By Cheryl Rushing

I’m always on the lookout for writing opportunities, and one of the ways I do that is by keeping track of the RSS feeds of searches for certain sites, including craigslist.  I haven’t found anything viable yet, but hope springs eternal.

Anyway, the following two items popped up in my search feed sometime over the weekend and I had a little bit of a chuckle:

I am a writer and need a job (redacted)
hey im 16 years of age and i am a writer, its been my passion since i could draw little story using my crayons and paper. im about to start publishing my book of potery and i have worked for the school newspaper. but i need a more reliable job. so if there is a job out there that could suit my writing ablilitys let me know.

RE: I Am A Writer (redacted)
DUDE!!! 
STAY IN SCHOOL AND WORK ON YOUR GRAMMAR AND SPELLING. BOOK OF POTERY?

Now, I didn’t post the reply, though when I see things like this I often wish that I had the nerve.  If I did, I wouldn’t be quite so in-your-face or ALL IN CAPS.  I would probably send this kid an e-mail.

A few weeks ago I was looking at some postings on a freelance job board, and there was someone looking for copyediting work and his/her profile drove me nuts.  So much misspelling, so much improper grammar.  My guess is the jobseeker was not a native English speaker.

If you want to be a writer, your best friends should be spellcheck and a good editor BEFORE you hit publish.

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