Last week, I was invited onto a panel at Shimer College, where my friend works in the Admissions office. It was supposed to be about careers, and I thought that I’d be mostly talking about being a freelancer and how to make it as a writer. But it turned out that I was on a panel with a bunch of alumni, and the whole thing was much more general — instead of talking about clips and pitching, we talked about resumes and job interviews.

But I had asked my Twitter and Facebook friends if they wanted to see video of me there, and there was a lot of interest. So, since the actual event didn’t apply much to freelance writing (and there was no real good chance to get video — you guys would have been bored by it if I’d gotten it), but I’d already done a lot of thinking about how I got to where I am, I figured I’d write these up. If you’re interested in working professionally as a writer, maybe these will help.

1. Write! I got to see Warren Ellis speak at the Chicago Comiccon last year, and he put this advice (which I’ve heard many, many times before from lots of people) in the most relevant form: “I’ve always believed that writers write. If you’re a guy who calls himself a writer but who sits around in his underwear watching TV all day and wondering what themes to include in a novel, you’re not a writer. You’re a guy who sits around watching TV all day.” If you want to be a writer, you have to write, a lot. And of course it’s easier than ever to get published, even if you aren’t paid: start a blogspot blog, and start writing, every single day. That may sound easy, but it’s really not: you’d be very surprised how many blogspot blogs consist of one post: “Hello and welcome! I’ve just started this blog, and there will be more posts here soon!” The truth is, for the first year or so of any blog you start, no one will read it, you’ll get no comments, and it’ll feel pretty pointless. But the most important thing is to be consistent and constant. Write every day, no matter what it’s about, and you’ll learn to be a better writer.

2. Work for free, but not for too long. The worst advice I ever got, coming out of college, was this: “never work for free.” The person who gave it to me had good intentions — they believed that my work was valuable, and that I shouldn’t ever give it away. And they were right: my work and my time are valuable, and I shouldn’t spend either one frivolously. But saying “never work for free” locks too many doors — especially with the economy the way it is, and especially because, when you’re first starting out, editors will doubt your conviction unless you show them that you can put in a day’s work or deliver x number of words on deadline, working for free is often more than worth it, whether it’s working an internship at a local paper or publishing a weekly column on an unpaid blog. In terms of getting your name and reputation out there, in terms of the experience of meeting a deadline for a bigger team, and in terms of getting clips with your name on them, working for free is often a necessity. You don’t have to do it for too long — once you’ve proven yourself and have a few solid clips in hand, then you can start asking for money. But don’t take the advice I got and say you’ll never work for free, because not all payment is monetary.

3. Rejection means nothing. This is actually solid advice for any job, and I did say this on the panel: rejection should mean absolutely nothing to you. I was just listening to Bryan Cranston (the dad from Malcom in the Middle who’s now doing a great job acting on AMC’s Breaking Bad) on Adam Corolla’s podcast, and he said that before Malcolm in the Middle, he got denied two different acting jobs that he was really counting on. He was really bummed out, because he’d really hoped for something big from those two, and they hadn’t chosen him. But not a day later, he got invited in to audition again, and that third one was Malcolm in the Middle, which was on TV for seven years and made him a millionaire. We work ourselves up with big auditions or big job interviews, thinking that “if I don’t get this job or land this gig, that’ll be it.” But it never is — there’s always another opportunity around the corner, or something else that will come along and be even more perfect.

4. Deliver. This is good advice for almost any job as well, though one of the things I like about writing is that it’s not that hard to be really good. Most editors are looking for one thing: a properly formatted, correctly spelled piece with the right amount of words in the right order before the deadline. That’s it. They’re usually not looking for Shakespeare or Joyce, though there’s no harm in aiming to be one of those guys. All they’re looking for is someone who can do what they say they can do, someone who they can turn to and say “2000 words on this by Friday,” and then have it be so. It’s even OK if they say that and then you say “I can do 1500 by Friday, but for 2000, I’ll need Saturday,” as long as come Saturday, you’ve got the 2000 all set. Originally, I wanted to be in radio, and I still kind of do, but the problem is in radio your job depends on so many different people — the program director who’s breathing down your neck, the ad sales people who have to get you the money to stay on the air, and even the engineer in overalls who has to keep the transmitter running. When you’re a writer, your job depends on you. Sure, an editor might make changes to what you write, and there are still usually ad sales people lurking around somewhere making sure there’s money in the payroll account. But when you have to turn in 2000 words, those 2000 words come from your head, and the only one responsible for making sure they appear on paper by the time they’re supposed to is you. Making that happen is all that’s really required to be a solid writer, and once an editor sees you can do that, then you’ll become such a valuable asset that they’ll throw work at you.

5. Endure. And this, I personally believe, is the most important thing about making it in any profession, especially something creative like writing. The way that you get successful at something is usually just that you do it for a long time. There are actors in Hollywood who’ve been doing commercials and training videos for twenty years, and then get one movie part that turns them into a big success. Likewise, writing is a “keep at it” job — there are almost no overnight successes, and even most first-time novel writers who make it big have been working in newspapers and magazines or just writing on their own for years ahead of time. They way you become really successful is just to be the guy still doing whatever it is you want to do when everyone else decides it’s not worth it any more. Sure, it takes talent, and you can’t stick to doing something for a really long time unless you have a strong conviction or a passion about doing it. But the truth is that the more you write, the better you get, the more people see your work, the more editors hear you name, and the more success you have. Too many people sit down to write, try it out for a while, and then decide there’s something else they’d rather do with that time. If you’re one of the crazy ones who keeps writing even after that feeling passes, then you’re on the right path.