Life, or studentdom?

Well, here I am, sitting in a bookshop/cafe, drinking tea after tea, tapping away at my teeny-tiny laptop and pretending I'm a proper writer. Alas, due to a lack of journalism jobs, I'm not a professional writer yet. I'm kind of... freelancing... for free. Which sucks a little - but at least I'm getting some work out there. I also started writing my novel, which brings a huge sense of achievement with it, although I now have to discipline myself, in the absence of all deadlines, to keep it up. Yeah... that's not going too well. I've had a prologue and a chapter one for the last two weeks... and not much else. And now I've changed my mind again about my characters... oh dear. This is turning out to be a far more complex process than I thought. Hmmm... maybe I should enlist some help from some novel-writing tips books. Or maybe I just need to somehow develop the patience to plan before I jump in there and try and bash it out. I'm pretty sure that my idea is good - execution, however, is proving a problem.

On the plus side, I've written a feature that's set to be published in 3SIXTY magazine in April (www.3sixtymag.co.uk) which'll be my first ever published feature! So exciting! And not only that, I'm working on another feature - which, despite doing it for free, somehow makes me feel a little bit more like a writer. I figure, as long as I have a project going, that makes me one.

So writing, at the moment, is more like a hobby than a profession. And to earn a little money, I'm working for a fundraising company in Brighton raising money for the NSPCC and Great Ormand Street Hospital to earn a living. Which, as far as jobs go, isn't too bad.

The hunt for journalism jobs continues... If it doesn't pick up, maybe I should just head back to university and back into the student bubble. Now, let's see what MA courses are on offer round here...