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Can you be a successful writer with an irrelevant college degree?

I love to write, and would love to one day publish short stories or novels or possibly screenplays. However, I don't think I could ever be a full time writer, and am planning for a career in an unrelated field (apparel design). Are creative writing classes in college really necessary to becoming a successful writer? By successful I just mean published, making a paycheck to pay the rent, not J.K. Rowling status or anything!

Public Comments

1. Not at all. Writing is a talent you either have naturally or don't possess. If you have the raw talent it can be developed in a course but it can mostly be developed by reading a lot and writing a lot. In fact, Stephen King feels that creative writing courses are actually bad for writers. Some successful writers have only a high school diploma.
2. good luck
3. You can certainly write successfully without taking any creative writing courses, but don't count on apparel design as a way to support yourself. It is at least as overcrowded a field as is writing and you will not find a good job in it unless you know the right people, which starts with taking an internship in it every summer while you are in college. Sorry for the bad news.
4. They aren't really necessary to become sucessful, some of the most famous authors out there just sat down one day and decided they wanted to write. However if you're looking to impress, I would recomend collage corses so that you can exersise your limits and make them limitless. You can explore tone, expression, detail, setting, ect.. You will learn to better yourself and dive onto your witings like you never had been able to before. If there is one thing I know as a fellow writer, it's that you can always get better.
5. If you do not think you could ever be a "full time" writer, then success for you will come when you begin a career in apparel design, not writing. You don't have to take the classes to achieve success, but you do have to have the spine to not give up on the long and arduous road to becoming a screenwriter. Given that you seem to have more of a passion for writing than a true mission to be a writer, keep writing as an outlet for your mind and your natural human desire to create.
6. Start smalll but think big. Check out: Quick Guide to Hub Construction http://hubpages.com/_Y18/hub/Quick-Guide-to-Hub-Construction You could be a published writer within a few hours and earning money within the week.