Write for the craft, not the glory. Because, as you can read from the previous posts, there is no glory until you have worked for it. I know some writers who pine over their presumed lack of recognition for their stellar work. While they may be right, sometimes writers mistake their enthusiasm for real talent. Besides, I can't count how many truly amazing and talented authors never get the time of day from publishers. Sometimes simply because their face does not look so good on a book jacket. I write every day. I also teach it in high school. Because I love to be the one to tell a kid s/he figured out how to express an idea or a thought effectively and is a good writer. I get to be the first one to tell them they can do this. It sounds cheesy, it is, but I love this stinking job! I also work at my own writing right in front of them. Sometimes they come in during my lunch hour and I let them sit there and read over my shoulder everything I'm writing. The point is a writer writes when and where he or she can. No exception. The glory of being that one in a million author who cracks into the jackpot world of bestsellers, a shrinking world by the way, comes secondary. Sorry for the typos, I got a class coming in!

TooMuchSass is right... you have to chart a course and make some sacrifices. I had another career for seven years, and when I decided to do what I'd always wanted to do (write), I went back to grad school and took several un- or low-paid internships. I was a 30 year-old intern, who did all the crap things interns do--but I worked to come up with story ideas, got clips, freelanced on the side, and am now an associate editor at the last publication I interned with.

You don't have to take on the crushing debt of grad school (although it does avail you of internships that require applicants to be students), but you do have to take a few hits to work your way into the system. You may be talented, but very, very few people come out of nowhere and dazzle. Everyone who wants to be a writer thinks they're great, so you can't just tell someone you know you'd ace it without putting in the effort to prove it.

If you're not blogging, you're not serious about wanting to be a writer. If you are, you're creating your own clips. When you can produce something interesting and polished every day, start looking around. There are lots of blogs that will let you write for them in exchange for part of the traffic revenue. That gets you more clips. Make sure you're writing at work. You're not just an administrative assistant, you're in a place, meeting people, learning about your industry. Watch the professional publications that go by. Is there something you know you could write for them? There's another clip.

As Cary said, there's a lot of competition for writing *jobs* -- that is pre-packaged positions with bosses, paychecks, and benefits. But almost every job includes writing. Excel at that, and you'll find yourself doing more and more writing for your paycheck.

I wrote book reviews for a 'zine and that got me into the finals for a position writing response letters in my company. My writing chops got me that position, which itself turned into a piece of my resume for being a tech writer.

I always dreamed of writing poetry for my work. I'm not publishing chapbooks, but my writing pays my mortgage.

The letters all have a common theme lately, involving people who want or think they can do something but don't want to do what it takes to get there. Its rather like the med student with the underachieving bf who talks big about his future without working towards it.

This is just one of those rules of life, the things we want the most are usually hard to attain. Its a defining feature of desirable things, because they're awesome, lots of people want them so there's competition and it means only the people who want them the most can get them. If a writing job weren't a fabulous dream, it'd prolly be easy to break into. Kind of like custodial work. You're gonna have to work harder and struggle more to get into the business you want.

yep. The Washington Post just offered hundreds of their journalists buyout offers.

It's free and simple. You pick something you think would be amusing or attention-getting -- "Stuff White People Like" is taken -- and you write about it, online, every day. Then you put some Google ads on your blog and voila! You're a paid writer!

Go watch "Pursuit of Happiness." Then either get to work making your life better or put those fries in. You're already been told how to get a writing job but you're not willing to make the effort and the sacrifices to do it. Other people are. They win.

Darned spell-checker automatically corrected me... the name of the movie is "Pursuit of Happyness." Stat.

this week i went to see diablo cody (nee brook busey) speak at the local university even though *gasp* i've not seen "juno." per the media, she was "an ex-stripper who wrote a screenplay and won an academy award."

yeah, right. do a wiki search on her and you'll find that this young woman is far more than an "ex-stripper." she has a writing pedigree that i'm guessing most people do not know about. i know i didn't.

at her talk, i discovered a vibrant, intelligent, witty, hip, and very funny woman. at the close of her talk, she was asked: what advice would you give to writers today?

her advice: "Start a blog; you never know who is reading it."

someone saw her blog, it lead to a book deal, and then lead to a screenplay written on spec - "juno"! all of this took time, of course, but that was her main advice to the audience of young journalism students and creative writers.

this is an opportunity that did not exist when i first started out.

the best way to get clips after you've left school is to freelance in your spare time. i know that's difficult when bills must be paid, but if you are serious, you've got to get clips.

long ago, i was a high school reporter with clips, and then a junior college student reporter with clips, but floundered around after junior college not knowing what to do with myself.

one day i read a terrible review of a TV show in the local newspaper (big city newspaper, one of the top five in the nation), thought i could do better, wrote up my version (just like someone else did here in this thread), and marched my young self after hours into their offices (their security is far better now - LOL.)

i found the features editor and thrust my article into his face and said "here, read this. it's good. you'll like it. it's better than what you published the other day."

he barely looked up at me, mumbled something about "ah, we don't take unsolicited articles, especially after the fact...mumble....mumble...mumble." but i would not go away, kept pushing my article at him. to get rid of me, he grabbed my typewritten article and began reading.

after he finished the one page article, he looked up at me with new eyes and asked in genuine awe "what do you do?"

i replied: "i'm a secretary."

his reply: "well, you should be writing."

long story short, i managed to get a temp job with him for about 8 weeks in the entertainment section, working with all my local writing heroes in our big city, and that propelled me back to college to finish my degree in journalism.

be bold, LW. be audacious. if you want something, go get it, but have the goods to back it up.

and as for the editors here responding to the LW: call me - i need work!