Hi, Everyone!
You’ll notice that I did not call you by your title for this letter. Right now I’d like to talk to you as Tahani rather than Faoii-Tahani. And I’d like to talk to readers, writers, dreamers...people, rather than battle-hardened warriors. Because life is lovely and you tend to forget that when you face everything head-on and march through life like a battlefield. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to your order-giving leader for the next missive. This fight isn’t over.
A lot of people have been asking me lately what I plan to do if The Last Faoii is a "success." At first I wasn’t sure how to respond, since just getting Faoii into the hands of other people was all the success I could ever hope for. I eventually realized that people mean "financial success." And, while I’ve tried to steer clear of this question because, somehow, admitting my dream makes it more "real" and more of a tragedy should I fail, I also realize that we all have dreams. And we’re more likely to help others reach them if we know that they exist.
So here you go: If The Last Faoii succeeds, I want to make it so other people can get an education without jumping through the deplorable hoops that I had to jump through just in the name of "bettering myself."
I fought tooth and nail to go to college. I worked full-time during the school year and took on an additional job during the summers just to get by. I scrounged and saved every dime I could. I lived in my car. I nearly ran myself into the ground several times. But I made it.
All of that work, and I kind of thought that karma would look out for me, but I still have a debt that will probably follow me until I die. And it’s a terrible, aching feeling that has pushed me past the limits of depression on several occasions. But, by some miracle I’m still around today, and I can’t see that as a failure. I’ve also learned to admit that, in many ways, the cloud of student loan debt ruined my life in more ways than college improved it. I want to save others from that feeling.
I want to do whatever I can to make it so another person doesn’t have to face this burden just for the opportunity to better themselves. If you all deem The Last Faoii worthy of success, I want to sponsor students from low-income areas when they start Kindergarten. I want to be able to tell them that if they make it all the way through high school and graduate with a B average, I will pay for their college. Because they earned that. And if they can make it that far when they came from nothing then they deserve to build themselves into something better than the cycle they were cast into. I want to help make that happen.
Part of me knows that it’s silly to have such grand dreams when I haven’t even reached enough readers to qualify for select publishing. That these are the childish scribbles of a toddler dreaming of being a god. But the rest of me lives by the saying "use what you have to make the world better." I don’t have a lot of skills, but I can write. And if I can find a way to use that in order to make the world a better place, then I will do it.
I just need your help.
Keep dreaming, friends. There are always futures worth living.
T
