Jobs for Writers: Meet Michelle Zaffino!

Being a writer can be more than just a fun pastime or a way to get good grades in school. It can actually be a skill that turns into a lifelong profession. While writing a best-selling book is a lofty goal, there are other jobs that allow those with a passion for words to earn a living and pursue their enthusiasm for expression. But don’t just Take My Word For It!  This week contributor Michelle Zaffino writes about her path to becoming a writer.

How I Found My Career as a Writer

Michelle Zaffino

I love to read—it’s as simple as that. At an early age I devoted hours in the double-digits to reading each week. I had my first library card at age four. From there I went into publishing, playing with my dolls and giving them jobs as reporters and newspaper editors, and actually putting out doll-size publications for them and their friends to read. 

To anyone thinking about their future career, the first bit of advice I give them is: What do you love doing? What do you dream about doing? Whatever it is, do that. Why? Because you will do it well. If you do anything less than what you love your heart won’t be in it. 

So when I was in college, going into my junior year and hard-pressed to declare a major, I decided that since I liked reading so much, and specifically reading magazines like Sassy (from the founder of Jane magazine, Jane Pratt), I would declare English Writing with a Magazine concentration as my major. I also earned a certificate in Women’s Studies. 

From there I went on to work in women’s magazine publishing in New York for almost ten years. One other thing—you have to go where the jobs are. I worked mainly in research and fact-checking but wrote fun stories that involved stuff like my gay best friend making over my badly-dressed boyfriend and also interviewed Anne Rice, one of my favorite authors.

When the shift in traditional publishing happened, and I realized that the internet and new media were going to make print publishing prohibitively competitive, I made the move to San Francisco. It was a step toward becoming a true, full-time working writer.

I always wanted to live in San Francisco because of its rich literary history, and knew someday I would come here and write novels. Many of my favorite writers lived and worked here (people like Anne Rice, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Michael Chabon) and I imagined it would be inspiring.

The fact that San Francisco is one of the centers for technology and the internet was the other thing that attracted me: I would support myself by copywriting for websites as my day job. I also built a personal website and blog and started doing video book reviews. In this day and age as a writer, you not only have to multi-task and do all different kinds of writing, you also have to be more cognizant of sales and marketing and new technology, hence my picking up the video camera.

But like I said, I moved to San Francisco to write novels. I’ve spent literally thousands of hours in cafes around town, scribbling in my notebooks. Another place I write is at a private library downtown where I’m a member. I always write longhand, then type it up at the end of the day as a way of reviewing the work. 

To anyone writing a large work of fiction, the first bit of advice I give is: Outline your story. How can you get where you’re going if you don’t know how you’re getting there? I tried for ten years to write my first novel, then when I moved here I outlined the major plot points in a three act structure, put myself on a writing schedule and four months later had a rough first draft.

Another thing no one ever tells you about being a writer is that editing, follow-through, dedication and passion are almost as important as the writing itself. You need to spend a considerable amount of time polishing your work.

The most important thing, however, is to read. Read everything you can get your hands on and educate yourself about different writing styles.

There are many outlets for young writers, and among these are programs at your local library, such as writer’s groups for teen and writing contests. If you’re interested in becoming a writer, I strongly urge you to check out one of these programs.

Thank you for reading—Michelle

Check out Michelle's video book reviews at www.inthestacks.tv or follow her blog at www.michellezaffino.com!

Jobs for Writers: College Professor

Being a writer can be more than just a fun pastime or a way to get good grades in school. It can actually be a skill that turns into a lifelong profession. While writing a best-selling book is a lofty goal, there are other jobs that allow those with a passion for words to earn a living and pursue their enthusiasm for expression. But don’t just Take My Word For It!  This week contributor Jennifer Brown writes about her path to becoming a college professor.

I have always loved to read and to write. Throughout my childhood and well into my young adulthood I kept a journal that was less a diary and more a place for poems, short stories, sentences that appealed to me, or ideas I liked. Later, when I would become a professor of medieval literature, I learned that the medieval word for this kind of collection is a miscellany. A book that is full of miscellaneous information -- recipes, prayers, drawings, and dreams.

But the path from those childhood writings to the kind of writing I do now is not entirely direct.  When I went to college I knew I wanted to major in English. There seemed to be no greater way to pass my time than reading great books, discussing them in class, and then writing about them. But I was certain that I wanted to be a writer like those that I was reading. I wanted to be a creative writer, an author of fiction, and reading all of those great works in English was a way for me to see what great writers did: how their sentences sounded, what images they drew on, who their influences were.

I even remember my freshman year, after reading Beowulf,  a text I considered exceedingly boring --that I asked my professor if I could rewrite the 1200-year-old story as a modern one rather than write the analysis he assigned for homework. I thought creative writing like that was much more fun and interesting. So, imagine my surprise when, as my college years continued, that I found the analysis was fun too.

I loved reading one of Shakespeare's plays and then looking very closely at what a character said, trying to find the major themes and ideas, the subtle twists and turns of the plot. By the time I was a senior I wanted to write about books, not write the books themselves. I went to graduate school and fell in love with medieval literature. My favorite book was The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 1380s. I could not believe that the things he had written were so funny!

When I finished my advanced degree, I was an expert in medieval literature and that is what I teach at a college now. The best part about my job is that I am not just a teacher, I am also a reader and a writer.

Re-reading the books I choose to teach is a gift every semester. I am getting paid to read and talk about my favorite books! Each time I re-read one, I am surprised by something new I did not see the first time I read it. When the students discuss the books, I am also surprised by what they say. Their different eyes make me see the book in a new way. Teaching also changes the way I think about books. One of my favorite books to teach is Beowulf,  a book I hated the first time I read it!

Jobs for Writers

Being a writer can be more than just a fun pastime or a way to get good grades in school. It can actually be a skill that turns into a lifelong profession. While writing a best-selling book is a lofty goal, there are other jobs that allow those with a passion for words to earn a living and pursue their enthusiasm for expression. But don’t just Take My Word For It!

This week contributor Joe O'Neill writes about being an advertising copy writer.

Think of me as a beacon of hope for anyone who thinks he or she would like to be an advertising writer. I say that because very few people seemed more ill-prepared for the job than I was when I entered the business.

My first job was as a designer for a packaging company. In almost all respects it was a low-pressure situation. Nevertheless, within a few months I found myself so overwhelmed that one day I went out to lunch and never returned.

My second job was as the Promotion Manager for the Paterson Evening News. Ironically my main responsibility was to talk to graduating high school classes about careers in the newspaper industry. The kid who was too shy to get up in front of a class was now expected to give speeches to auditoriums of students. I performed so poorly that within less than a year, my position was eliminated and I was offered a job delivering newspapers.

Eventually, I went to work for a local landscaper by day and started creating a portfolio of speculative ads at night. On my last week of unemployment, I was offered a job at an agency called Leber Katz Partners in New York for $5,250 a year. On my first night on the job, as I was looking out my office window on the 42^nd floor of the General Motors Building in Manhattan, I was both ecstatic and nervous, the latter being because I have never written a real ad in my life.

But here’s the plot twist. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was an advertising expert. And, surprise of surprises, so are you.

 Read on.

A few years ago, I gave a talk to a room full of young advertising people at an agency I worked for. They had just started in the business. The subject was: How to become an advertising expert. I opened my talk by asking for a show of hands. “How many people here have seen a Broadway show recently?” A lot of hands went up.

“Great. How many shows have you seen in all?”

 “Twenty-five or so” one person said. “Thirty or forty” said another. “About fifty.” And so it went.

 “That’s a lot of shows,” I said. “So tell me, how many of you consider yourself to be an expert on Broadway shows?”

 No hands went up.

“No one? … OK, then let me ask you this. What would it take? … How many shows would you have to see before you really felt like you knew what you were talking about?”

Different answers came in ranging from 75 to 150.

“So for the sake of conversation…” I said, “… let’s agree that once you see about 150 Broadway shows, you can then consider yourself to be somewhat of an expert. OK?”             

Heads nod.

“Good, next question: How many of you have seen a television commercial or a print ad or heard a radio commercial lately?”

 Again, all hands go up.

 I asked one girl in the audience how many she’d seen and got a bewildered look.

 “Uh … well … thousands” she finally answered.

 “Actually, you’ve probably seen a lot more than that”, I tell her. In fact, according to the latest research, the average person sees somewhere between 600 and 3,000 ads, commercials, billboards, pop-ups and banners … every single day.

 There were a lot of surprised faces.

 I continued. “So … let’s think about this … if seeing a 150 shows will make you a Broadway expert, what will seeing 3,000 ads a day for 365 days every year make you?”

…

OK, OK … so it’s not as easy as that. Just because you’ve seen a slew of commercials doesn’t necessarily mean that you can sit down and write a good one the first time out. But it certainly does indicate that you won’t be operating in an alien world.

 Stephen King, the writer of all those scary books, says if you want to be a writer of anything, there are two things you have to do: Read and write.

 Devour as many books, short stories, and quality magazine and newspaper articles as you can. And write! Write something, anything – short stories, poems, whatever - as often as you can.

 And if you want to be an ad writer, start paying closer attention to all of those words and images flashing by you every single day. Evaluate them. Form opinions about them. What’s good, what’s bad, and think about what you might do differently.

Advertising writing is a very entertaining, if pressure-packed, way to make a living – for the following reasons:

• You get to work as a team with an art director – so it’s not a lonely pursuit. Generally you come up with the words, the art director come up with the images but very often you overlap.

• You get to create something out of nothing – a print ad that you wind up seeing in a newspaper or magazine – an ad that pops up on someone’s computer screen - a radio commercial that just may make someone smile on their way to work – a television commercial that will pop up on your television screen when you least expect it.
• And after you dream up those radio and television commercials, you actually get to go out and produce them. You bring on producers, directors, actors, music houses and editors. You go to film studios, recording studios, out on location to shoot television spots – sometimes to far away places. None of that sucks.

Certainly, it’s not a hayride. There are deadlines to meet. There are people – bosses and clients alike - who will not like your first idea and send you back to the drawing board. There are times when you will surrender your nights, your weekends, and your plans with your friends and family because someone says, “We need it tomorrow.”

 I have met advertising writers from all sorts of backgrounds. People, who, like me, studied one thing in school and wound up doing another. People who failed miserably at one or more jobs and then found a home in advertising. And people like one of my daughters, who took a more direct route, decided early on they wanted to be in the business, studied communications/advertising in college, and got a job immediately after graduating.

And that’s another thing I like about the business: it takes all kinds.

Jobs for Writers

Being a writer can be more than just a fun pastime or a way to get good grades in school. It can actually be a skill that turns into a lifelong profession. While writing a best-selling book is a lofty goal, there are other jobs that allow those with a passion for words to earn a living and pursue their enthusiasm for expression. But don’t just Take My Word For It!

This week contributor Heather O'Neill writes about being a newspaper reporter:  

“Ever since I won a school writing contest in the 7th grade I have wanted to be a writer. I just didn’t know how to accomplish my goals. It seemed impossible to write The Great American Novel as a young person but I loved reading and writing with a passion.  

One day, not long after I graduated college, it dawned on me that one of the things I loved to read were newspapers. At that moment, a light bulb went off in my head: I wanted to be a newspaper reporter! But how would I do that?  

I started by writing letters to all of the newspapers in my town and to my surprise one of them hired me to be an editorial assistant. An editorial assistant answers phones and opens mail in the newspaper’s newsroom. The real perk was that I was paid to spend my days surrounded by reporters, all of whom were chasing down stories and interviewing Senators, mayors and other newsmakers.  Listening to them, I truly got the news bug. This was what I wanted to do with my life!  

After proving myself to be a reliable employee, my boss allowed me to start writing short features for the paper. My first assignment was writing about a festival dedicated to “The Cat in the Hat,” one of my all-time favorite books as a child.  

After about a year I became a staff writer for another paper, assigned to cover all of the police and fire fighting activity in the town. I would listen to the police radio on my desk all day and when there was a crime or an accident or a fire I would grab my reporter’s notebook, jump in my car and speed to the scene. It was thrilling. Then I would go back to my office and sit down to write up my notes, crafting them into a news story. At first it was scary – most people don’t intentionally rush towards a fire, but away from one –but after a while I realized that I was enjoying my job tremendously. My life as a crime reporter felt a little bit like being immersed in an episode of “Law and Order” or "CSI".  I continued to cover this beat for several years, which gave me the opportunity to learn about the legal system from inside the courtroom, interview both victims of crimes and real life heroes, and learn the ropes of investigative journalism by combing through court records, police blotters and crime scene photos.   The days that my work appeared on the front page of the newspaper were truly thrilling, and I enjoyed competing with other reporters, trying to “scoop” them by unearthing a story that no one else knew about but me.  

What I enjoyed even more was the chance to connect with the people that I interviewed, helping them to tell their stories in their own words and being a liaison between government officials and the general public.  I have had many kinds of writing jobs since then but newspaper writing is by far the more rewarding professional experience I have had to date.”