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[WICKES]

I'm looking for some advice. I live in the UK and have graduated from a mid table University with a 2:1 in Literature and Modern History. I may become a teacher or social worker, I don't know. Whatever I do I have a compulsion to write. I have tried my hand at fiction, but I'm just no good. I don't want (or hope) to be a full-time writer, but I would like to write in my spare time. Can you be a part time freelance writer? A part time freelance journalist? What should someone like me write about? Who could I write for? I love the world of ideas: philosophy, literature, history (any period), psychoanalysis etc etc. Above all I love language.

Intellectually I'm pretty average, though I was often told I wrote well. Of course, what I'd like to do is spend a lifetime studying and writing books and articles on whatever took my fancy (who on here wouldn't :frown5: ), especially on history. People love to say brutal, stupid things like "welcome to the real world" (why do people take such pleasure in the thought of you being disappointed, frustrated and unfulfilled?), but that's not fair. I know you have to earn a living and I don't expect to be a rich and famous writer. I just crave a creative outlet. I did once do work experience on a local newspaper which was enough to put me off journalism as a career. The people were ambitious alright, yet ignorant, with no interest in writing as a craft, as something to perfect.

The life of an academic puzzles me. Outside of lecturing what does an academic do? How does a lecturer in Medieval History or literature earn his pay? Do they write for magazines? for Journals? Can anyone have a go at writing for them?

[kelby_lake]

I'm looking for some advice. I live in the UK and have graduated from a mid table University with a 2:1 in Literature and Modern History. I may become a teacher or social worker, I don't know. Whatever I do I have a compulsion to write. I have tried my hand at fiction, but I'm just no good. I don't want (or hope) to be a full-time writer, but I would like to write in my spare time. Can you be a part time freelance writer? A part time freelance journalist? What should someone like me write about? Who could I write for? I love the world of ideas: philosophy, literature, history (any period), psychoanalysis etc etc. Above all I love language.

Intellectually I'm pretty average, though I was often told I wrote well. Of course, what I'd like to do is spend a lifetime studying and writing books and articles on whatever took my fancy (who on here wouldn't :frown5: ), especially on history. People love to say brutal, stupid things like "welcome to the real world" (why do people take such pleasure in the thought of you being disappointed, frustrated and unfulfilled?), but that's not fair. I know you have to earn a living and I don't expect to be a rich and famous writer. I just crave a creative outlet. I did once do work experience on a local newspaper which was enough to put me off journalism as a career. The people were ambitious alright, yet ignorant, with no interest in writing as a craft, as something to perfect.

The life of an academic puzzles me. Outside of lecturing what does an academic do? How does a lecturer in Medieval History or literature earn his pay? Do they write for magazines? for Journals? Can anyone have a go at writing for them?

I believe most freelancing stuff is part time, but I don't really know. Which uni is it, out of interest?

[Emil Miller]

The problem is that there are too many people with similar ambitions and not enough positions for them. It has probably been the case since the advent of mass literacy. You are the second person I have experienced who couldn't stand working in local journalism; the first was a Cambridge graduate who, like yourself, quickly became disillusioned. As for academics, their main function seems to be teaching, which I imagine requires a good deal of patience given the general lack of self-discipline nowadays.
In view of your literary inclination, you might decide to work in a bookshop but as these extracts from Orwell's unintentionally hilarious Bookshop Memories show, it might not be such a good idea:

When I worked in a second-hand bookshop – so easily pictured, if you don't work in one, as a kind of paradise where charming old gentlemen browse eternally among calf-bound folios – the thing that chiefly struck me was the rarity of really bookish people. Our shop had an exceptionally interesting stock, yet I doubt whether ten per cent of our customers knew a good book from a bad one.

In a town like London there are always plenty of not quite certifiable lunatics walking the streets, and they tend to gravitate towards bookshops, because a bookshop is one of the few places where you can hang about for a long time without spending any money. In the end one gets to know these people almost at a glance. For all their big talk there is something moth-eaten and aimless about them. Very often, when we were dealing with an obvious paranoiac, we would put aside the books he asked for and then put them back on the shelves the moment he had gone. None of them, I noticed, ever attempted to take books away without paying for them; merely to order them was enough – it gave them, I suppose, the illusion that they were spending real money.

[Pryderi Agni]

I don't know if this is an LOL moment or not, but right now I've got a Google-sponsored ad on the top of this page that goes: 'Learn to Earn from your Writing. Order Free Details or Enrol Today! ' Here (http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/aclk?sa=l&ai=BnN-zphM_TOrSJ8ipcITyvYIL94qoV8vkpoIMz8fi0QfAmgwQAhgCI Pmb9AEoAjgAUOqLqIoEYOXC5IOkDqAB17K3_gOyARl3d3cub25 saW5lLWxpdGVyYXR1cmUuY29tugEJNzI4eDkwX2FzyAEB2gE-aHR0cDovL3d3dy5vbmxpbmUtbGl0ZXJhdHVyZS5jb20vZm9ydW 1zL3Nob3d0aHJlYWQucGhwP3Q9NTQzNzSAAgGpAkKHToV3trk-wAIBqAMByAMH6AOgCegD1QXoAxb1AwIBAMD1AwACAAA&num=2&sig=AGiWqtyNjXeMu90Nc10OeEd1goqNV4Jnnw&client=ca-pub-3280446741348688&adurl=http://www.writersbureau.com/index.php%3Fsource%3Dppc&nm=17)'s the link, just in case :lol:

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think Brian is right, there are loads of people in the same situation, many of which will probably gravitate towards teaching or end up in jobs completely unrelated to the degree such as in accounts or office-based work or god-awful things of like that. If you want to write, write, but it will be an uphill struggle to make it pay I’m afraid, that’s just the way it is.

[PeterL]

You probably should look for something that will pay full-time wages. If you can manage to find an occasional freelance writing assignment; good for you. There are some small newspapers that will be happy to accept your writing, well some of it, but they want to pay a smile and a handshake. If you want the smile, the handshake, to have something published, or some combination of those, then you'll do O.K. If you expect to sell articles to large publications, then think again. The people who write even the worst of what gets into the large magazines have friends on the inside.

[Hank Stamper]

I would definitely ignore anybody who says 'welcome to the real world' as these are invariably the kind of people who long ago gave up on their ambition.. f--- those people!

As for doing something you really want to do.. I left school with fairly rubbish GCSE's and spent the next five years or so working in a succession of menial jobs.. but then started a website and a year later managed to get a job at a music magazine (all with no qualifications or proper experience).. just determination and a bit of networking.. so my opinion of 'the real world' is if you want something, go get it...

If you want to get into freelance writing, it's a bit of a slog.. but there are plenty of freelancers who make good money who have done so without the auspices of nepotism.. you need to network and be a bit of a nuisance, but if it's something you want to do, persistence will out...

As for academic journals, obviously anybody can submit work.. whether it will get published or not is another matter! if you just want a creative outlet and are not too fussed about cash, there are plenty of graduate journals out there

As for magazines.. pop down your newsagent and see what sort of magazines interest you.. then get your blagging hat on.. another good place to start is the writers and artists year book, which is full of useful contacts

good luck