Is B for begging?

I’m polishing an essay for a scholarship committee where I get to skim over my rollercoaster life, explain my writing dreams and beg for money. Last year my application was ignored. Of course, I’m the dumb ass who keeps writing this scholarship up for the school paper, increasing applicants and decreasing my odds.

Since the essay essentially sums up why I’m taking this class, too, I’ll post it here for posterity:

Dear OASES Scholarship Selection Committee,

My dream, since childhood, is simple: I want to write for a living. It’s not only that I want to write, I need to write to be fulfilled and happy in this life. To be more specific, I aim to establish a successful and lucrative career as a freelance writer of creative non-fiction essays, personal essays, news and magazine articles, and non-fiction books.

I have focused on this dream for the past several years, after spending many of the preceding years wandering in the wrong direction thanks to bad decisions and wicked fate. The majority of my waking time is spent in pursuit of my writing goals. Though I have experienced rejection, which is a given in this profession, I am persistent, determined, and dedicated—hard work that is evident in the progress I am making.

After moving to Charlotte in 2006 and realizing UNCC offered a journalism minor, I dove into my dream deeper than ever before. Since that summer, even before my first class, I began writing for UNCC’s school paper, The University Times, as a staff writer. In January 2008 I was promoted to senior staff writer and now contribute a minimum of two articles per week and am currently filling in as their Viewpoint editor, a position I’ve been offered for the 2008-9 academic year.

Also since that time I submitted a chapter preface for a book by Rebecca Lawton and Jordan E. Rosenfeld entitled Write Free: Attracting the Creative Life (writefree.us/store.html). The book was recently published and the preface I wrote appears on page 123, before chapter nine. Last December, an article I ghost wrote for a local business man was published in UNITS Magazine, a nationally distributed trade journal. For nearly a year I wrote free book reviews for an online review service, Reader Views, to gain experience. Just this month I sold my first essay to Skirt! Magazine for their May issue. Additionally, I have recently begun reporting for The Union County Weekly.

My personal philosophy is as simple as my dream: I will continue to work toward my goals until they become a reality and then I will continue to work as diligently as before until I find overwhelming success—and I will blaze forward after that because writing is my passion, not just a way to earn a living. My hope is my words will touch and inspire other people to laugh, look inward, dream, live a positive and creative life and to doggedly pursue their true calling.

The journey my life has taken me on has not been an easy one, I have worked hard for every little thing I’ve earned, I’ve made poor choices and paid for (and learned from) them, I have experienced extreme highs and deep lows, and yet I still rise each morning and hard-charge the future—no one is going to bring my dream to me; if I want it, I have to go and get it. With this in mind, I left my full-time job in January 2008 to focus on completing my education at UNCC and to work on my writing career in every spare moment left over. Fortunately, my husband and spoiled felines are supportive and encouraging even though our budget is tight and my hours long.

My philosophy? Hard work and persistence are necessary for dream fulfillment. My career goal? To earn a respectable wage while living my dream as a freelance writer. My dream? To make people laugh like Hollis Gillespie and Lewis Grizzard, both humor columnists, and encourage readers to reach within like Martha Beck, an O Magazine contributor. I believe I can do it; signing my first freelance writer’s agreement this month felt like proof.

Please help me by awarding scholarship monies that will help me reach for my stars (and pay down tens of thousands of dollars in accumulated education debt).

Respectfully,

Rhiannon Kelly Fionn Bowman