10 things college writing classes don't teach you was a big eye opener for me. Okay maybe not that big. I knew some of the things in the article, such as getting an internship and whatnot. And I was trying to do the internship thing, honestly I was. SUPPOSEDLY I was getting an internship at Glassworks, but then all of my friends got the invitational email and I didn't.
Whatever.
Point is I'm not doing the internship now. But is it too late for me to do the internship after I start grad school? I'll have to find out. Incidentally, under the section "there are no jobs for writers" the article says that the jobs are in editing. Does this specifically fall under editing magazines or in general? Honestly, I would love nothing more than to get paid to read, to be the person that people bring their books to and ask "is it any good? Will you publish my book?" Of course, this would be on the side of writing my own young adult novels.
The article also says that teachers make their students write in "highbrow" voices which is not what different jobs want. This is understandable, not everyone wants their employees to spout out word vomit worth of a medical textbook. This isn't a problem for me though. I can't remember ever having a teacher tell me that my language wasn't to their standards, and I don't think that I sound like an encyclopedia. As far as service pieces go: I love them. I can't imagine anyone being above writing a self-help article or something of the like. If you want to write badly enough why wouldn't you write however you can? Everyone starts somewhere, right? Who knows, you could even find yourself enjoying writing those articles.
The other points are a given: writing to fit the publication you want to be in (because if you're writing a story about running a slaughterhouse and trying to sell it to a vegan magazine, what are your chances?), learning the language, look for jobs everywhere (even for "low-brow" writing pieces.)
An interesting point or two that I found was that they don't teach you proper "real world" language in college, and that "Even novelists need to know how to dig." I never once considered the benefit of doing actual research for writing creative pieces. I mean sure, others have done it in my classes in the past. Books that I've read on my own time have almost always come with some sort of proof of actual, factual research. I was just a little slow to reaching the conclusion that I would need to, too.
The second article talks about choosing the best program for you was interesting. Interesting in that I skimmed it, not going to lie. I read portions, honestly I did, and most of it is information that's kind of obvious (to me). I found the points about choosing a program to work with professors that you don't particularly like but that have good work was interesting. Most people, myself included, want to avoid conflict. Choosing a program that I know would cause me to think harder and butt heads with my professor would have never occurred to me, but it is brilliant! Talk about a way to spur on your thinking in a whole new way. Not particularly to change the way you write but to look at it from the perspective of someone who doesn't write like you do and is still successful. New ideas change everything.
So, ultimate goal: to be a young adult author. I'd also like to work for a publishing company as a manuscript reader, or possibly a book reviewer.