If you think you're the only journalist with a DUI conviction, you ARE new at this...

As a cub reporter for a local newspaper back in the day, I once had to write a story about our metro editor's drunk driving arrest...

About burying the lede. The real story, I think, is in the DUI.

Honey (can I can call you honey? I have kids older than you), if you lost your license from a DUI, and you were a white college student, I have to ask the obvious question: Was this your first offense?

And if you lost your license, didn't they also order you to attend AA? I know DUI sentences vary from place to place, but this is how it usually goes.

If you're not in AA, maybe you should go. You don't think you need it? That's okay, it'll be useful to you as a writer. Go and listen to the stories about people struggling with their compulsions. Write about those compulsions, if only for yourself. (Observing the rule of confidentiality, of course.)

Stop using the word "journalism." You're an observer. There are still niches in the world for people who notice things others don't. In my career path, I spent 15 years as a full-time journalist but also apprenticed as a lay midwife, did sales and worked as a private eye - all of which required me to watch closely.

You don't have to decide anything this minute, except how to keep a roof over your head. Then worry later about the details - because frankly, if you're really meant to be a journalist, nothing will stop you.

It's okay if you change your mind; your life's path is never carved in stone. Lots of people decide they don't want to follow the path they thought they wanted and inadvertently stumble onto something else that makes them passionate.

Life is like that. Something will happen to clarify your mind, one way or another. Just breathe for a while.

Just look for the magic angry hot button bullshit that people want to read, and write about it. Facts don't matter, reality doesn't matter. The topic doesn't even matter. Just yawp and scream and shake your fist.

Or you could perform a rimjob on Glenn Greenwald. Your call.

An automatic license suspension occurs in every US state when the authorities send their notice of probable cause to the BMV. Also, if he refused to take a breath test, there is another license suspension that is a year in most states - before you plead guilty - just based on probable cause. So stop assuming he's had multiple DUI's.

... And do professional writing, technical writing, or public relations, but there's a shortage of jobs in these fields, too.

My son got his journalism degree at Northwestern, and did everything right, like you, to get a position on a newspaper or (his preference) a magazine. Upon graduation, he got a position at a small newspaper in a small town at $11.80/hr. After two years he moved to California as editor of a weekly paper for a tiny town, and made just over $30,000/yr. He wasn't surprised about the salaries; he knew journalism wasn't a way to get rich. Still after a year, he began to look for another position just as all the papers and magazines started to be sold, budgets cut, and then finally collapsed. He found a position as a communications manager for a small but cutting edge consulting company. It's worked out well for him, with a move to a job he likes better within the company, and with opportunity to write a book in his boss' voice, which has been published and is in bookstores including B & N.

All this is to say: neither he nor we could have predicted where his career path would go. He's very happy in this job, has discovered what really interests him by taking what there was in the market and moving until he found a home (for now--you never know).

So follow Cary's advice: take a job doing something related to your training, and see where it takes you. Unless you love making ice cream, that is.

Reality is the next big thing in journalism. Stay away from liberal spin and lies. If you want a job outside of the state run media such as the large newspapers and TV networks - if you want to write something that people actually want to read and can learn from, simply write about the truth. In the coming years, you may have to worry about going to jail, but for now speech is fairly free. I've done this on my blog, and it is fantastically successful. In my view, my blog is the fastest growing blog on the Internet right now. Yours can be too.

You know, the outfit that doesn't exist anyone because it never turned a profit?

Hell, the American Spectator, which while vile still has more cachet than most conservative blogs, keeps begging for money. And during their salad days, when they called the traditional media's tune with regard to attacking Bill Clinton, they survived on handouts from Richard Mellon Scaife -- which he provided precisely so they would attack Bill and Hillary Clinton.

You're living in the past. Look to the future. Whenever there is a radical liberal in the Whitehouse, conservatism thrives and grows. As things crumble, people will be looking for answers, and they'll will have realized that liberalism isn't the answer.

I'm not sure what's sadder, the fact that you studied PRINT journalism or the fact that there are schools still teaching it. If that was your major, did you have a minor in blacksmithing?

I don't mean to be cruel, but print journalism has been dying since you were in kindergarten, and paid journalism almost as long. The fact that you thought you could get a job when the best known byline writers are being forced out shows the same bad judgment that got you that DUI.

Writers now are like musicians and artists and athletes. A few make a living doing what they love, a few more find a way to have a career related to their passion, the rest work in an unrelated field to support their passion. The key word is passion. You write because that's what you do, not because someone pays you.

And you realize that writing is just a piece of the package, the way cooking is just a piece of being a successful chef. You have to write and do TV and radio and online work and books and schmooze and be a personality. That's reality. Think George Will, Rachel Ray, Ryan Seacrest. Tiger Woods makes more off the course than on it.

Get real and get a job doing something you can love while you pursue writing on the side. Find something really weird you can do for a living that will make an interesting book. In the meantime, write about ice cream making. Write about finding your way out of ice cream making. Write about drinking, and about learning not to drink. Read what great writers have written about drinking and get a lesson in humility. Meet with other writers and learn how they have survived.

You say you are paralyzed. If so, your focus shouldn't be on running a marathon, but on taking that first step.