Some Advice

I love A Prairie Home Companion, and its creator and host Garrison Keiler is the best. Below is his response to a letter from someone interested in a career in radio. GK's response is rather radio-specific, but his themes of preparation, variety/diversity and self-fulfillment can be applied anywhere...

I was talking to a friend who does a daily radio show that is really free-form and loose and funny, a solo guy in a studio, sometimes taking phone calls, and he admitted that he spends hours every day writing for it. The show doesn't sound written, there isn't a script, but writing is nonetheless the backbone of it. You sit down and write out your thoughts, what you might want to say, and then you go do the show and maybe do something like what you wrote or maybe something entirely other, but the writing is the key. Having prepared one thing gives you the courage to improvise something else.

Second piece of advice: go for opposites, to keep your range open. For example, having a raucous rock n' roll theme song at the beginning will give you the freedom to talk about serious stuff. Being silly or sarcastic occasionally opens the door to being sentimental and sincere. Don't tie yourself down.

Third: entertain yourself. If you're bored, then you have a problem.