Young Gun for Hire Looking for Advice From Old Hands

El Sol has made the best first impression of anybody in the 3 or 4 years I've been around here.

 

Sol,

Do no waste your time going back and getting a journalism degree. A creative writing degree is fine. You just need experience.

Might need to move to find a job at a smaller paper, though.

 

Never work for free. If you work for free you are telling the editor your work has no value.

 

Sounds like you've got a good head on your shoulders, El_Sol. That, ambition, and perseverance will take you a long way. Just make sure you love this work. If you do, then go for it.

 

Call local community papers, offer to write for free and work a job to support yourself. When I got out of college I reached out to my local community paper and wrote some news for awhile. When a sports editor position opened up at the paper, I applied and made the case that they knew I could write, knew I could make deadline and lived in the area. Got the job and been working in sports journalism ever since.

Try it.

 

I'm not saying this to be harsh, so I apologize if it comes off that way. But if I were you, I'd spend some time sharpening your grammar skills. I know it's just a forum, so perhaps that explains it, but there are a handful of mistakes in your posts. As an editor, I'm looking for freelancers who produce clean and concise copy. If somebody turns in work with a lot of spelling or grammatical errors, I won't use them again. There are far too many clean, hard-working and talented writers looking for work to accept raw copy.

Also, and more importantly, listen to the moderator. His advice is golden. You need to be able to do it all.

 

Just in case it wasn't clear: I don't think this board's consensus advice is *ever* to go back to school to get a journalism degree.

 

Find a spouse who understands she will be the breadwinner and your job will entail long hours, weird days, missed holidays-events-birthdays-anniversaries, furloughs, layoffs, pay reductions, long nights and other non-8 to 5 'regular' job days before getting marriedto support you.

 

This has been in my head all day and I couldn't figure out why. It hit me a little while ago. Almost all (and I mean 99%) of the games I cover don't have wireless access. Our paper is just getting into this stuff, so what do you suggest for someone who wants to make an impression but is somewhat technologically limited by the facilities that they go to, not their own knowledge?