Tracy Brown Hamilton - Writers and Authors: A Practical Career Guide

Tracy Brown Hamiton is a writer, editor, and journalist based in the Netherlands. She has written several books on topics ranging from careers to media and economics to pop culture. She lives with her husband and three children.

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T here are many reasons people decide to become a writer or authoror in many cases, become a writer or author without it having been their original career goal at all. Many writers follow completely different educational paths and, along the way, discover a story they want to tell. Others have the ambition to become a writer early on, focusing on writing and literature courses or, if not interested in pursuing a college degree, honing their craft on their own or taking various writing workshops and other courses to sharpen their skills.

Unlike more conventional, straightforward career paths, there are many routes one can take to become a writer or an author. What they all have in common is, ultimately, the desire to write and the ability to do so, which entails certain characteristics: not only a strong sense of language but an enduring curiosity about people and the world, the ability to observe and listen and see the stories that surround us every day then be able to tell those stories in an engaging way with words.

A future as a writer or author offers you an opportunity to be continuously learning, whether you are working as a novelist, a writing instructor, a journalist, or a business writer. It will help you become a more coherent thinker, demanding that you consider deeply what you think and what you want to say about a particular subjectwhether you are working on a blog post, a poem, a play, or a novel. The ability to express yourself articulately and find just the right word, just the right expression to convey what you mean, is an incredibly valuable skill to develop, both in your profession and your life.

Dont bend; dont water it down; dont try to make it logical; dont edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.Franz Kafka (18831924), German-Jewish novelist and short-fiction writer

Becoming a writer or author is a very competitive goal, which will be discussed later in the book, so pursuing either takes a thick skin (there will be a lot of rejection and constructive criticism), perseverance, and a strong belief in your project so you dont give up. As with all pursuits, there is no guarantee of success. But you cant let that discourage you.

Choosing a career is a difficult task, but as we discuss in more detail in , there are many methods and means of support to help you refine your career goal and hone in on a path to achieving it that will fit you the best. This chapter will define the writing profession as well as look at the predicted future of the field.

The most obvious answer to what writers and authors do is they writein different styles, and for different audiences and purposes, but the core function of a writer or author is to convey information and tell stories with written words. But of course it goes deeper than that. Writers and authors have a strong command of language, a strong ability to come up with ideas, and the research skills to see a project through authentically.

The information provided in this book is focused primarily on creative writingwhich is the writing done by playwrights, novelists, authors of short fiction, memoirists, and poets, for example. But many aspiring and professional, published creative writers also have (and often enjoy) a day job to ensure a steady income while they pursue and complete creative projectsa job such as blogger, journalist, copy writer, technical writer, or editor or literary agent. The information provided here will also be relevant to these pursuits.

The best writing, I think, comes from what we want or need to write, from the desire to engage in the writing process, and from trusting your instincts to follow certain ideas. Keeping journals of ideas and notes has helped me to trust in my ideas and in my process of developing them.George Guida, author, poet, and professor of literature and creative writing