I suppose until recently the delusion about writing has been that it can serve as a relatively sustainable career. Write some stuff, people read that same stuff, then they want you to write more of it, and somehow money shows up as a result. The process for someone who wants to be a 'writer' by profession is kind of mysterious and I guess we like to keep it that way as a method of tricking ourselves into thinking its going to be easy.
As optimistic as the "Glossary of Writing Careers" was because it displayed a wide range of work for a typically work-desperate demographic, its also sobering to realize that these jobs are rare and competitive. A writer can't just walk into a full time position like the ones listed and make a living from it. Gaining that readership, that fanbase, that steady stream of reasons to keep writing is difficult and that's where the Huffington Post's "7 Authors Who Worked On the Side" factors in.
As someone who has no desire to be a librarian or a teacher, those options wouldn't really stick out to me because I couldn't do them passionately and, to me, there's no real point in taking a position in which you know you won't be fully invested. It would be unfair to both yourself and any other potential workers who might have wanted to be librarians or teachers for their entire lives. But I also speak as someone who's worked a minimum wage job at Target for quite some time, and while it wasn't terrible, it's also the same sort of situation where working at Target isn't necessarily something that fills me with passion or fulfills a lifetime dream. While it might for some people, I aspire to different things.
Even though "Ranking the Writing Programs Best for You" deals, obviously, with the ranking of writing programs, it also exhibits the greatest amount of belief in personal choice and individual fulfillment of any of the articles we've read this semester thus far. Apart from advising potential students on the merits of different programs, it places a heavy emphasis on the idea that the individual is the one who makes the choice, that the personality of the writer themselves makes the decision and that the decision itself isn't always a concrete one. Sometimes it isn't MA or MFA, sometimes its a matter of 'Why either, for me, right now?' and it was good to see that sort of humanistic approach to the field, because that's what we're raised on. We're raised, as writers, to believe in the merits of choice and personality, and humanism.
As optimistic as the "Glossary of Writing Careers" was because it displayed a wide range of work for a typically work-desperate demographic, its also sobering to realize that these jobs are rare and competitive. A writer can't just walk into a full time position like the ones listed and make a living from it. Gaining that readership, that fanbase, that steady stream of reasons to keep writing is difficult and that's where the Huffington Post's "7 Authors Who Worked On the Side" factors in.
As someone who has no desire to be a librarian or a teacher, those options wouldn't really stick out to me because I couldn't do them passionately and, to me, there's no real point in taking a position in which you know you won't be fully invested. It would be unfair to both yourself and any other potential workers who might have wanted to be librarians or teachers for their entire lives. But I also speak as someone who's worked a minimum wage job at Target for quite some time, and while it wasn't terrible, it's also the same sort of situation where working at Target isn't necessarily something that fills me with passion or fulfills a lifetime dream. While it might for some people, I aspire to different things.
Even though "Ranking the Writing Programs Best for You" deals, obviously, with the ranking of writing programs, it also exhibits the greatest amount of belief in personal choice and individual fulfillment of any of the articles we've read this semester thus far. Apart from advising potential students on the merits of different programs, it places a heavy emphasis on the idea that the individual is the one who makes the choice, that the personality of the writer themselves makes the decision and that the decision itself isn't always a concrete one. Sometimes it isn't MA or MFA, sometimes its a matter of 'Why either, for me, right now?' and it was good to see that sort of humanistic approach to the field, because that's what we're raised on. We're raised, as writers, to believe in the merits of choice and personality, and humanism.
RSS Feed