I was looking at the 2009 Time 100 and saw that one of the most influential people in the world is a children’s book writer. Jeff Kinney is the author/illustrator of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. These books are hilarious. But what I love about this writer/illustrator is that he still has a day job. I have a certain affinity to writers with day jobs. Sometimes it can be SO hard to balance paying the bills and pursuing your dream. And sometimes that dream doesn’t come right away.

Kinney wanted to become a newspaper cartoonist but after several rejections, he decided to try something different. And that wasn’t an overnight success either. This is what he said about the journey to his first published book:

From the time I started until the book came out in print, it was nine years. I spent about four years just generating ideas, and another four years writing and illustrating the story. Then it took about a year to get it into print.

For some reason, this artist’s long journey makes me even more hopeful. If you really want to see a dream to fruition, you have to keep believing and keep trying and when you hit roadblocks, try a different strategy. Jeff Kinney wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist, when that didn’t work, he didn’t stop. He just changed up the goals and kept it moving. A great story of an artist who preserved.

You can read the Time 100 profile here.