If My Career Was a Chimera...

For those of you who aren't familiar with the term chimera, here's a definition from Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online:
1 a capitalized : a fire-breathing she-monster in Greek mythology having a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail
   b an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts
2 : an illusion or fabrication of the mind; especially : an unrealizable dream
3 : an individual, organ, or part consisting of tissues of diverse genetic construction

Now, I would imagine that many of you are familiar with the first definition -- the classic image of the tripartite creature in Greek mythology. What some of you might not realize is that the definition of the monstrous chimera has expanded to incorporate sub-point b up there, which includes all manner of conglomerated creatures resulting from the fusion of two otherwise normal animals. Fantasy gaming is full of these, ranging from the owlbear to the duckbunny. (Avatar: The Last Airbender is particularly fond of this, to the point where every animal in the entire series is either over-sized or cross-bred.)

The most interesting and applicable element of this definition, however (and the one that I didn't know about), is the second definition: "an unrealizable dream." That's fantastic, though I doubt I'm ever going to use it in conversation that way.

Now, getting back around to the title, if my writing career was a chimera (both in the sense of a thrown-together construction of many other parts and  in the sense of "an unrealizable dream"), I would like it to have...