What does this passage want to tell us?

Many a young person tells me he wants to be a writer. I always encourage such people, but l also explain that there’s a big difference between "being a writer" and writing. In most cases they are dreaming of wealth and fame, not the long hours alone at a typewriter. "you’ve got to want to write," I say to them, "not want to be a writer."
     The reality is that writing is a lonely, private and poor-paying affair. For every writer kissed by fortune there are thousands more whose works is never rewarded. When I left a 20year career in U.S. Coast Guard to become a freelance writer, I had no prospects at all. What ! did have was a friend who found me my room in a New York apartment building, it didn’t even matter that it was cold and had no bathroom. I immediately bought a used typewriter and felt like a good writer.
     After a year I still hadn’t got a break and began to doubt myself. It was so hard to sell a story that barely made enough to eat. But I knew I wanted to write I had dreaded about it for years. I wasn’t going to be one of those people who die wondering, what if?. I would keep putting my dream to the test-even though it meant living with uncertainty and fear of failure. This is the Shadow land of hope, and anyone with a dream must learn to live there.