Advice

Ehh. He's young. I started out as a "fanboy" working for free. That led to my first real job in the industry. I've worked several professional beats since at various publications. You have to get reps in somewhere. Nothing wrong with blogging before a live audience while honing your craft. Heaven forbid a kid in high school starts out that way, figures out it's what he wants to do for a living, and then seeks advice. I never post here but some of you people are absolute curmudgeons.

 

The one thing I would add is make sure you're working with good editors, people who will take the time to go over your stories and help you grow as a writer. I can't stress enough how important that is, particularly at your age.

 

Plus-one.

A brutally honest editor will do you more good than you know at any age, especially being someone just entering the profession.

 

Agreed. The most common complaint I heard from writers who had good jobs at some websites is that they had little or no editing

 

You've got a good head start on most journalism students. Keep up the work and make them keep trying to play catchup with you. It gets like this in the business.

Keep your options open to other career industries as well. Maybe dabble in radio and TV while at Missouri. Try to work tirelessly at the school paper. Try to get those Friday night football gigs. Get to know the professional journalists in the press box and on press row while at Mizzou games. Offer to run quotes for them and offer to help them out if they get in a pinch.

And lastly, don't get discouraged. Write every Friday night football game like it's the Super Bowl because, to those kids and their families, they'll read the paper the next day like it is. And that goes for every game story. Write every story like it's the best you've ever written and you'll get so much better at it and so much more natural at it.

Good luck kid!

 

I'm sure it's been posted on this forum before, but listen to this guy. Don't work for free, ever.

 

Curmudgeon? I like that.