[CindyDawg]

While she writes, she can still get a job at McDonalds or Walmart etc.

[RepoGirl]

Or, she can do what I did. I went to school for creative writing, earning both a BA and an MFA. Since no one was going to hire me to write novels and short stories for them, I used my practical skills: typing, writing, filing, looking cute in short tailored suits (back then... sigh...) and temped through places like Kelly and Sterling.

I made good scratch in the corporate world in my 'suit jobs' wrote in my off hours and had great material to draw from.

In short, I did what I did to survive. I didn't expect to be a rock star straight out of college. Didn't get the big jobs until I'd slugged it in the trenches for several years, buckled down even to earn some financial licenses that helped me write for mutual funds and investment houses. It wasn't all sexy rockstar fun and glamour, but hey -- it paid the bills.

My best friend in grad school just had his seventh novel published, has a film coming out by Scorcese this year, and he drove limos and tended bar in the lean times. Kids today...