Two people wrote advice to young journalists, one at Fusion and one at Vox. I don’t have anything to say about either of those offerings, though there are plenty of opinions to be found on Twitter.
In general, people love giving advice. It allows us to feel wise. It allows us to feel like we are effecting change, if even in only one person. It can also be satisfying to say, “This is what I have learned,” or you can be the killer of dreams when someone is too bright-eyed and eager and you’re experienced and cynical and it is uncomfortable to face just how cynical you have become.
Writers, or really anyone in any profession who achieves some modicum of success is regularly asked for advice. We are asked: how do I get started? How do I get published? How do I get noticed? How do I persevere in the face of rejection or failure or silence? How do I get what I think you have? How do I get everything I have ever wanted?
We will answer these questions in a variety of ways, but the truth is, there’s nothing definitive we can offer you. How do you succeed as a writer? How do you succeed in any field? Most of us have no idea. The advice we offer is well-intended but there is no definitive secret to anyone’s success.
Sometimes success is just getting by.
I don’t really know how I’ve succeeded, such as the case may be. Last year I had a good year but it might be my only good year. You never know. I would be lying if I could offer you a specific course of action. I do know I work my ass off. I have been ambitious and I have been relentless and I have been lucky and I have been defeated and I have been inspired and invigorated. I know that I didn’t wait for anyone to give me permission to be a writer. I wrote and I write because I want to and I love it.
You don’t need permission to be a journalist or a writer or a doctor or a dancer or whatever it is you want to be. There will always be people who are cynical or “realistic” and who tell you that it is no longer for possible for you to have your dream job. You can listen to those people if you want. They might be right.
What if they are wrong?
Be what you want to be. If you really love what you want to be, don’t let yourself be dissuaded by anyone. Put in the work. Don’t believe in conspiracy theories but believe in conspiracy theories. Common sense goes a long way. Ask questions and actually listen to the answers you receive. Be willing to fail because sometimes, you are going to fail. Be willing to succeed and know that success is fucking terrifying.
Either things are going to work out or they won’t. That’s life. That’s how to be alive.
Tags: advice, how to be a writer, how to be alive, how to succeed
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Don’t ask permission, yes, so true.
“you can be the killer of dreams when someone is too bright-eyed and eager and you’re experienced and cynical”
I’ve pretty much adopted this role. FYI, I’m willing to make a personal phone call (on my own nickel) to anyone, anywhere in the US to talk them out of going to law school. I consider it part of my pro bono service.
I think I need this talk, please.
Is there direct messaging on this site? Let me start with a general NOOOOOOOO DON’T DO IT NOOOOOOOOOO
1) Consider how much debt you will take on (if you are not independently wealthy);
2) Consider the opportunity cost of spending 3 years in law school;
3) Consider the stats on job openings for lawyers versus the number of JDs being minted by law schools;
4) Consider the ranking of the best school you get into (but do not believe their stats on % of their graduates with jobs or the $ made by those graduates).
For example, an acquaintance of mine incurred over $100k in debt and spent her mid 20s in school, graduated in the top 10% of her class from a law school usually ranked around 21-23 in US News, but two years out of law school was working at the insurance defense firm I work at making no more than $85k/year. If that sounds good, then go for it! Have fun! Make money! But if it doesn’t, don’t go just because you parents want you to or you’re not sure what else to do.
All excellent points! In addition to the personal phone call, I’m willing to fax over a copy of my horrific student loan repayment schedule.
Those job placement statistics are indeed incredibly misleading. Most of them are based on surveys and self-reporting (i.e., people with secure and highly-paid associate positions are the most likely to respond)– they don’t make much effort to track down grads who are unemployed or working in non-legal positions. Also, a number of law schools now “hire” their own graduates for a few months after graduation to massage their placement rates.
$85K/ year is pretty optimistic– I know plenty of law grads making $30-40K (*if* they have a job at all), which is extremely tough if you’re trying to repay $1,000+/ month in student loans. The legal job market has contracted significantly in the last few years, and even the short-term, $15/hour document review jobs that sustained me for a while after I graduated are drying up now.
The *only* people I’d advise to go to law school these days are: (1) the ones who’ve dreamed about being lawyers for their entire lives, and who will never be happy doing anything else (and then, only with a realistic financial plan in place), or (2) people with strong STEM or finance backgrounds who can do IP/ patent or tax law (where there are actually some good jobs available).
Have you worked in the legal field before? If so, and you still want to be a lawyer, consider either a) going to school part-time and working full-time OR b) working part time and going to school full time. (Law schools discourage full-time law students from working more than 10-15 hours their first semester. That being said, if you can swing it, do.) And if at all possible, go to a state school where you can pay the in-state tuition rate UNLESS you can get into, like, a top 15. Do not believe the “we’ll give you a scholarship, but you’ll have to maintain X GPA” from tier two schools; I went to one and what they do is give out so many of these scholarships and require a GPA such that the mandatory curve of all first-year classes makes it impossible for all the students who received a scholarship their first year to maintain the required GPA for their second year.
Also, if people have told you “oh, with your undergraduate background you could totally do Y field of law”, double-check this. (It turns out the USPTO does not consider mathematics a “hard science”. You have to get a certain number of credit hours in other subjects to qualify for the patent bar.)
“Sometimes success is just getting by,” is so true.
I don’t have any moonshot dreams (I work in a field artsy types tend to sneer at) but I have friends who do.
One of my friends from college wants to be a screenwriter. She was already writing scripts back then. She sent out a lot of them, received a lot of rejection letters in return, then moved on to her next project: a novel. She wrote the novel, published it, and recently, a studio bought the rights to that novel.
(Who knows if they’ll make it, but she’s a heck of a lot closer than her competition to seeing her work on the big screen.)
Call me a cynic, but if you really want to succeed in a field like that, just do it. No advice, no encouragement, nothing but burning the midnight oil.
(I am warm and cuddly and very fun at parties.)
But it’s also ok to have a limit. It’s OK to say that it’s too hard, and that three years or five years or ten years or however long of seventy hour weeks of a minimum wage job plus a second shift of writing (or dancing, or acting, or whatever your thing is) is enough. It’s OK to decide that actually you want stability or a family or a deposit for a house or whatever it might be that you can’t get whilst you’re shooting for the super-competitive career, and to take yourself out of the race and do something less glamorous instead. You’re allowed to decide where your limit is and what your priorities are.
Loving this comment, and loving the overall direction this thread has taken. I would add that a lot of people in hypercompetitive careers underestimate the level of challenge still present in “less glamorous” fields.
It’s frustrating to listen to friends with moonshot dreams (see above comment) say things like, “Well, if [underwater basket weaving] doesn’t work out, I can just do what you do.” …. Not that simple, folks! It actually took me several years to get out of entry level hell and achieve STABILITY in my supposedly easy-peasy unglamorous field.
Either things are going to work out or they won’t. That’s life. That’s how to be alive.
This is a very comforting thought to me, and has helped me a lot!
But how much failure is too much?
–she asks, as she works on test corrections for a physics class she’s taking for the third time, for which she’s paying a lot of money she doesn’t have, so she can finish a degree in biology (which, it turns out, she’s not actually very good at), all so she can maybe do something that’ll make a difference someday.
I like a quotation from Frederick Buecher that says your calling is where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. There are lots of ways to make a difference, maybe yours doesn’t involve physics? I admire your tenacity though.
Tangentially, Roxane’s photo always me think she’s a priest. (This isn’t a criticism.)
Ok, I’m going to be a bit of a negative nelly for second.
Some people don’t have “dream jobs” and that’s ok. I, for example, never had a “dream job” past the age of, say, 12, when I decided I did not, in fact, want to be Jane Goodall. I really like my job now (sometimes) and it suits me in lots of ways. I do have things that are really important to me, like a job that is mentally stimulating, gets me in contact with people, and provides a certain amount of financial freedom, but I did not “dream” of doing it. I have made a lot of choices along the way, and continue to, to try to carve out something in the world for myself.
I wish that someone had talked to me about this a long time ago, because for a really long time I thought that one day I would develop a “dream job”. But I never did, and ended up in law school, and I think I could in fact have had a job that suits me and the things that are important to me BETTER, and have a lot less crippling debt now.
There are so many jobs out that that you don’t know about until you have them, or work close to them. People generally don’t dream about those jobs (the ones that aren’t, say, pictured on TV). But they are good jobs, good careers, if well chosen, and can be the basis on which you build a dream life, full of the hobbies and relationships and what have you that together are what you want.
The “follow your dream” rhetoric did me a huge disservice. I’m here to say that’s it’s ok not have a dream, but a vague set of relatively unglamorous wants for your life.
Yeah, but on the other side of things, I never got any “follow your dreams” advice. This is because I grew up working class and couldn’t afford college. It took me a good several years and a bunch of defiance to follow my dreams and go to college even though debt is stupid and probably I’ll be stuck making 10 dollars an hour forever if I ever even get a job.
YO I’m sorry you never got that advice. Follow your dream! If you have one GO ON AND FOLLOW IT.
For those of us who don’t have one, let’s get cracking and make one up.
It sounds like what you’d really like is more awareness of alternate career paths — the ones you don’t see on TV or glamorized anywhere — and I am all for that! I think there must be a lot of things out there that would give me a better sense of purpose than my current job, even while I have my dream and am working toward it too.
My point is I don’t think that goal is at odds with the “follow your dream” rhetoric. It’s perfectly fine not to ever have a “dream job” like the ones under discussion here — but *everyone* ought to know about the wide array of things you *can* do with your life that won’t be soul-sucking, and that will leave you with enough time and energy outside those work hours to pursue whatever the hell you want, be it that novel or family time.
I think you are totally right that more information about career paths would be amazing, for all sorts of people!
I do think that I legitimately mean to critique the overwhelming presence of the “follow your dream” rhetoric that I have experienced in my life. And I completely see that it is a position of huge privilege (as pointed out by OliviaPJones). I didn’t have to dream or work hard to go to university, it was just the expected result of my upbringing. But I do think that the notion that every person has a pre-conceived “dream” that they should “follow” was damaging, for me.
For me, a notion of “follow what you are good at” and “search out things that are consistent with your values and keep working on those things” and “seek out advice and support and maybe ask someone else what you should be doing with your life” might have helped me develop a better life. Like, if I don’t have some kind of dream – to be a writer, or a doctor, or whatever, what am I supposed to follow? Nothing! There’s nothing to follow! And that whole thing made me feel really worthless and kind of empty, when I am not those things. It made me feel really aimless. Nobody ever told me that I had to actively create and develop the “dream”. The dream was some kind of given. I should have a dream, and if I would only follow it, it would work out. But I didn’t have a dream to follow, and I thought I was deficient for not having one.
My boyfriend, for what it’s worth, feels really similar. I think we were both really smart kids for whom a lot of things came really naturally, and who liked a bunch of things but never had some kind of drive to do one thing in particular. And everyone kept saying to us “do whatever you want to do!” What I WANT to do is drink rose and read books and stuff. I do know that I really need and enjoy having a career that makes me go beyond those things. And I found it! But I think I would have made more mindful choices if I had understood earlier that dreams are choices, they are not necessarily all-consuming drives towards your essential being.
I mean, wah wah, that’s my failing, I’m a smart privileged person who is a bit aimless, it’s nothing new.
Oof, I see what you’re saying. Thank you for explaining — I didn’t mean to dismiss your experience.
I agree.
I certainly don’t think it’s right that kids feel limited in their educational or career options just because of their family income, where they grew up, etc. That is a horrible waste of human potential.
But, statistically speaking, the vast majority of jobs available are not what most people would consider “dream jobs”– there are only so many people who can actually work as doctors, astronauts, Parisian cafe owners, etc., and make a living at it. Only so many artists and writers can realistically make a living, without having some kind of side job(s).
And most people (in my experience, at least) don’t really have those kinds of grand aspirations. They just want to make enough money to have some stability in their lives and not have to worry constantly about bills, and enough free time to spend doing things outside of work (hanging out with friends, etc.) A lot of people don’t really care that much *what* they do, as long as they have those basic things. The idea that everyone MUST have some sort of dream job is pretty ridiculous, and I also heard a lot of that rhetoric growing up. It does kind of imply that there’s something wrong with you if you *don’t* aspire to be an astronaut or a famous artist, etc., and that you’re a quitter if you don’t pursue that kind of career.
When I was a kid, I certainly never dreamed of spending my days immersed in electronic health records, Medicare regulations, and medical coding (which is what I do now for a living). But I generally enjoy it, it allows me enough to live on more or less comfortably, and gives me enough free time to spend with my family (and reading The Toast!) Most of my friends and family have similar types of jobs (e.g., office workers, technicians, customer service reps, etc.), and I’d say we’re pretty happy overall.
(Reply to both you and OliviaPJones.)
Possibly the worst of both worlds: being a working or lower middle class kid punching above your weight in a largely upper middle class school district. At school you get the “follow your dreams” spiel, and at home you hear, “Have you thought about a trade/ clerical or administrative work?”
Bonus points if the home recommendation is the same exact thing a parent does (grandparent did, etc), or an occupation ONLY perceived as high-status by the tiny geographic/socioeconomic clique your family moves in.
Oops, this thread is starting to veer into therapy territory for me … Sorry everyone!
Lately I have been starting to tell people when they aren’t allowed to give me advice, and it’s been amazing. I have some friends who really kill my joy, and I have started to say, “I”m all set thanks. I’ve done my research. No I won’t read that article. Thank you, but lets talk about something else, I’m tired from thinking about it.”
Asking for advice can be amazing and helpful and expose you to a multitude of ways to approach things. But it can also open up whole veins of dictatorial condescion in friends and loved ones, and sometimes people mistake your willingness to hear what they would do in a situation you face with your right to not do what they would do.
I love this and would like to employ it!
Most of the advice I’ve gotten over the years has been the opposite of helpful.
Me: I’m going to transfer from the community college I’ve been going to to [small private women’s college]. I did my research, and I can afford it, between scholarships, loans and my job. I know it will mean some debt, but I think that the salary difference between B.A. and no degree is large enough that I’ll be able to pay those loans off within five to ten years. Plus, I want to.
Mom: You should probably just work there.
Oh man, I’m so sorry she discouraged you. 🙁 You really did do your research, and you deserve a chance at this goal!
Ooof, I’m sorry you have those kinds of friends. :/ I hope they’re better in other ways.
Thank you — that’s a much better response than the Vox piece, in my opinion (the Vox piece is more practical, but it doesn’t address the “but what if I can’t make a living doing this, ever” issue, and I think yours does a better job of facing that unknown).
It's been really hard for me the past couple of years to realize this. I started my first full-time job after grad school and realized they would help pay for continuing education and felt like I had to take advantage of it. I earned a certificate with four graduate-level academic classes while working full-time, during which I managed to: develop new food sensitivities (and accompanying migraines), start having panic attacks, have the skin of my hands start to peel off, lose endless hours of sleep, and develop severe eye strain/inflammation, along with other assorted pains/rashes/paranoia-induced doctor visits (and the attendant costs). There is so much pressure to just grab onto any form of further achievement that we can, but I've definitely realized that I have very set limits if I want to keep any kind of physical and mental stability.