Kill Two Birds With One Stone

Alright, so you're a Creative Writing major, yet you have no idea how you're going to put food on the table once you leave school, right? You want to write - it's in your blood. But you are a realist; you know it's tough to get noticed in the publishing world. And you need to put food on the table, right?

Why not start a career in the publishing world? I had this "epiphany" when I was reading the June 2010 publication of Poets & Writers' Magazine. They have so much information about the publishing world - anything from how to be a better literary agent to listings of different writing contests you can use to get your name out there and possibly make some cash. I want to know the publishing world, inside and out (and I'm only a college student - I know I've got a long way to go). So, why not kill two birds with one stone and get your name out there as a literary agent, or an editor. That way, you've already begun networking in the publishing world. You know who to go to when you want to get published. 

If you think it's a cut- throat business and the hours are long, you're right. So then you are probably wondering when you'd have time to write. You learn how to write a paragraph/stanza during your lunch break. Jot down a couple lines/ a killer attention grabber while you're on the phone with your boss (what they don't know won't hurt them). 

I'm reading a book for my Hebrew Scriptures class, "The Year of Living Biblically" by A.J. Jacobs (It's a hilarious book - highly recommend it). He has to live the Bible LITERALLY for a year. So yes, he goes around and stones adulterers (No worries - no one actually gets hurt too badly), wears tassels on the ends of his shirt sleeves, and even contemplates polygamy for a few paragraphs before he realizes his current wife wouldn't let him be 'fruitful and multiply' as the bible tells him to - if he went and got a second wife. Anyway, he walks around looking like a hobo - for an entire year - and still holds down a job as a writer for Esquire magazine. If he can do it, so can you. 

Like I said before, the publishing industry is a cut- throat business. In my opinion - if you want to make it as a writer - that's all the more reason to want "insider information."