Forget Paying Your Dues: Why You Shouldn't Wait to Live Your Dream

Before I quit my job to start freelancing full-time, I visited a city organization that pairs aspiring businesspeople with retired, experienced business owners who can give them advice on getting started. The guy I was paired with used to own a retail store. I told him all about what I wanted to do--I was excited about it--and he responded with skepticism. "What's your hurry?" he said. (I was 24 at the time and probably looked about sixteen, so I can see why he said this.) He told me I should get a job with an ad agency, work there for five or ten years, build up some experience, and then start out on my own.

I couldn't tell him why I was in such a hurry--and why the last thing I wanted to do was follow his advice. From a practical standpoint, it made sense. But I knew what I wanted right then, and five or ten years of "dues-paying" at an ad agency sounded to me like five or ten centuries of purgatory. It felt right to be in a hurry, and I didn't think paying my dues was useful. So far, my gamble has paid off and my business has been going well--and I've had some time to think about why I thought paying my dues was a bad idea. Here are a few reasons why I encourage aspiring writers to jump in--especially if you're starting in your twenties, like I did.

Because if you really want it all, you'd better start early. How many times have I heard that today's young women just can't "have it all"? (Nobody talks about whether or not men can "have it all." But that's another blog post.) One of the biggest stereotyped qualities of Generation Y is that we work to live, and we care about family time. We really do want it all--a fun, fulfilling job, plenty of leisure time to enjoy ourselves, spend time with our families and enrich our lives, and enough money to not have to worry too much about money (we don't all have to be Donald Trump, though). The thing is, it takes time to find that great career with that great flexibility built in. And if you want kids too, you're racing your biological clock the whole way. It's easier to make career gains while you're child-free. Since we don't want to wait til retirement to enjoy ourselves and we can't wait too long to have kids, we can't afford to put in a decade of dues-paying that may or may not pay off.

Because if you're young, it'll be easier now than later. Taking a chance on your career is so much easier before you have a mortgage and a family depending on you--and that's more likely when you're young. Of course, many people of my generation are stuck with enormous college loans, which makes taking risks more difficult. But even so, it might be easier when you're young than when you're older, with more responsibilities.

Because it's possible to fake experience--as long as you have the skills. Writers need samples. That's it. Period. You don't need a long list of previous employers. In two years, I've never gotten asked for a resume and I've only rarely been asked who else I've written for. If you have decent samples that show off your skills, you're going to be fine. If you have ad agency experience, by all means you should highlight that in your marketing materials--but you don't need it.

It took me a while to really have confidence in this. I thought that because I was young and didn't have dozens of years of experience starting out, I couldn't possibly know enough about life in general to do this. But I knew I could write--and I'd seen samples from professional writers who had dozens of years of agency experience. I absolutely knew I was a better writer than some of them already. Believe me--if you can write, you're set. Everything else is just extras.

If I had listened to that well-meaning retiree, I wouldn't be where I am right now. I'd still have a few years to go before I'd paid enough dues to start my real career. Maybe paying your dues is a sensible choice in some professions--but in my case, it would have left me hopelessly behind on the life I wanted. If you've been thinking about starting a career in writing, maybe you're more ready than you think.