Catch up blog entry

I best let you all know what I've been up to over the past few weeks as I've neglected blog for quite a while now. I've very much been focused on investing in my future and so have had my head buried in the books (or internet tabs) doing coursework and looking into work placements. Talking of which, I have spent the last week at Bradford's local newspaper, the Telegraph and Argus - granted my role there was largely administrative but it helped me to appreciate newspapers on a wider scale. I had a brief meeting with the sub-editor who explained to me the difficulty of getting into such an industry and that the choice to be a writer should be fully vocational and not a way to make money. I was quite aware of this fact however and plan to make money as an author, not as a columnist.

Something I would like to raise though, is the limitations of certain careers - I don't understand whether people willingly get into these situations of not. For example, for the majority of the week, I was working with the advertising department of the T&A which sells ad space to various companies. The people that work there are for the most-part in dead end jobs, I know because there are people there that have been doing telesales for the past 20 years. At first I admired the fact that they had such drive to achieve their targets and did this every single day from 9AM to 5:30PM but then I started to question the mentality of these people. Do they not realise that they are in jobs that will bring in very little money and satisfaction for a long period of time? Didn't they ever once dream of being astronauts or teachers or archaeologists?

It has made me seriously think about my future job prospects and my aspirations of being a writer. My inspiration is none other than J.K. Rowling as she created an alternate reality and has made absolute millions from it. I want to be like that one day and for now that is all I know. I've never put any serious effort into writing fiction as I do admit I have a lack of confidence in my own ability but it is still a feasible option. I can definitely write items of interest because my teachers enjoy reading my essays and you guys like reading my blog as far as I know. It's just a matter of putting the skills and the dream together with the glue that is hard work. For me, this involves, three years of an English degree for which I am aiming for nothing less than a 1st and then a further pre-entry journalism qualification approved by the National Council of Journalists; I'll probably have to throw in a bit of work experience into the mix as well.

I'm not 100% what you wonderful readers will take from this entry other than the fact that unless your dreams are completely ridiculous (like my avid desire to be a cat), then they should not be put aside. Of course, in accordance with the bitch that life is, it isn't going to come for free and in fact, it's going to take a lot of effort on your part, and no doubt lots of tears as well. You'll get there though!