Carey: Bravo.

MaxMillion: Blow me.

"Plus, I lost my license to a DUI conviction (that got me fired from one of those newspaper internships)..."

See what you did there? That's called burying the lede.

You will never find a "sure thing" job. And if you find something even close, it will pay almost nothing, will require that you work with @ssholes, or just be a soul sucking job.

Unless you plan to go to to school for nursing, there is no "safe" job. Not in IT, not in business. They have disappeared. I worked a job fair recently and you can not imagine the number of PhDs in the room trying to get a job that made 30K.

I understand where you are coming from. You're shook. Shook by the loss of your student identity, shook by the lack of structure and guidance in the world. You are shook by the fact that now the world is asking that you be a salesperson, when it never mentioned it before, much less offered training.

Really, college should make sales training manditory every year that you're in school. The reality is that you are now expected to whore yourself to the world. You're expected to know your strengths, know where the best pimps are, and skillfully sell yourself to them.

Unless you plan on selling ice cream all your life or going into customer service, then I suggest that you figure out what you enjoy and make sure you're d@mn good at it. If its writing, then start thinking outside of the box. Everything isn't newspapers and ezines. Hell, if its sex, then make sure your body and abilities are tight, and put an ad in the paper for a committed sugar daddy.

But 3 things: 1. Recognize that doing nothing will get you nowhere. 2. No one is going to draw you a road map to living your own life. 3. You can choose to have any life you want, but you'll have to work your @ss off to get it.

Good luck!

Obviously you learned nothing. And since no one eliminates your drivers license for more than a short time on the first DUI - this must not be a first. Think about that before anything else - the fact you have taken a risk of killing someone by DUI - that should be something you focus on, not something you ignore.

What is ironic here is that your penalty from the DUI is in a lot of ways your answer to your writing dilemma. Print journalism is dying - to some degree. But blogging is exploding - and commercial blogs with hired writers, with journalists, with real reporting, is hiring. If you are as good as you claim - and if you can keep sober enough to work (sorry - I've a very low regard for anyone irresponsible enough to drink and drive) - that should be where you go. Write your own blog to show off your skills - it may even grow to pay the bills if you do a good job.

If you studied journalism, you have acquired a set of skills having to do with writing and editing.

You think those skills don't have value? Look around you. Look at all the sub-literate people who spell "you" as "u" and think "complimentary" means the same thing as "complementary." Half of them can't even be trusted to request a tattoo that's spelled correctly.

You have a huge advantage over these twerps. Use it. Whip up a killer resume and send brilliant, active-verb-loaded cover letters to all the employers who need smart writers.

Every big company has a web site. Every big company needs to send out press releases. Every big company needs documentation. Here you are, sitting on a pile of important talents, and you're moping about the print industry?

Did it occur to you that advertisers still need a place to sell their junk? One of those places will be the internet and web sites like Salon, the Huffington Post, or whatever journalism ends up delivered via Kindle.

People will always need hard news because people can't make effective decisions without reliable information. If you can't make a living as a writer, make a living as a writer/editor and web producer. Branch out.

Look around -- see what other kinds of writing you'd like to do. How much money did the "Twilight" books make last week? People still love reading, and will pay for it. Maybe not the exact same way they did before, but you might as well get used to change, and prepare for it.

Anyway, I've been in your position before: Unsatisfying job, few opportunities, the dual black clouds of nagging parents and depression. You have to slog through it. Become resourceful. Read some biographies about people you admire, and you'll discover most of them went through serious doldrums. Massive self-doubt. But they kept trying things, exploring what they enjoyed, and somehow found a place in the world.

By the way, about that DUI... Examine what happened there, in terms of what decisions led you to get a DUI. I would also explore whether there's a way to have it expunged from your record. Pester the court and see if you can do extra community work or something. Put your writing skills to work in attacking this problem. Make it a project.

Be careful with booze, and if you're ever even tipsy and driving, consider not driving. Otherwise, channel the most boring, little-old-lady driver you can. In fact, become a boring driver even when you're sober. If you want to race or do anything daring while driving, buy a videogame.

Get some cash together from your ice cream job and go overseas. There are media volunteering opportunities in places like India, Brazil and Ghana, where you can go for three months or so. The rough and tumble nature of it will mean you start thinking of yourself as a REAL journalist and it will put your current problems in perspective.

It will also look like serious stuff on your resume and will give you contacts on the ground. It's also much easier to pitch stories to editors from overseas - for some reason, it gives you more cred.

In any case, if you're young, you've got time to dick around. Instead of thinking 'career, career, career', think 'fun, fun, fun'. Go off and be useful and write stories about it.

If you do have to give up journalism, at least you'll have had the time of your life to look back on.

Just don't hang out in the ice cream parlour getting more despondent. You've lost your momentum, which is a death sentence for a journo.