I’m writing my pants off hoping to get published before I hit bottom (YA fantasy, of course) and only the fact I’m married to someone with a stable income has kept it from happening yet, but he’s getting a little antsy that I contribute to our savings (understandably so).

I’m SO CLOSE but I feel like I’m running out of time, and if the window closes (which I know is just writer paranoia) and I have to get a real full-time soul-crushing desk job, I don’t know what I’ll do. I was SO miserable when I tried that the first time. (This is partly because … I have no skills set, see it all goes full circle) so the only full-time jobs I can find are somewhat below my intellectual abilities and nonstimulating.

Sorry to rant, but this topic is a button for me.

(I’ve lurked on and off for months and am just now saying hi. *waves*)

[And pssst. I'm reading Undine at the moment. When i'm finished get ready for a massive gushing comment on your blog or email. You've been warned! ]

The RMIT Tafe course was far more practical and industry focussed (and cheap!), plus it got me work as a reader in a publishing house, which was great training for a novelist. People I graduated RMIT with at the turn of the century (ha!) are now editors, publishers, successful authors, CYL peeps and Zoe and Louise of Sleepers fame. My current publisher and the editor I’ve been working with while my usual editor was on maternity leave) are both RMIT alumni.

When i was doing Short Story though our whole goal was basically to get published. And our tutor was just a massive push in that direction. Of course there was theory and writing exercises but the major gist was read as much as you can, learn from it, write your guts out, and send your completed stories off to publication/competition after publication/competition.

Anyway. Ramble ramble. Do you have any thoughts on this, Justine? Or does the same opinion go for the diploma as it does for the creative writing major? Off the top of my head i can think of Zoe Dattner and Louise Swinn who did it at RMIT and went on to establish Sleepers Publishing and i think Kate Holden did it at RMIT too. Then again, none of those three are fiction writers. Hrmph.

Sometimes a kick in the arse is good.

Okay, i think what i’m asking is this: do you know many people who have done it and if so, what became of them? (Editor, journalist, author, plumber … )

You definitely don’t *need* to major in creative writing to become a writer, but it also is not the worst thing you could do. In fact, I think it’s only really damaging when you assume that doing such a degree will automatically catapult you into publication, and you don’t do anything else.

That’s probably the worst aspect of such degrees, in that much of their promotion suggests that doing the course is the fast-track to writing and publishing success, and some of the students believe it.

oooh, and i’m applying to vermont college for next year. *crosses fingers and trembles*

I asked them, “Why is it that engineers take up writing as a hobby, yet writers don’t take up engineering as a hobby?”

Granted, that wasn’t very nice. No one likes their passion to be called a hobby. I always enjoyed reading and writing more than differential equations, but I also wanted some firm ground to stand on.

The point I’m trying to make is I agree with Justine. You can major in sciences and keep your love of writing going strong. It’s always an option to take a writing course on top of your mandatory course load. I did it and my brain didn’t fry from overload.

Okay then: to be a published commercial fiction writer you have to drop out of school and move to Australia to become a jackaroo or jillaroo. There is NO OTHER WAY.

Is that better, Patrick?

Anyone who provides examples contrary to your One True College Path definition will be labeled as ‘Wrong’, ‘Lucky’, and ‘an Exception’.

Thanks!