Regarding Christian Higley’s recent posts on Bitmob about giving up on his dream career in games journalism.
Christian, I don’t know whether you’ll ever read this, but I hope you do. I was very sorry to read your heartfelt post on the subject of the industry’s club-like nature, and I just wanted to say that I truly hope that you make it to a place that will see you try again.
In my very short time pursuing a career doing the same, I have been met with nothing but encouragement and support. I don’t know whether you were simply in contact with the wrong people, or just unlucky, but I do know that there are people out there that would be more than willing to help you get on your feet. No one is going to give just give you a job out of the kindness of their hearts, but I could name a number of people who are reasonably prominent in the industry that would be willing to read over your work, give you tips for pitching to particular editors, and generally help you on your way.
The best thing that any young writer could do is to just write. Write as much as you can, be it on a blog or a community site like Bitmob. Building up a portfolio of work is essential to any writing application and even if it’s left unpublished, you’ll at least be getting into the habit of writing regularly.
As Scott Nichols said in his response, freelance writing isn’t a career choice to make if you want to, y’know, earn money. It is tough work, full of rejection, derision, and self-doubt. You will be constantly trying to make contact with incredibly busy people whose only available contact points are an underused Twitter account and oversaturated email address. You’ll face critique from faceless Internet gremlins, and hateful responses from people upon whose products you’ve voiced a negative opinion. You will chase money for work that you completed weeks previously, and that which you do receive will be less than you hoped.
It’s hard work, but it can also be incredibly rewarding. It could take you places, and introduce you to people that you’ve only dreamed about. You’ll be writing about the things that you love, and being paid to tell people that they should love them too! Who knows? Perhaps one day it will lead you to editing a publication that has been with you throughout your childhood, giving you the opportunity to shape it in order to teach the youth of that day about the beauty of the entertainment medium that we love!
Please consider continuing your attempts, Christian. From what I’ve seen, you’ve certainly got skill enough that it would be a shame to set it aside.