{"id":4352,"date":"2012-06-21T08:44:27","date_gmt":"2012-06-21T14:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4352"},"modified":"2012-06-21T08:44:27","modified_gmt":"2012-06-21T14:44:27","slug":"on-the-necessity-of-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4352","title":{"rendered":"On the Necessity of Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Smith<\/a>M. gave me this vintage (late 1940s) Smith-Corona “Silent” portable typewriter for my birthday earlier this month. Let it be a sign. Time to start writing\u2014with the latest technology!<\/p>\n

Speaking of writing, my former department chairman used to teach a once-weekly one-credit course called “Careers for English Majors.” He would bring in outside speakers, and he always tapped me to talk about a writer’s career path.<\/p>\n

But there isn’t one.<\/p>\n

Some people figure that out, e.g., Cassie Boorn, 24, in this article, “Six Young Female Journalists, One Year Later<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Here is what I spent the past year learning; there is no path to success. Social media changed everything, the recession ruined most industries, too many people go to college and any sort of path that once existed is gone. That path is now paved with women who are too poor to have children<\/a> and burn out by the time they are thirty. <\/a>\u00a0Forget the path you have been sold and make your own. Start a blog, major in Philosophy, have a baby in college, pitch a story to Forbes, ask too many questions, take things apart and put them back together and turn it into a good story.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The path is that there is no path. If you are a writer, you will be writing. Says another of the six, speaking of her still-younger self, “My diaries read like chapter books, with clear beginnings, middles, and ends as I planned, undertook, and achieved milestones.”<\/p>\n

That kind of thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M. gave me this vintage (late 1940s) Smith-Corona “Silent” portable typewriter for my birthday earlier this month. Let it be a sign. Time to start writing\u2014with the latest technology! Speaking of writing, my former department chairman used to teach a once-weekly one-credit course called “Careers for English Majors.” He would bring in outside speakers, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-4352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-18c","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3798,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3798","url_meta":{"origin":4352,"position":0},"title":"The “New Yorker rule”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"M. and I work together on many editing projects. Yesterday, the author of a journal article, reading her galleys, said that she thought that expressions such as \"sui generis,\"\u00a0 \"axis mundi,\"*\u00a0 and \"Weltanschauung\" should be italicized as foreign expressions. (I had them in roman.) I consulted the holy scriptures, where\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"publishing\"","block_context":{"text":"publishing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=publishing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2473,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2473","url_meta":{"origin":4352,"position":1},"title":"Among the Writer’s Style Books","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 21, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The AP Stylebook, the holy book of the American journalist, is making some changes, such as now specifying \"email\" instead of \"e-mail.\" In my journalist days, I used to tell people that I had it memorized, but now I have moved on. Since entering academic journal and book editing, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"journalism\"","block_context":{"text":"journalism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=journalism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5987,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5987","url_meta":{"origin":4352,"position":2},"title":"Good Advice: “Run Your Own Race”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I hit bottom the summer I turned 36. Part-way through grad school, I took a break to work as managing editor of an outdoor magazine, Colorado Outdoor Journal. (You've never heard of it. I needed a job.) In May, the publisher pulled the plug on the magazine, but I had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":220,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=220","url_meta":{"origin":4352,"position":3},"title":"The Poison Path and Fatal Fronds","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 7, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"While I was in England, M. was Web-searching and turned up the Duchess of Northumberland's \"poison garden,\" which I would like to see today. Part of a much larger garden complex that is under construction but still attracting busloads of garden-loving Brits, it has gotten a lot of press. In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/images.icnetwork.co.uk\/upl\/nejournal\/mar2010\/4\/1\/duchess-of-northumberland-334905528.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1466,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1466","url_meta":{"origin":4352,"position":4},"title":"Photographer, Journalist: Is it a Career?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 31, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A New York Times media-section piece suggests that \"professional photographer\" is a poor career choice if you are just starting out. Since graduation in 2008, Mr. Eich, 23, has gotten magazine assignments here and there, but \u201cindustrywide, the sentiment now, at least among my peers, is that this is not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"journalism\"","block_context":{"text":"journalism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=journalism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2056,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2056","url_meta":{"origin":4352,"position":5},"title":"From Slate, America’s Two Literary Cultures","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This article on \"America's two distinct literary cultures\" (via University Diaries) touched me because I almost went down the Master of Fine Arts in writing road myself\u2014and of course I taught alongside people who had done so. After graduating from Reed College with what amounted to a BFA, I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"writing\"","block_context":{"text":"writing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=writing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4352"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4358,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4352\/revisions\/4358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}