How do you become a writer?

One of the questions that always stumped me on campus tours came from parents who, after learning I had self-designed a major in creative writing, would ask the inevitable and mostly innocuous follow-up, “So do you want to be a writer?”

This question was always difficult for me not because I didn’t know the answer (it was, and I suspect always will be a resounding YES! I do want to be a writer! I want to be the next JK Rowling and create a world that readers fall in love with and—less importantly—make more money than the Queen. I want that!). I was not ready to admit that answer. When I did answer their question in the affirmative, I was sometimes met with, “hmm, that’ll be difficult.”

For me, part of what makes a career in writing terrifying is not that it is a more difficult path, but that there is actually no path at all, or if there is it’s too amorphous to identify. You could work hard your entire life, have an incredible talent, and still die destitute and unrecognized. This is the kind of thing that fills me, the parents of Lena Dunham’s character on Girls, and probably those prospective students’ parents with utter terror.

Even so, I’m determined not to lose the motivation and momentum I built around writing. I don’t want to look back one day and refer to writing as something I used to do in college. For my senior thesis, I wrote historical fiction, so here in Bulgaria I’m trying my hand at travel writing. Now that I’ve passed the most volatile stages of culture shock, I feel I’m ready to finally write insightful, informative, possibly pithy, articles about living in Bulgaria, teaching English as a second language and international travel.

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My sophomore year, I took Writing 100 (Advanced Topics: Arts + Culture Review) with Professor Drake. Around spring break, we covered travel writing, and I found it was one of my favorite subjects in the course. I’ve loved the Travel Channel for as long as I can remember, eating pizza rolls after school in front of the TV and watching Samantha Brown.

I started submitting writing to publications this past year. In May, I won third place for my piece on Copenhagen in a student travel writing contest for Transitions Abroad. It was the first time I was paid for my writing in a non-Scripps context and it was empowering.

I was determined to do more travel writing when I got to Bulgaria, so I read Robin Hemley’s A Field Guide for Immersion Writing: Memoir, Journalism, and Travel. You can read my full review here. It was an informative read by someone who demonstrated himself to be an expert in the field. By the time I was done I had dozens of ideas percolating in my brain.

But I still didn’t feel like I had a direction. I didn’t know the next steps. So that’s why I bit the bullet and finally enrolled in Matador U’s online travel writing course. I’ve been reading the Matador Network’s helpful articles on writing, and so I’m excited to work through the course, which covers some topics that will be new to me, like a “publication mindset,” new media and SEO, and travel writing markets.

Wish me luck and persistence—I know I’ll need both!

Are you a writer? What kind of path are you building?

“Can I Help You Find Something?”: Learning about life and work in Target

I thought to make this post a “Thanks-giving,” but each time I brainstormed a list of the people I could/would/should thank, it became a might unwieldy. I know I could never choose only a few from the mountain of people who have made me.

But, there is another “holiday” this month that got me thinking. Black Friday.

I wasn’t aware of Black Friday until I was sixteen. I was a junior in high school and I had started working at Target the month before, in preparation for the holiday season. I was assigned to come in at 6 a.m. and work the registers, even though I was normally a “soft-lines” team member, meaning I worked primarily in the clothing sections. I was both nervous and excited. I was wearing my comfortable work shoes with my red shirt and khaki pants. I was at my station and ready when they opened the doors, and customers jogged towards electronics.

Busy days like that were a blur of adrenaline, smiles, and morale-boosting food in the break room.

Target was my first place of employment, and it made a huge impact on me. I never played sports in high school, or participate in typical extra-curriculars like theater or model UN, but the last year and half of high school I was working 12-24 hours a week as a Target team member. Under those fluorescent lights, I had my first experiences with responsibility, diversity and teamwork. And yes, I also experienced the entitlement of American consumers. My job at Target was the first time I witnessed and really comprehended racism.

One of the most important things I learned at Target, though, was the importance of co-worker relationships. Even in retail, a field known for eating minimum wage worker’s souls, the right people can make the job bearable. The right people can make waking up at 6 a.m. for the Black Friday rush fun.

Target has such a high rate of turn-over that in two years, I experienced good, bad and mediocre teams. Good teams create energy, and that energy turns into productivity. They make work fun, even if you are stuck in infants organizing the bottle aisle for the third time that week. Mediocre and bad teams, don’t support each other that way. There’s drama, or maybe just apathy, that drains the energy and makes the atmosphere miserable. You avoid co-workers by taking on the long and unenviable task of organizing the clearance racks by percentage clearance and then by size. Time moves slowly. Bad teams blame each other if one section is taking longer than the others to clean after closing, instead of just helping to finish it.

Changes in management reverberated through the store. I worked best with a supervisor who allowed me my independence, who encouraged problem solving. If something didn’t work one day, or took too long, I could try something different the next. After a year and a half of working there, a new manager would tell me to go by the book, every day, even when it wasn’t working for me or a particular clothing section I was in. That inflexibility to try new things or look for better solutions was extremely frustrating.

Target was my first experience in work-place culture, and it taught me which management styles and team relationships I value most. Retail gets a bad rap. Sure, by the end of senior year I was ready to leave, and it took me a long time to be able to wear red and khaki together again, but as a first job I could not have asked for better.

Writing Resumes in Bulgaria

“Ivan Vazov” Foreign Language High School, Smolyan, Bulgaria

My 12th graders have a huge range of goals, some are pursuing university in Bulgaria, while others will head to universities in the UK or Germany. An equal amount expect to go straight into the work force, domestically and abroad. A couple have expressed interest in the military.

As I was brainstorming for lesson plans, there was one writing assignment that stood out as being useful for every single one of them: resume writing.

I took the things I’ve learned from CP&R over the years, borrowed some tips and tricks from their page on the Scripps website, and adapted it for presentation to my high school students. We were able to practice work-related verbs and appropriate tenses (the difference between “filing documents” and “filling documents”). There was a lot of “what is it called in English if you are someone who does XYZ.”

My co-teacher and I printed out and distributed the “EuroPass” CV form, a common form used by employers throughout Europe. After having discussed the components and important parts of resume-writing the week before, we gave them the 45-minute class period to fill out the form and hand them back for evaluation.

Having an actual form in front of them allowed for more specific questions and gave us a space to problem-solve some of the issues unique to them. There’s no name for the qualification you have upon graduating high school in Bulgaria that would be equivalent to “high school diploma,” so they were unsure what to write on the line for “title of qualification.” We went over the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, so they would know how to self-assess and report their language skills on their CV.

Most students here don’t have part-time or summer jobs, as their aren’t an abundance of jobs to go around. There weren’t even any babysitters in the group, as families here generally can’t afford to hire them. With this in mind, we thought about how they can interpret the experiences and occasional job they do have for use on a resume. Among my group we had a class representative, a freelance sports writer, Guinness World Record-holding bagpiper, and mushroom factory worker.

Even if they never need to write a CV or resume in English, I hope the exercise of thinking about their strengths, abilities and experiences will be helpful wherever they scout for jobs. And for those of my students who will be applying to jobs and universities abroad, this was a good start for them to think about how they represent themselves on applications in another language.

How do I know it was a success?

Other teachers heard about the lesson, and asked me to work through it with their classes as well. When suffering from culture shock and trying to survive the first year of teaching, there’s nothing better than the feeling that you’ve done something right. Many thanks to CP&R for teaching my resume-writing skills. Now I can pay it forward.

Career Planning for Two

By my junior year at Scripps, I was feeling the pressure to have a post-grad direction. As I buckled down to try to map out my life, or at least figure out how I would keep myself occupied the summer before senior year, I came to the realization that my plan-making and goal-setting was going to be severely hampered hindered curtailed influenced by my relationship.

Enjoying time together in Yellowstone National Park before senior year.

This was hard for me to come to terms with, as I’m sure it is for other fiercely independent women who have grown up in an environment with the message that no man is worth sacrificing your dreams. I have to admit that I felt some amount of guilt, as if I was letting my feminist foremothers down by considering my boyfriend in the life plans I was forming, particularly because my partner is of a certain Myers-Briggs typology that tends not to prioritize planning. If I am compromising from the very beginning, while he continues to fly by the seat of his pants, I can’t help but think that I will wind up sacrificing the most in the long run.

This brings us to the classic Scripps psychology survey question: What is more important to you—your relationship or your career? I have always maintained that I shouldn’t have to choose. Am I being naïve or an idealist?

My senior year, as I started applications for jobs and fellowships and my partner continued to pretend life after college wasn’t going to exist, I decided not to worry too much about the compromises I assumed I would have to make. My partner doesn’t yet know what kind of career path will make him happy, and so I cannot possibly compromise my own goals to get him there faster.

Together, we talked about our life plans, career goals, our dreams, and I realized I’m lucky. At the cusp of launching onto my career path, I have the love and support of a stable relationship, but without the inhibitive requirement that we must physically inhabit the same space. After graduation, I was headed to teach English in Bulgaria. He eventually came to the conclusion that he wanted to flex his language skills in Russia. And after that, who knows? We may come together in the same city for a while and then move apart again as one or both of us pursue grad school. I like the wild and open spaces of the American West, and he prefers the constant chaos of cities like Chicago or New York. Our difference in geographic preferences, which may have been a deal breaker in another age, are part of what allow us to follow our dreams independently, even as we continue our relationship and support each other from afar.

Long distance relationships are not easy, and they don’t come highly recommended. But by now, my partner and I are veterans. We are, in fact, quite good at long distance after much practice and frequent Skype calls. We are both skilled communicators and being apart forces us to be much more intentional with the time we do have to talk to each other. What, on the one hand, could be considered a challenge for the relationship is, on the other hand, a chance to balance relationship and career. For now, at least.

Whenever I am in need of inspiration in the combination of relationships and careers, I look to Scripps alumna Gabrielle Giffords ’93 and her husband, Captain Mark Kelly. While she followed her career to Capitol Hill, her husband followed his into space. Russia and Bulgaria don’t seem so far apart in comparison.

Photo source: gabriellegiffords.com

The Illusion of Anonymity

My junior year at Scripps I interviewed for the position of Admissions Intern. After a summer of working with the Office of Admission, I wanted to return my senior year to work with AAT leadership responsible for prospective student events, in addition to a number of special projects for the office.

I interviewed from abroad via Skype. I had commandeered my host-family’s kitchen, brushed my hair, put on lipstick and a nice button-up shirt. I went in confident. I felt good, and I knew my interviewers personally. I had worked with them all before.

I had prepared for the questions I knew were coming. Why was I applying for this position? What could I bring to the table? How would I balance the significant commitment of this job with my classes and thesis?

I answered the questions. I asked some of my own. We laughed and caught up a little bit. Everything was going as expected, until a question that caught me completely by surprise.

I was Skyping with an Admissions Officer and two of the AAT student staff whose shoes I would be trying to fill. I knew something was up towards the end of the interview, when one student turned to the other and said, “should we ask her?”

There was a pause.

I was on the edge of my seat.

Part of the job, the student explained, is keeping tabs on Scripps’ online presence, including college forums like College Confidential. “Are you [user_name] on College Confidential?”

College Confidential– a forum that allows students and parents to ask questions about specific colleges, majors, internships, study abroad and generally obsess over the admissions process.

I could feel my face go bright red. I laughed nervously and admitted that yes, that’s me.

There was laughter and quiet cheering on the other end of the Skype call. Someone said, “I knew it!”

I racked my brain to think of all the things I’d posted under that username recently. I certainly hadn’t posted any of it with my job interview in mind, but I had never tried to stay particularly anonymous. I was never shy about sharing details like my hometown, my major, my classes or on-campus jobs. It was all about helping prospies, and in my experience, the more specific detail the better. Although I never deliberately kept them separate, I never expected my online identity to be revealed as part of a job interview. The illusion of any sort of online anonymity had been shattered.

When the interviewer made the comment, “I feel like we should already be paying you!” I knew things were still ok. My online forum presence actually turned out to be a positive thing, in this instance. Answering questions online was something I had been doing to procrastinate homework and feel as if I’m helping people… and it helped me get the job where I could continue answering questions online for parents and prospective students.

I was lucky. What if I had lost my patience and cussed out a forum troll?  I’ve been tempted, I’ll admit, but this interview was a good reminder that online behavior, even under an “anonymous” user name can have very real consequences, good and bad.