Sunday 17 January 2010

Career Advice

I love the entry for 'Writer' in a careers book I was given about a week ago. So much that I thought I'd share it with my very small audience:

Writer
For writers other than journalists, making a living purely from writing can be very difficult, so many writers, especially before they are established, have other careers as well. There are only a handful of people who become successful fiction writers or writers of really popular non-fiction such as biographies. There are some jobs for writers in residence within theatre organisations, prisons or university departments, but many of these posts are temporary contracts. Technical authors write user manuals and instruction books for anything from washing machines to computer software, and there are writers who specialise in writing textbooks and other teaching materials. Technical authors are often on permanent, or at least more secure contracts. Many writers of textbooks have other jobs in educations.

Oh well. At least they're honest. I have no idea what other career I want out of life, though...

In other news, 'Zack' has reached 20,000 words. A third of the way there! I have a real target now to finish it by the beginning of the summer, then edit it over summer, and hopefully get it sent out to some places in autumn. Working with (realistic) goals in mind is often a good technique.