This was the story I told myself for most of my twenties. I worked in book publishing during the day and as a restaurant hostess at nights and on the weekends. Then I went to graduate school for journalism. I got a four-month fellowship and then a spread of odd jobs – babysitting, freelance editing, dog sitting. But when was the writing happening? It barely was. I was (and still am) so exhausted from my day jobs that it was hard to find time to sit down and write for no one but myself and no promise of money. It’s a confusing reality because you see other people doing just that and you berate yourself for not being able to do it too. But then you learn that their parents pay their rent or that their spouse works in finance and it makes more sense.
I don’t regret going to graduate school for journalism but I do wish we were presented with different kinds of success stories. In my experience at least, we had panels stacked with full-time journalists who had been working consistently for decades but few featured freelancers, or even people who had gone to journalism school and then successfully pivoted their career in another direction, doing something equally important and maybe even something that paid much, much better. I had always assumed that I would go to school and at the end of the year, I would wow someone at the career expo and be offered a job, or perhaps an internship that would lead to full-time employment. In reality, the career expo did not help me. I had a couple of underwhelming conversations with recruiters and then I went home. There were no offers.
I finally have a full-time job in journalism, seven or so years after I decided to pursue this career. I’m not really writing, but I am editing and learning a lot and I think that’s a good starting point. I’m proud of myself, because I have really hustled to get to where I am today but there’s always this nagging feeling like I could be doing more. You see, I keep seeing evidence that for many writers, writing is their whole life. They pour everything they've got into it. They respond to emails at midnight, they are always online, their work is the number one priority. I don't know if they are performing or are truly all in all the time but I don’t think that’s me. I want to write, I love to write. But I also want time for other things. This isn’t to say that I am lazy. I am very good at my job and always on top of things. But I don’t always have the energy to sit down and write after a full day of work. Sometimes, I simply don’t want to. Sometimes, I want to be selfish. I don’t want to just be lost in the work at every waking hour. That’s really hard on my mental health.
The pandemic has only exacerbated these feelings for me. As with so many other people in this country, I am now realizing that maybe there’s not as much beauty in the struggle as I previously thought there was. Growing older doesn’t help. I’m 27. And while I know I’m not old, I do feel like I’m getting old for certain things, like renting out a small room in a Brooklyn apartment with three roommates and absolutely dreading the day my student loan repayments start up again. In retrospect, it’s wild to me that so many of us borrow so much money to go to school and get a degree so that we can turn around and use said degree to get a job so we can pay our loans back, plus thousands more in interest. Everything feels like a scam.
The pandemic has changed our relationship to work and I know I’m not the only one who feels these things. Maybe my mistake is thinking of writing as work when I should be thinking of it as a love, a passion. But I want to make money off of something I enjoy doing! Writing is tortuous, painful, exhausting. And there is also sometimes no better feeling.
I am very stubborn. I’m not giving up on writing. I knew what I was getting myself into when I decided I wanted to do this. But my needs and desires have changed as I’ve gotten older. I get tired faster. I want time for frivolous things and mental health. One day, I want to live alone in a cozy one bedroom, go to the farmers’ market on the weekends without worrying about the insane prices, maybe even have a family. I want, more than anything, to be financially stable for good. I feel like I’m ending this how the notably bad, fictional columnist Carrie Bradshaw ended her columns. With a lot of questions and no answers. But I want to have it all. And I want to believe it is possible. But is it?
***
Last week we presented Part 1 of Brett Bachman’s remarkable story about the mystery of his college classmate, Amadou Camara. This week, we present Part 2.
A Gatsby of The Gambia
Amadou Camara built the America of his dreams, one campus drug deal at a time.
It was never meant to last.
By the time his sophomore year rolled around, Amadou had helped the members of Theta Chi pick out a multi-unit building on North Frances Street—a white craftsman townhouse two doors down from the lakefront—and began selling weed out of a first floor apartment he shared with four other fraternity members.
It was cold, “stupid cold” as Amadou likes to say whenever someone asks about the house, and for years after the fraternity moved out we heard long-running jokes about the giant spiders living there.
More than a social circle, Greek life also presented Amadou with an opening—a ready-made network through which his new cannabis business could be funneled. For Amadou, then as well as now, every opportunity was a business opportunity. Every party, every class, every hand he shook, was an opportunity to get his name out there. And as his network grew, so did his ability to leverage those relationships. Amadou’s entrance into the Greek system immediately gave him a new pool of clients, with people to vouch for them, and business exploded, seemingly overnight.
To continue reading, you’ll find Part 2 here
And if you missed Part 1 you can find it here
Many thanks. And if you like it, please share it with a friend.