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Post by rrm15 on Nov 17, 2009 20:16:03 GMT -5
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Post by rrm15 on Nov 18, 2009 1:48:54 GMT -5
Guess I'm just a lost cause.  |
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Post by rrm15 on Nov 18, 2009 2:32:10 GMT -5
I've been doing a lot of feature writing and my concentration for my degree is professional writing. Soooo..somewhere in there.
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Post by Dynamite Kid on Nov 18, 2009 6:26:48 GMT -5
Okay, I'm going to tell you what they're telling me right now during my journalism degree.
The industry is f***ed and there are no jobs. Learn to do EVERYTHING, or you won't get employed to do anything. That is video, writing, photos, blogging, twitter, everything.
No one will hire you as a 'writer.'
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Dave at the Movies
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
VINTAGE D-DAY DAVE! Always cranking dat thing.
Posts: 18,228
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Post by Dave at the Movies on Nov 18, 2009 6:50:53 GMT -5
Being a writer is not a very secure job. Never really was unless you got lucky or are just really good at it. Even before newspapers started failing it is a hard job to keep down sort of similar like in other media jobs mostly like radio. In radio you usually move around a lot and have to go where the jobs are. Writing is a bit better.
Being a writer for a magazine or newspaper is not your best bet. They are industries that are failing very fast. I would say start a blog and research websites that hire writers but be careful not to waste your time on websites that just want writers to write for free. Those types of sites usually make money off good writers who don't know what they are getting into.
Saying all that though I say go for it no matter what if that is what you really want to do. People get the fantasy that if they go to college and get a degree they will get a job easily but that is really starting to change. Less emphasis is being put on degrees due to education going down the tube in most countries.(It use to be just the U.S. but even place like England and France are really starting to struggle.)
I myself want to get into writing short stories(not easy to get published due to there not being very many magazines anymore) and novels. One good piece of advice I could give you is to not let yourself stop writing for more than two days. If you want to get really really good at writing you can't learn how to do it in a class room. Practice is the key.
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Post by rrm15 on Nov 18, 2009 11:55:29 GMT -5
Thanks for the tips guys, and I am looking into starting up a blog soon. Any recommended sites to use for it?
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Post by Red Impact on Nov 18, 2009 12:02:18 GMT -5
I'm a writer. Pretty much, if you want to get into it, you have to be flexible. You don't get to pick and choose your position, especially in this environment. There are still jobs out there, but the competition is fierce, and you need to be able to do other things in addition to writing for print (and web), like shoot photos and video.
What you want to write isn't something you really get to choose, if you work for a newspaper you'll be writing things you don't want to write. So write about everything you can while you can. Don't stick with soft news (features and stuff). While you can, get experience writing about education, government, crime, sports and all those sorts of things. Get a column and learn how to come up and write new topics. Being well rounded is the most important thing.
I wanted to be a features writer, the only job I could get was doing obits for the first year. Now I'm on the police beat.
If you want an internship, apply early and follow up. Get a portfolio together and read up about the place you are interviewing for.
Finally, read. A lot. And everything. Read other newspapers and news web-sites, read books, magazines, just about anything you can. Actually read it, rather than skim it, and look at style and length and how clear they write it or not. This will not only help with ideas (whether you want to do fiction, non-fiction, or whatever), it will let you see just how all things are written, how they are edited together, and what that says for the story.
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