I dropped out of Uni to write a book in order to stay faithful to myself
Ok, I gotta admit, I dropped out of uni because I hated it. I didn’t have the background knowledge, nor many friends there and I especially hate reading scientific texts. The only thing I hate more is writing them. Unfortunately, that was all my career consisted of.
Since then I have been living on my parents’ university money for months trying to find a job and putting all my energy into writing a manuscript. I should feel horrible about that.
When I tell friends that I didn’t find a job yet (not my fault, although I could put more effort into applying), I sometimes hear negative phrases that I shouldn’t complain about anything because I have SO MUCH free time. I know it sounds like I do. Like I do nothing. But I really sit in front of my computer every day since months, typing, re-reading and investigating for my novel.
Here’s why!
I never wanted to become a writer!
I never wanted to become a writer until I was 17 and not sure if I’d survive my 18th birthday.
I cannot remember when I started inventing stories in my mind. I had a lot of stuffed animals when I was little and I used to love to take a bath on a Saturday afternoon, wrapping myself in a towel, laying myself wet in bed with the towels around me and inventing stories of my stuffed animals. The dog and the rabbit were married, btw.
When I was 7 years old, my grandma gave me a diary as a Christmas present. If she knew the way she changed my life with that…
By then: she changed nothing.
I tried to fill in two pages. They were full of spelling mistakes in a horrible handwriting (my handwriting differs nowadays but didn´t get better, unfortunatly) and they were reading like this.
Now is December. It is cold. It is the next day. I went swimming. It is the next day. It is Christmas. I got: a horse as a stuffed animal called Ferdinand, a
After an endless list of gifts (yes, I was spoilt), I didn’t write anymore for two years. I got only rather regular in writing a diary from 14–20 years old and trust me, it consists mostly of a lot of bullshit. Things you wouldn’t want to read again, but wouldn’t want to through away either.
When I was 11 years old, I visited a medieval castle with my parents. Afterwards, I turned on my really old computer and typed in a story I invented. I wrote one page. It was utterly boring. My story didn’t even start yet on that first page. It was kind of a medieval Romeo and Juliet. I told my mom to read that page on my computer, so she stopped hoovering and tried to be impressed.
I cannot tell you what I typed in the following years. But when I was 14 years old, I got a new computer and I didn’t know by then how to transfer the old files. It was a loss for me by then, nowadays not anymore.
So I actually wrote down all sorts of stories between 14 and 17 years old. I didn’t like writing, though. I was lacking nice words, it didn’t sound good at all. But I was really passionate about inventing and telling stories. So I had to figure out a way to put them into acceptable words. I had a proud, steady readership of one, by the time. My best friend who loved to read my stories. Since I hated writing, after one or two pages I always decided it would be just faster to tell her the rest in person. She hated me for that, since I never finished a single story I wrote, but on holidays together I whispered all the details to her until late at night. That’s what the two of us were always giggling about. These were awesome summers, full of dreams and stories.
The rest of the year, my most favourite thing in the world as a teenager was sitting in front of an empty word file at 2 am with a mixed beer and starting to type while listening to Rock’n’Roll music.
Yes, I was weird, but that’s who I was.
It didn’t occur to me to become a writer. I really didn’t know what I should do with my life because I never dared to see my most favourite thing in the world as a profession
(I am realistic here, just for the records, I will probably never be a full-time writer, but at least part-time would be good).
And then my life changed: I was diagnosed with a brain tumor with 17 years old. Doctors couldn’t tell me if it was benign or malign without an operation. And they told me chances of surviving the operation would be good.
Sounds good? Not if it’s about your own survival. Trust me! If you could do a bungee jump and people would tell you, that chances of survival are good. Would you do it?
Hell no!
You want your chances of survival to be 100%, to be guaranteed. Or at least excellent. But not just good.
I don’t want to be whiny about the fact that they told me this when I was only 17. A brain tumor is never fun. But I did find it unfair at that age. While my friends were talking about their first serious relationships, fights with their parents, prom, their 18th birthday party (it’s a thing to celebrate your 18th BIG here in Germany), I was thinking if I’d survive that operation and whether I’d be the same afterwards. Would I be able to walk, to talk properly, would I be impaired in any way afterwards? Truth is, the doctors didn’t know either. Very little is known about our brains until nowadays.
The only thing that kept me going, that made me ignore the hospital, the fear of what was coming, the worried looks of my family and friends, was a story in my head. As simple as that. While there was no way for me to leave the hospital bed, in my mind I kept travelling and living romance and adventures.
By then I finally decided for this one dream: If I’d survive, I wanted to write and publish a book in my life. I acknowledged to myself that that was the most fun thing in the world for me and my personal purpose for my life. I cannot tell if there’s a higher something, a higher purpose apart from living and enjoying my life. But I added that one dream:
I wanted my name on a book as the author. I wanted others to be able to read it, to be fascinated about the content. I wanted to be able to grab my audience’s attention and to not give if back until I’m done telling the story. A story, that they would be able to live in for the moment of reading and to remember long after.
That’s what I wanted. I cannot tell you why, but that’s what I decided for what I wanted to be able to live in my life. This one goal if I survived. I didn’t want to leave this world before that.
As you can read here, I did survive. And I can walk and talk and so on. But it changed my life in every aspect. Nothing neither before nor after had such a strong impact on my personality and my goals in life. I almost dropped out of High School at the time in order to achieve writing my novel. But I had to promise to my mom to finish school. Afterwards, she said, I could do anything I wanted.
So I did finish High School, and I’m really glad about it. I studied an entire bachelor’s degree at a uni that hasn’t to do with literature (I promise) and then I found myself with 24 years old, in a master’s degree that I hated, not having had written a single word since I was 17.
Now that’s what was wrong!
I kept being a story teller. I love to tell friends and acquaintances about fun experiences I had. I love to tell it in a way that people feel the way I felt. I raise my voice for drama, articulate with hands, put emphasis on little details. Like that one time, I had a flight stopover of 12 hours in New York and left the airport. I saw a lot of Manhattan that afternoon and almost missed my flight back home if it wasn’t for a nice rickshaw driver who drove me to my airport shuttle bus as fast as he could via Times Square. I didn’t have enough dollars left to pay the fair price but it was alright for him.
I’d tell you the story in more details if I’d be talking to you right now…
Anyway, there I was. I had let seven years pass without typing a single word to reach my one in a lifetime goal. Instead, I studied something I hated. That was wrong!
So I sat down immediately and spent 3 months in a row using my semester break to write down my most favorite story I had ever invented.
When semester break was over I kept on studying, but I wasn’t done with the manuscript. It didn’t make things better, but worse.
Literally, every single day at uni was choking me and pushing me into a heavy depression. I was wasting my time in life. I could not possibly die at some point not having finished that novel.
So well. I dropped out of master’s degree without finding a job with my bachelor’s. And since march, I’m sitting in front of my computer typing my novel.
You might think I don’t do anything. I waste my parents’ money (they know, btw. They don’t say anything negative, but would prefer if I’d study instead). I have a lot of free time and so on.
Truth is, I never felt as good, meaningful and accomplishing ever before in my life. I have this dream and I have to make it real.
I don’t know what’s coming afterwards. I hopefully find a job at some point, once I succeeded here.
And my novel? It’s almost done. And trust me, it will be good!
