I'd move into a seedy thirty-dollar roadside motel on the outskirts of town, and spend my days working odd jobs, observing the people, immersing myself in down-home southern culture.

After a hard day of washing dishes or pumping gasoline or shining shoes, I'd retire to my tiny room with the peeling wallpaper and the rusty, clanging plumbing fixtures. I'd spend leisurely evenings sitting there on the hard bed, with my guitar on my lap, a spiral-bound notebook by my side. While the neon sign outside blinked and hummed in the twilight, I'd write songs about the people and the events I'd seen that day. I'd write about lonely waitresses, long-distance truckers, faithful dogs, love gone wrong, clock-punching working men, dirt roads, grits, love gone wrong then gone right again, white picket fences, Baptist churches, NASCAR races, Waffle Houses, and love gone wrong that for some reason seems to feel so right.

Then, after a while, I'd start haunting the Bluebird Cafe - because everybody knows that's where aspiring country singers go to cut their teeth. I'd drop by on open-mike night, and I'd approach the guy with the clipboard. "I was wondering if you had a spot open," I'd say to him, my guitar case slung across my back.

"Sure," he'd say in a drip-thick accent, looking me up and down. "What's your name, son?"

"Kyle," I'd reply. "Kyle... umm, Kyle West."

Then he'd scribble something down. "OK, Kyle West," he'd tell me. "You're on ninth, right after Rosemarie Johnson. You got two songs, and that's it."

Those first few weeks at the Bluebird Cafe would be rough. I'd always get the same type of response when I'd ask for feedback, when I'd beg people to tell me what they thought of my performances. "To tell you the truth, son, I'm not really sure," they'd reply. "I didn't really understand what you were trying to say there."

Yes, constant rejection would be a cruel teacher. And so I'd learn the hard way that if I wanted to be a country singer, I'd have to seriously modify my approach to songwriting.

First, I'd remove the stuffy, nasal New England accent from my vocal delivery. Then I'd edit my seven-verse songs down to three, exchange the ten-dollar words they taught me in college for common dimestore ones. Lastly, I'd sacrifice the subtle scholarly references that I'd secretly hoped would become my trademark. Yes, those would be the hardest to let go of. My song "Interstate Sisyphus", with the line "Rolling thunder baby, forty tons/Don't miscalculate that equilibrium", would end up a painful casualty of this difficult, difficult process.

Over time, I would learn how to wrap powerful emotions around humble phrases, stretch simple tales across a standard verse-chorus-bridge structure and modest G-C-D progressions, craft the type of melodic hooks that lodge themselves in people's heads for weeks on end.

To be sure, my skill and power would easily soar past that of the younger aspirants, those struggling sadly to meld rhyme and melody with cogent narrative. While they'd furtively pick at their guitars, trying to summon songs up from dust and scratch, my songs - no, my masterpieces - would emerge, fully formed, like wondrous statues carved from great blocks of thick marble.

Then, one glorious Saturday evening, I'd make my ascent to the stage of the Ryman Auditorium, to play my songs at the world-famous Grand Ole Opry - because everybody knows that's where the successful country singers go to showcase their talents. Ahhh, what a night that would be. The host would introduce me: "Please give a warm Opryland welcome to a fantastic new songwriter on the scene... Kyle West! Take it away, Kyle!"

With a sextet of talented Nashville session musicians as a backup band, I'd play my guitar softly and sing of longing, loss, hope and redemption. Yes, I'd empty my very heart and soul into the microphone. And my impeccably-turned melodies would travel through the wires, out to the families gathered around radios tuned to 650 WSM, out to a nationwide audience watching on Country Music Television, out through countless raised cell phones in the audience belonging to agents, scouts and record company executives.

After the plantative last chords had been strummed, the last notes echoing outward into the humid Tennessee night, the crowd would rise up out of their seats - as one - to offer me a prolonged standing ovation, a joyful outpouring that would reverberate through the wooden walls. And then, as I'd tip my cowboy hat and smile, I would know in my heart that my ultimate dream had been achieved.

I would be... the country singer.