My Goals: Essay for Scholarship Application

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Because I know you all really want to read this nonsense.
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It would not be true to say that I have always wanted to be a writer, because there was a time when I did not know what that was. It would, however, be true to say that I have always been a writer.
As a small child I spent much of my time on a trapline in the Ogilvie mountains, traveling by dogsled. There were long hours in which I had to sit very still, wrapped tightly in my sleeping bag with my older sister. Even when we reached our cabins, there was no tv, no computer, no real form of ready-made entertainment. I learned to entertain myself on those long journeys, and my entertainment invariably came in the form of a tale.
Once upon a time, they all began, but where they went from there – besides the ultimate and expected happy ever after – was anybody’s guess.
Those years of being cooped up in a dogsled had a profound impact on me. Because of them, storytelling became as much a part of me as the need to eat and walk and converse; without it I am hungry, restless and lonely.
There has never been any doubt that I want my life to be about writing, but just how to go about making it that way has been somewhat of a sticking point.
There is, of course, the small matter of being able to feed and clothe myself.
It is important for me to balance being sensible (it’s all very well to devote your life to art, but how are you going to eat?) with being artistic (but writing is all I ever want to do!). The compromise that struck a chord with me was to pick a field of writing where it was possible to make a reliable living while still doing what I love.
The career that best fits that description is editing. As long as I can work with literature (and still have time to write and attempt to publish) I will be more than content – I will be happy.
And that, of course, is the way the stories are meant to end.