Five Years? Really?

My wife and I had one of those talks this weekend...where do you see yourself in five years/ten years, etc? These sort of questions were all the rage when I was younger and ambition possessed me, but now, in my mid-thirties with two kids chalked up to my fuselage (yes, that was a nod to the late, great John Updike), I just don't know.

In my "day job" I suspect I'll be teaching in another five years. Possibly ten. Maybe I'll have taken a post as a school guidance counselor by then (I have the license).

The real question, I suspect, is where will I be as a writer in five or ten years.

*ulp*

I don't have the foggiest. I keep plugging along, one story at a time, trying to work on my "craft", trying to churn out a better story each time I write. Sometimes it works; other times it doesn't. I haven't queried an agent about a novel for about a year. Yes, I have some books pending release into the wild and that's thrilling as hell.

But five years from now?

I couldn't have predicted what I'd be writing three years ago, let alone I'd still be writing. They were dark times, see, and I flirted with "literary" for a while. Flirted, and was shot down when I realized I didn't have the pedigree or patience. Now I tell stories no one believes could happen. (That's the trick, of course. Making the unbelievable salient enough to capture a reader.)

So five years from now?

Still writing, I hope. Still telling stories. I told my wife I feel successful if one person I don't know reads a story I've written. A small victory. A tiny one. But still a victory.

Here's to another thirty years of making sh*t up and telling other people about it.

What about you, dear readers? What's "the dream"?