A great many people who want to be writers say that they want to have a career in journalism. They may envision themselves going to exotic locales to cover stories. While these things do happen to journalists, it takes a long time to make your bones before you are sent on any interesting assignments.

I became a journalist purely by accident. Unlike others who seek out journalism as a career, I wanted to be a writer. I envisioned myself writing books of fiction and entertaining the masses. My parents talked me into going to college and getting a degree in journalism. They told me that it was a good idea to have something to fall back on, in case I couldn’t make a living writing fiction for a living. Five years and 100 rejections later, I realized they were right. Fortunately, my degree in journalism helped me support myself so that I didn’t have to go back home after I got out of school.

I had no idea what a journalist did until I got my first job at a local paper when I was still in school. I was hired as a stringer and had to report on meetings. It was boring, but it paid for extras. Someone said that I was a journalist and I realised that I was working in a field for which I was studying.