Where do I go with creative writing? Do you work magic with words? Imaging a job where you can run with all the ideas, stories, and wacky concepts that pop into your head

Career World, April-May, 2005

YOU NEVER GROAN WHEN YOU'RE ASSIGNED AN ESSAY. You're the one who embraces the opportunity to write a funny poem about bees who like cheese, an article for the school newspaper, and long letters to your friend from kindergarten who moved to Australia.

If you love to write, that's good news in whatever career you choose. The secret to success in any field, according to a recent survey by the College Board, is having good communication skills--especially writing skills.

If you want to focus your career on creative writing, there's no limit to where your talents can take you. You might write stories, film scripts, magazine articles, radio commercials, company newsletters, or copy for a cereal box. Career World asked three successful professional writers to talk about the paths they took with their passion for words. Their stories follow.

TELL TALES FOR A LIVING: Children's Book Author

By Cynthia Leitich Smith

It's 3 a.m., and I'm curled on the daybed in my sunroom, tapping on my laptop. Three gray tabbies and one snow-white kitty snooze on either side, and the TV is tuned to an all-jazz channel. Spread on the coffee table are ripped-out magazine pages, a tourist map of Austin, Texas, and eight developed rolls of film I took of potential setting locales. Research, write, and revise. That's what I do.

I'm a children's and young-adult book author, best known for contemporary Native American fiction but working on an upper-teen Gothic fantasy.

As an author, I speak at schools, museums, universities, teacher and librarian conferences, and bookstores. I tour the country, field the media, mentor up-and-coming voices, host workshops, and manage the largest children's/ young-adult site on the Net. I've also had breakfast with two first ladies, opined on Madonna's literary efforts, and cheered as my husband broke into publishing too.

Still, I'm most a writer when it's just me, the blank screen, and the words --one after another--as they move into my reach. The story, the characters, the magic.

I can't say there aren't downsides. I've worked for years at a time on manuscripts not knowing if they would sell and had to set aside a couple that didn't. Pay is unreliable. Critics can be harsh. New blood is always eager to compete for shelf space.

But who cares! I'm living my dream. I'll never say "maybe someday."

As a young girl, I started out writing poetry in elementary school and got a white participation ribbon at the district fair. I was "Dear Gabby" for the sixth-grade newspaper and went on to become editor of the papers in junior high and high school.

Always better at the language arts, I played to my strengths by graduating from journalism school in Kansas and then law school in Michigan.

Being a middle-class kid and first-generation college grad, I looked for a writing career with a steady income. Though fiction was my first love, I never considered it a real possibility. I figured becoming that kind of writer was like becoming a rock star--something you were born or lucked into.

So I took a job in a Chicago law office but found myself scribbling stories on my lunch break and after work. Law was fascinating, but ultimately it's storytelling that made my heart sing. I decided I didn't want to go on just marking time, that the safe road would never challenge me to reach my full potential.

After only six months, I plunged into writing fiction full time. Signed with an agent a year and a half later. Held my first published book two years after that.

Now I live in Austin with my author husband and four editorial cats. I'm every bit as engaged in my make-believe worlds as the real one. Maybe it's not prudent or steady, but I joyfully craft fictional heroes who inspire real-life young readers to find their own heroes within.

Cynthia Leitich Smith is the author of Jingle Dancer (Morrow, 2000); Rain Is Not My Indian Name (HarperCollins, 2001); Indian Shoes (HarperCollins, 2002); and numerous middle-grade and young-adult short stories. Her next young-adult novel is slated for publication in the fall of 2005. Visit www.cynthialeitichsmith.com.

ALWAYS CURIOUS: Newspaper Columnist

By Robert K. Elder

Journalists have the greatest job in the world because we're paid to be curious.

As writers and reporters, we're on the cutting edge of new ideas, trends, and events. Feature writers indulge their interests (movies, languages, comics) and discover new talent while furthering the cultural discourse. Daily hard-news reporters keep the public informed, root out corruption, and give voice to the disenfranchised. Journalists are always learning, always uncovering, always engaging our curiosity while serving our communities.

Of course, when I first began writing in high school, I couldn't articulate any of this. My love of magazines and newspapers began with arts coverage--mostly movie reviews and band profiles.

But luckily, when I was a freshman at Billings Senior High in Billings, Mont., I was exposed to The Bronc Express, our student newspaper. I saw my peers writing about issues that affected them in a way that was revolutionary and eye-opening. Later, when I was on staff as a junior, I did an interview with Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, that made journalism seem like a viable career option.