Lately I’ve begun working with a book called The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success, by Nicholas Lore. It’s helped me figure out that I already know what my dream job is – it’s just been buried under too much self-doubt, fear, skepticism, and most of all, self-preservation.
My dream job, if I could achieve it, would be to become a paid author, commentator, essayist, columnist, et cetera, and make enough money on this to have a comfortable living, and be well-known enough to get invited onto talk shows and radio shows and opine. I’d love to be the next Michelangelo Signorile, Andrew Sullivan, or Dan Savage (gay essayists), or the next Jeffrey Rosen or Jeffrey Toobin (legal essayists), or what have you.
I have no idea how to get paid as a writer or if I’m any good. But I’m afraid to even try because I’m afraid I won’t be good enough. And the concept of actively working to become better at something is a foreign concept to me. I feel that if I’m not good enough at something, there’s no point in working at it and trying to become better, because it’s only inherent talent that is rewarded, and if my talent isn’t inherently mind-blowing, I’m a fraud. In other words, a primitive part of me thinks that people are rewarded for who they are instead of what they do. But I have to unlearn that.
As a first step toward something – I’m not sure what – I started writing a column-length piece this morning, 800 words. I was a university newspaper columnist in college and law school, but it’s been a long time. And it’s harder than I remembered. There’s something so stilted about the process. I think I’m trying too hard to write something presentable. I’m not being personal enough, I’m not putting enough of my own spin on it. Ordinarily, I would take that as a sign that obviously I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, I can’t possibly measure up to those who are getting paid to do this, and how dare I even bother trying. But instead I’m going to try to learn from the experience.
I’ve been thinking of creating a new website that I can use as a showcase for myself and my writing. For a few years I’ve owned the dot-com that contains my name, so I could put it there. Or I could just put it here. The point is that I worry too much about actively making my name public and maybe I don’t need to. I’m not really anonymous here, but it’s not necessarily easily to find my blog if you know my name. This is because I worry about employers or potential employers. But if I’m going to enter a field where it doesn’t really matter what my opinions are or if I voice them, I should be unafraid to publicize myself.
For the past five-plus years of writing this blog, I’ve subconsciously harbored the hope that someone will come across my fabulous writings and decide to hire me on as a writer, or at least ask me to write stuff for them. But it hasn’t happened. Things like that don’t happen if you’re passive. You have to seek those things out.
If this is really what I want, I really need to take action.
I don’t think that you’ve anything to worry about if you out your full identity on the Internet. So long as you write well about your chosen topic(s), I’d like to think that this could be a positive asset to you.
De l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace!
The web site is one important part of selling yourself as a writer.
The other part: actually selling yourself. Or your work, at least. Start with the smallest markets available to you and get yourself published. You don’t have to make a living doing it, at least for a while, but it means a lot to be able to tell editors that you’ve sold your writing. Anyone can self-publish on the web now–and while most professional writers should do so, it’s no substitute to having had someone else put his money where his mouth is.
Mike’s right. Get some paid writing work. You might try some professional associations that are law-related. See if you could write for their magazine or trade publications.