Throughout life I have heard the many speeches of "follow your dreams, do what you love, use a talent you have" and others ect. that I assume are used to guide you to a successful, happy life or career. Well that is hopefully, but my main question is how? I cannot find something that I love to do that could become a job, or a talent I have that is useful.. I mean I have (or I am supposed to have) a high intellect, so I could probably work my way into a moderate college. But I do not know what, I know I am quite young but just curious.

If not, feel free to post how you found your talent/talents or how you found a job you would love. Being a parent will be considered a job in here

That's the point. You're what, 13? I'm 16, i still don't know what I want to do. it takes time, it takes experience. You have swim around, figure out what you really love to do and stick to it. The really difficult part is making it applicable in our society.

I have a talent for writing... poetry, reports, letters, stories, everything. I'm considering journalism but it's sport of complicated, it's not any job I can get a pen and paper in. I also want to travel a lot, and live and get to know different cultures from all over the world. One option is in writing novels I could get a grant from my publisher to travel for inspiration. I'm considering that, but I don't want to give up activism and journalism is more practical in consideration of activism. That is my dilema.

finding a job you love can be a challenge. Knowing what you are good at is one thing, but just because you are good at it does not mean you enjoy it. The most important thing is to find out what you enjoy doing. College is usually the best place to figure it out, as before college you shuld not be thinking about specifics but about broadening and opening your options. Also You have to remember tp keep certain things you enjoy as a hobbies, as the stress in the workplace can slightly dull you joy from the job.

Also don't put money first as many people do.

I love water, and I love biology. and so I am studying to be a Marine Biologist. It is definetly not a high cash job, but I believe I will enjoy it, though I will not find out until I get and internship and see what the day to day job is realy like.

I do not really care about money, it is just depressing how I cannot find one single talent I can actually do. For an example, I used to like to write poety in fifth grade after we did a segment on them, but as I entered seventh grade I realized my poems were complete trash compared to others... not because I wrote them when I was younger either. There are so many things I would want to do , but I simply cannot! I wanted to try and write a fantasy novel... or brainstorm it at my age but as I read my current skills in writing, they are not "attractive" as a book should be. I love video games, yet I cannot draw/sketch anything whatsoever!

Still as young as I am, I really question if it would be worth trying in High School as my sister will be going to college to be a Nurse or whatever, and being the middleclass family we will barely be able to afford it, since the damn government thinks we can skip grocercies and supplies and just pay for college.... which means a few years down the road my family, nor me shall have any money left for a college. I may be bright but there are plenty of people that outmatch me. I am defected socially, no one wants to be my friend or near me and I am insulted far too many times to count in one school day. I'm worried..

I have good writing skills, but my poetry isn't great. I have, on several occasions, began a fantasy novel, only to think of a better idea and trash the first, and then never gotten any farther on the next one either. If I'm going to make a novel, I need a partner, not so much for ideas or writing style but to keep me on task, cause I tend to get lazy if I don't have someone forcing me to do something. How's this for an idea? Co-authoring. We can work together on a novel, alternately writing chapters or in different spots or viewpoints or whatever, and do this through a pm or emails. If you want, I can brainstorm some ideas and pm them to you, along with a few smaples of my writing so you can see if you like it.


I'm lucky. Kind of. I'm the firstborn, so my parents will still have all their cash when I'm getting into college. However, we're lower middle class, and I have been told I can pay for it myself or die trying.

Right now, I'm planning on learning programming and such, learning computer stuff. What I want to do is to create videogames, as it seems like a perfect job for me, but I'll take just about anything with similar skill sets needed for it, because I like the computers and learning to use them and using them as much as I like the idea of making games.

Writing is a craft and takes work. Just because you don't think you're any good at something doesn't mean you're not talented. Don't compare your work to the greats... what amde them greats was not being excellent at your age but being really really stubborn and loving what they were doing, not caring about how good they were but doing it because they loved it.

Go read my latest writing piece in the Tes F'ruum forum section, look for my topic I just posted.... I believe it is quite crappy since I did not get to edit it. Feel free to leave comments too...

And I just realized something really important.... I'm usually a perfectionist when it comes to work... heh I may not be that bad after all, it is just I am never satisfied with myself I do not know..

I have plenty of idea for novels, trust me, the first one I would like to try would be called The Wolfman Prophecies - A Rude Awakening... of course. The only difficult task I see in it is attracting readers to it.... I will not reveal any plot though so bug off'. (joking). Co-authoring is probably not an accepted practice because two minds usually are not always on the same track when being free. One guy might love wolfmen (me) and a girl might like dragons ( no one I know of ) so trying to write together would be like.. the wolfmen charged with an undying fury... and then a dragon appeared! When the battle was over the men retreated .. as a dragon appeared! It just gets silly mixing two things together like that.. well that might not have been the best example. How about mixing ash salts and corpus weepings? Not exactly appetizing.

Want to know another reason I want to write a fantasy novel/novels? Eragon... I hated how the name was so close to Aragorn, it felt like a mimick of it and I simply could not read on.... I want to create a fantasy book that would rock the world like LORT did for a short period of time, but maybe not as crappy I'm sure there would be many difficulties doing this, since the only support I have is myself...


Edit: by the way poetry only works for me when I think of it, like during class or something. Sitting in front of a computer gets me nothing, so I guess I should have a little notebook for my poetry I think of or something.. I have had some really deep poetry, forgotten it and then remembered it days later when I didn't feel like writing anymore...

We're our own worst critics. It's the ability to think your work always needs to improved that makes it better. It's natural to think your writing is not as good as it really is.

You're still young, don't worry about it. Writing is not something you're born with. If you love it, then do it despite how good other people are or how good you think you are. When you think a work is publishable, you publish it.

Coauthoring is done oftenly in the modern world but not usually one chapter each as it requires a lot of planning. Two minds not only create ideas faster but act as a quality control on each other making sure the bad ideas are weeded out. Usually though only one guy writes.

Example: Ray Bradbury. He keep sending in stories ( and getting rejected) until one actually got him i na magazine, then he had to story his way up that latter till he got to a actual book (which ammounted to a bunch of short stories that together formed the novel's overall story).

Writing is fun, and something you got to keep at, I roleplay alot because it gives me a chance to write without having to do a big huge block of writing entirely my own because the other people are helping drive the story too.

It also helps me be more realistic, through RPing I've weeded out unrealistic actions when a more experienced player pointed things out.

Anywho

Point is find something you love and keep at it. I'll probablly end up as either a Programer or writer because I like programming (as frustrating as it can be, its fun to actually write a program and go "Hey guys, look! I made a password-program!" (which I've done, hehe. Its simpler than I thought.)

hey all
I'm 13 and I know what I'd like to be when I'm older!

An airline pilot!
If a airliners pilots both died, I bet I could fly the rest of the route to land safely at the destination. But, onlt if it were a Boeing, Airbuses fly weird IMHO

The only downpoints of beeing a pilot are:
Bad Pay when you start off, keep in mind, not all pilots are 777 pilots
Increased change to have cancer because you aren't sheilded by ozone because you are flying in it.
Away from home

cya

Well some critics get punched for being very bad, and I definitely do not punch myself.... I rather get all the credit for a book thought anyway, but I would be glad to hear stories and give opinions on them. I guess I'm just a wishy-washy person, one minute I feel "who gives a flying crap, I like my writing" and the next I will be "crap that Sara girl has amazing writing! wtf was I thinking?" so you get the idea. Sometimes I think I am psychotic, but I'm just not in agreeance (sp) with myself. Heh the one kid who is like the closest thing I have to a real friend was using my heritage or whatever it is named (where your bloodlines run off to , example Scottish-Scotland) to idenify most of my personality. I'm half polish, half irish and he is like , since your irish you are easy tempered and since you are polish you are very stubborn. I don't know what I just said that but I like it hah go figure.

I'd like to thank you guys for advice and stuff..... and those who actually bothered to post, for some reason no one ever posts after me when I start a topic...

Oh well, I guess I'll have to use my own ideas for a novel. One that will almost definately not be based on wolves, or include wolves in anything other than a small mention. Wolves aren't exactly my forte. Anything written by me is either semitraditional fantasy or sci-fi. Come to think of it, if I did have someone to make me keep to a deadline, my writing style would be cramped, forced, different. Just wouldn't be the same. Probably the same would go for yours. And you're probably right, co-authoring would be a bad idea. I know many books that were co-authored and came out pretty good, but the two people actually worked personally together on it, so they were able to collaborate better than through emails. Not to mention our writing styles probably wouldn't hash very well.
Poetry come to me when I can't write it down, usually when I'm about to go to sleep. Either I get up and write it down immediately, or it looses it's original appeal and sounds wierd.


I actually had an example of this in school today. I have a special semi-study hall once a week. We've been working on stereotypes. Last week, we were assigned a stereotype, and told to write a diary entry pretending that we were stereotyped like that. The teacher personally chose which stereotype we had to do that from, and purpsoely made it far from what people actually stereotyped us as. I had to do one as a skater. Everyone finished in class. This week, we split into two groups of seven and read ours to our group. The two best ones were chosen from each group. Mine and someone elses, a girl who had to write from the perspective of being an emo. I thought mine was horrible. Her's was pretty good though. The two people chosen from the other group were a girl who had to write her entry stereotyped as a dreamy school girl and a girl who had to write her entry stereotyped as a scumbag. (person who never washes and smells bad) People actually clapped for me, despite the fact that a. they didn't have to clap at the end of reading our diary entries and b. I thought mine was horrible.

Here is that journal entry that I wrote:



Oh, and if you were wondering why there were three girls chosen and only one guy, it's because my study hall has three guys and eleven girls in it, so the odds were slim that more than one guy would be chosen by the groups.


Good advice. I'm pretty good at writing, but it's not the career I'm pursuing and I'm far from as good as the greats, for obvious reasons.. I'll write stuff for fun, but I'll try to write something publish worthy. If I write an entrie novel and the publishing is denied, maybe I'll post it on these forums, one chapter at a time, and get constructive criticism on it until I have a better idea of how to write better.

Not everything I do includes wolves you know, but I dislike being forced to write stories about modern days. If you have stories you want to send me feel free to , I'lll send comments or editorial help......... but for now I shall wait....


I just use wolfmen a lot, I like that idea of a creature....

what are the odds?
<---future pilot for the airforce

my talent is being extremely adorable. What can I say.....its a gift.



Seriously though I can make people laugh.....its just my forum jokes that suck.

are you pehaps a.....girl?

if so: OMG!!1one

we have like 3 female members or so....yeah....

ding ding ding! We have a winner!

really? only 3 girls? I woulda thought Alex and them would be bringin' in all sorts of ladies

*blows kissies to alex and epy* <----see? adorable!

Nope, just you, mergirl... and... who am I missing? Possibly Neela... anyone else?







Just kidding Minque

I have never seen the wub emoticon used before, amazing... and not that crappy candy bar!

I wish I had a kiss

Yeah, I figured that not everything you wrote could involve wolves. After all, while wolves are a very broad subject, there's a limit to how much you can write about them.

I also hate writing about modern days. I got a 94% on an English paper because I prefer writing things more set in the past. While our story had to be something true that happened to us, that still helped me because I know how to drive up the suspense in a story, and my writing style hardly differs if I'm writing something fun. And that was a fun story to write, no bout a doubt it. It was about this one time I explored an old building, which was mostly abandoned except for the first floor, and it was only a few people there. My story made it seem haunted without ever coming out and saying so. So I got extra points for not liking the present. Yippee!

Wow, anyone else going to write a monologue in this topic?

But onto the topic at hand. The only "talent" I have is playing video games, too bad I can't get paid enough with championships... How ever I do plan on getting into making video games (I noticed that Bethesda has the jobs they are hiring for on their page... I hope they ar there in six years.), and have a job that will help with that.

So HA! Suck on that! I am only 16 and know what I want to do with my life, and am on the right track to do it! Ahem, sorry about that. The bad one got loose for a moment... And yes I do have a lot of time to figure out what I want to do in my life, it's not like I have any kind of social life or anything.

*blows kissies to wurlon* see? thats another talent, cheering people up

I like that talent

You better!

Well I´m happy with the male dominance here........but it´s naturally best with a good mixture on a forum.....

Well I feel if I want drama, I can go seek out my friends and cause chaos that way, but writing fantasy-like is more along my style, or horror. I need to improve my horror skills quite a bit, I'm look at The Tell-Tale Heart very carefully to see what makes Poe's stories so bizarre and scary. My story writing abilities depend on what I feel like ... like right now I feel like writing about something with snow... I don't know maybe a pretty lady who encounters witches while escaping a blizzard... whereas the last story I wrote ( located in the Tes F'ruum forum ) was about an imperial who was abducted by wolfmen as wolfmen sieged their town, and he learned how they do not respect or care for their resources..... and a warning of an epic doom.

Maybe it is just those stereotypes that has me trained not to like the teenage drama books....

And for those of you who have no idea where the Tes F'ruum section of these forums are, here is the topic with my story in it. Yes I want critizism, even though I already entered it. More along the lines of working on my writing.... short writing that is... The Coyoteman

My own fantasy style stories end up being wierd. I always like doing something new, so the story continues to grow for a long time, always adding new characters, plotlines, twists, anything and everything. I doubt I'd be capable of writing a short story, if I was going to write anything seriously, it would have to be at least 300 pages or so, and probably in a series.

I wouldn't worry too much about this yet, Wurlon. You have plenty of time to figure out what makes you happy. Trust me when I say happiness does not necessarily mean filthy rich. I, like you, had no idea what I wanted to do when I reached college age. I enjoyed chemistry immensely in high-school so I chose that for my major intially. After a single year of college level chemistry it was no longer fun. Why? Maybe the teacher or perhaps it was I that just changed. So I changed my major to Computer Science just to keep a goal. I got my CS degree but I havent done anything with it. I took CS because I loved computer games too and wanted to maybe help design them, but almost all jobs available were in industry working with old outdated systems trying to keep them running just another year longer. It was terribly boring and got out. Now I am 32.. working a job in a completely unrelated field that pays much less than I was making previously, BUT I am extremely happy now in my life. Having a job that bears no stress that I don't have to think about after I go home for the day to me has been really worth it. Sure money is nice, but I finally consider myself happy for the first time. Now I am working on a business plan to persuade some people into financing opening of my own business. Which truly is what I think I wanted to do 10 years ago. Going into business for yourself is one thing to consider and almost anything you like and are passionate about can be turned into a business venture in some way.

Wurlon, just sorta ride life out and things will hopefully work out. I'm gonna join the navy (by way of nrotc), and I'll probably major in physics.

I tend to write in the future. My favorite topics is robots, and technolgoy getting out of the hands of mankind, you know, general scifi. My current story is sort of funny. While most dystopias deal with the Government controlling everyone, mine is sort of an ultra-capitalist version of that with Aristocrats basically owning most of the world between them and warring with each other while the rest of the human race is drawn into the battle.

I'm not too sure how it all works collegewise over your side o' the pond. But the best advice i can give is, if your not sure what you want to do don't narrow down your subjects too soon. You wanna keep many things open as possible till you are certain you definately want to do something as a career. The other thing is don't worry whether something is THE thing or not, cause when you finally realise what it is you want to do with your life you REALISE it.

you should be like me and try to make video games! i have a huge talent to play video games, so y not make them? you know what i'm sayin?

The idea of college works the same way here as the UK.

When you go into college, aside from your major keep yourself open to your other interests as well, narrow it down to like 3-5 things you really like to do, not just one.

Im talented with animals i have this knack to be able to control them and not have to worry about getting hurt or hurting them. I Have 3 dogs and all them will sit at the same time if i tell them to its kinda funny. I think i might get into training animals for people or own animals that worek in the movies get active like that with my carrier. Right now i work at a pet store and i lvoe it when i sell them a puppy that already know how to sit and stay and a cat that will actually do what its told lol. i live right above this petstore ok so basically i just go home after school to work. Im 16 and already have a job i love since my uncle owns it and i get paid enough to cover my rent cause i live by my self basically cause my parents are in the military and i dont see them alot. People freak out when they find out when im by my self i tell them i have a job i buy my own i have my own car and i have job i love and will keep at it till i go to college and probly still work there to pay off college. So ill i can say follow your heart and you bound to find out what you want or are going to be.

Im a a great reader also just thought id throw that in

I have the amazing talent to dissapear for months at a time. I'm like a ghost here now . I also have talents in writing, editing, skate boarding, guitar...ing, singing (appearently), making people laugh, DDR (I've played once and I got a highscore. What has the world come to when me playing once beats everyone elses brains out?), yelling at televisions, eating, feeding my dog, sleeping and dancing (coughliecough). No kisses for me.

What am I good at? Well one of my hobbies is to sew medieval clothes, so I´m pretty good at that!

Then I consider myself as a fairly good cook.....

I know how to cleanse NPP:s from radioactivity!

I read a lot....and some ppl say I also can write stories....

hmmmm......that´s maybe it....for now

Huh. Surprisingly enough, I'm a decent cook too. Then again, maybe not all that surprising. My mother has an Italian/Polish family, they all cook a lot. I don't like cooking from recipes, I like messing around with them, adding my own changes. I help my mother cook from time to time. The best food we've ever made was this really great stir-fry, and the reason it was so awsome is that we took a recipe from Joy of Cooking and made a few of my little changes. ;)

But I prefer not to learn further cooking skills, I hated that part of Home Economics. For one thing, I am only a good cook because my last second recipe changes are inspired, not learned and beaten into my head. If you aren't allowed to make any changes to the recipe (a la middle school home ec classes) then you can only be as good as everyone else. Having information beaten into your head (like in most classes of any kind) also tend to ruin the inspiration. For another thing, taking a class in cooking wouldn't be very conducive to the profession I want. I figure that when I move out, I'll buy my own copy of The Joy of Cooking (a fifty dollar investment towards good food isn't bad) and add my own little creative changes, and ask someone I know if I really need help for some reason. (trying to make a food which is simply beyond my skills, for example)

Besides, I'm a guy. I'd take a bit of flak for taking cooking classes. ;) (that's the least most important reason, if I wanted to learn to cook better, I would anyways)

Well when I was young I wanted to be an airline pilot but that died out when I was 15 for various reasons, and since I was always good at science and I loved water and animals I decided I should become a marine biologist but I didn't really know, later my studies in biology revealed that I suck at cells, DNA and microbiology but I was good at evolution, ecology, animal behaviour (I've always been good with animals too) and I had a passion for conservation and making a differance, although I give money to worldvision the thought of giving time didn't appeal so I decided I should instead do something to do with conservation. Later this year I took an active part in the elections and loved/hated it and I've become addicted to it, while politics is a real interest I don't want to be a politition because then I'd have to deal with the darker sides of humanity more than I'd like but I would love to be the UN rep for my country; thats my current dream job which rates far above chocolate taster, airline pilot or PM.

As for talents, I just seem to keep and discovering more, I don't have natural talent in everything but I learn quick and can master things quickly, I can't master everything, like sports which involve lots of pressure I still suck at (though I'm good at accuracy things like shooting and I'm an amazing putter unfortunatly I can't drive). I used to be good at english but I don't like restricting my crazy minds random scribblings so now I let it all go and I often change the direction of a sentance mid way through and so nobody can understand me sometimes; which means I'm not so good at english anymore and I've forgotten or ignored most of the rules. Art is a recent talent which I am becoming better all the time with and I can't match most people who have been doing it for years. Music I love but don't have the patience for to learn, I used to play keyboard/piano but I lost interest and whenever I have a passion to learn a song I can never find the sheet music for it or I never get around to it.

So yeah, don't worry that you don't know what you want to do, if you coast through life without knowing what you want to do then your more likely to find something you love. And just because you suck at something doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, naturally talent gets you so far but its the people who have been sticking to it even though they might have been bad to begin with who become the masters.

Ever heard of the NSLC? Over the Summer I went to that camp for International Affairs or something like that, when kids can learn how to deal in international relations and stuff. If you want to be a UN rep that'd be the perfect camp to go to. They're a ton of fun and you learn a lot.

I'm not from america but we have similiar things, I had tons of opportunities for stuff like that during school but I wasn't interested then, and nobody who went to those carried on with their interests. I am still not entirely sure that is where I want to go but since I'm at university there is alot of opportunities to try things out so I'll be sure to take any which come along.

On the orginal subject I find alot of people who say they know exactly what they want to do (me included) and especially the ones who people say "oh, they will definitly end up there" about them hardly ever end up where they wanted to go. People who grew up with one passion tend to think they know alot about it but can't learn anything new so you can come along at the last minute and take their job (mwhahaha) or they just suddenly realise that they don't want to do it. Just keep that in mind so when you meet up with Mr KnowsExactlyWhatHeWillDo when your both 25 and so you can't ask how their career as a famous artist is going and then you can laugh in their face when they tell you they flip burgers Just kidding, you don't want to be that mean and they will probably have a half decent job even if it is a desk job.
Though on the other hand if you know what you want to do and your good at it, by all means continue, narrow your perspective otherwise you'll find yourself at a deskjob like previously mentioned artist.

I'm a writer. Have I published a book yet? No. Will I? Yes. I know I will because that is my goal, though it wasn't always. After High School I went to college to be a cop, then an FBI Agent. After that I sunk $40,000 in an associates degree at ITT in computer programming. Big Mistake. The school was horrible and I didn't really learn much. So after trying to get a job in the computer industry for a year I threw up my hands and decided to start writing. THe fruits of my labor so far are in the Fan Fiction section.

If I can find a good editor and someone to do some cover art for me I'll publish my fan fiction stories (minus anything related to TES). I'm also trudging my way through my first novel, it's exciting and tedious at the same time. So I guess my talent is writing... I hope.