You are in a particularly difficult moment. The time after college is extremely stressful and confidence-shaking for a lot of people. You feel like the whole world is watching you to see what you're going to "do."

You're probably kind of depressed and isolated staying with your parents, compared to the social networking and daily routines you enjoyed as a student and intern. This is totally natural.

On top of all this, the public humiliation of a DUI is understandably another blow to your confidence & optimism.

So what to do? Slow down and make some specific goals for this week and for every day in that week. Your anxious thoughts have gotten you into a bit of a hole, but small actions can get you out. If your negative thoughts are just too strong, get a book on cognitive-behavioral therapy that explains how to restructure negative cognitions (or go see a therapist at your old college, or have them refer a cheap or free therapist, and tell them you want cognitive-behavioral therapy).

I have plenty of friends working in online journalism. You may not write about the exact topic you care about, and it may not be the career you pictured (more secondary sources and feature topics than hard news), but I think you can get some work there. That will give you something immediate to do and make you feel useful and connected again while you plan your next step.

The bottom line is you're in a difficult moment but you can write and that gives you a huge advantage in any field you end up in. I started in print journalism and I'm on my third successful career. I was a self-doubting wreck after college but I made it through and you will too. Good luck and never drive drunk again.

... that Cary was not paid for this column.

Is it true? It's too damn bad, because "Since you asked" seems to be really successful...

Anyway, I agree with some of the posters here that good writing is actually a very marketable skill.

Communication. Marketing. Editing. Rewriting (and especially ghost writing). Journalism (all kind of journalism...). Novels. Romance novels. Thriller novels. Vampire novels. Kids novels. Comic-books. Writing for TV. Writing for movies. Science-fiction novels. Fantasy novels (which are a HUGE hit these days). Video Games. Magazines about video-games (and about games in general...). All technical magazines. Translating. Editing and rewriting translations written by bad translators. Writing for radio-shows. Writing in politics. Writing in judicial matters. Editing and rewriting all the texts of the politicians and economists who should write well but don't and really need someone to have their back. Websites contents. Internal communication in big firms.

... Etc.

And that's just from the top of my head. I know I'm forgetting a lot of things.

It seems to me that a lot of people are paid to write, a lot of people are even very well paid to write, or edit and rewrite the writing of other people, today more than ever. Of course, it's not journalism per se, but it's still more interesting than selling ice cream.

Very often, Letter Writers seem to think they are stuck between two clear choices, when in fact there are a million other different choices open to them.

LW, there are a lot of other things to do than "selling ice cream" or doing "serious print journalism". It's not one or the other. It's a big world out there, with thousands of other options. But you have to be creative, proactive. You have to try different things. You have to do the first steps, and try things you've never done before.

You cannot say or think "Translating? Marketing? Romance novels? But that's not what I was trained to do!"

You have to try at least ten different completely new things, related (or vaguely related) to writing in the next year. And then you'll see what sticks.

LOL LOL LOL

Any idiot who calls Barack a radical liberal has no.freaking.clue.

Back to discussing drunk journalism majors.

I'm not as pessimistic about newspapers as others - I think most major papers will survive after a restructuring and consolidation - but right now is about the worst time to try to get into that field. Writers with decades of experience are getting laid off left and right. It's going to be awful tough for a recent graduate to find work in traditional journalism.

The good news is that writing is a marketable skill and there's a lot you can do with it. There are still thriving trade magazines that pay well. You can become a copywriter or editor - with an advanced degree you can make a lot of money. If you decide to go back to school it's not a bad time to become a library, particularly if you specialize in medicine or law. Marketing professional services like law, architecture, healthcare, etc. can be lucrative. So I guess my advice would be to find a job that may not be exactly what you want, but at least allows you to leverage your skills and earn a decent enough salary to pursue your real goals on your own time.

As for right now, I think you need to come to grips with the fact that it's a tough tough market - it might take you months to find a "real" job and that's no reflection on you, it's just the way things are right now. Also, don't get another DUI - unless you live and plan to work in a city it's going to be real hard to find a job that's accessible via mass transit and you don't need to make your situation any tougher than it already is, right?

Floriane, you said, Someone mentioned... that Cary was not paid for this column. Is it true? It's too damn bad, because "Since you asked" seems to be really successful...

Successful how? Do you think Tennis sells T-shirts with his ugly cartoon logo on it? How much did you pay to read the article? If you did subscribe to Salon instead of just watching a little ad for something you can't afford to buy, how much of that do you think was left for the writer, who's at the bottom of the food chain of all communications media?

You also said, It seems to me that a lot of people are paid to write, a lot of people are even very well paid to write, or edit and rewrite the writing of other people, today more than ever.

That's because your concept of writing comes from crap like Lifetime Romance and other fluffy soap operas. Base truth: Cary is paid nothing. Heather Havrilesky, Salon's TV critic who has improved her authorship tremendously, is paid nothing. Glen Greenwald, who endangers himself by tackling Republican and Democratic hypocrisy, is paid nothing.

And Mike LeP, you said, The good news is that writing is a marketable skill and there's a lot you can do with it. There are still thriving trade magazines that pay well. You can become a copywriter or editor - with an advanced degree you can make a lot of money.

The bad news is that you know nothing about the real world. Trade magazines are drying up, killing those copywriting and editing jobs. Magazines in general are starving to death. Why should anyone pay to read stuff when they can read it online for free? (And when not even the New York Whore Times could convince people to pay for their online content?)

Writing will become a skill as useless as learning to play the piano. Before the phonograph, that was the only way you could hear music. Now only a few people take the laborious and painful path of learning to play a piano. Only a tiny fraction of those can make a subsidence-level income by doing it, and they have to learn how to duck beer bottles thrown by their "patrons." If you want to write, that's cool. But don't expect anyone to respect you for it or pay you to do it. Wake up and smell the steaming cesspool they claim is coffee, you two.