听力课堂英语四级频道为各位备考四级的同学们，整理了大学英语四级听力美文第54篇:The Shadowland of Dreams，希望对大家有所帮助，一起来看一下吧！

　　英语四级听力美文第54篇:The Shadowland of Dreams

　　Many a young person tells me he wants to be a writer. I always encourage such people, but Ialso explain that there's a big difference between "being a writer" and writing. In most casesthese individuals are dreaming of wealth and fame, not the long hours alone at the typewriter. "You've got to want to write," I say to them, "not want to be a writer." The reality is that writingis a lonely, private and poor—paying affair. For every writer kissed by fortune, there arethousands more whose longing is never requited. Even those who succeed often know longperiods of neglect and poverty. I did. When I left a 20—year career in the Coast Guard tobecome a freelance writer, I had no prospects at all.

　　What I did have was a friend with whom I'd grown up in Henning, Tennessee. George found memy home —a cleaned—out storage room in the Greenwich Village apartment building where heworked as superintendent. It didn't even matter that it was cold and had no bathroom. Immediately I bought a used manual typewriter and felt like a genuine writer. After a yearor so, however, I still hadn't received a break and began to doubt myself. It was so hard to sella story that I barely made enough to eat. But I knew I wanted to write. I had dreamed about itfor years. I wasn't going to be one of those people who die wondering, "What if?" I would keepputting my dream to the test — even though it meant living with uncertainty and fear offailure. This is the Shadowland of hope, and anyone with a dream must learn to live there.