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How to be a screenwriter
Careers: You're minding your own business when an over-bearing parent/teacher/irritatingly mature friend asks you about your future plans. You have no idea! Why not follow in Joss Whedon's footsteps and get into screenwriting? No two days alike, you get to flaunt your creativity without seeing your values shrivel and die... screenwriting is currently one of the most exciting and innovative industries in the world.
We like it edgy: Becoming a music producer
Careers: We Like It Edgy is a music producer. It's a competitive industry but there are ways to survive and flourish, especially if you go above and beyond your training, buy cheap kit of eBay and know your remixes and mashups. Find out more about being a music producer.
7 Ways To Survive Being an Alternative Jobhunter
Careers: "Two years after writing 10 Ways to Survive being an Alternative Student, Roswell Ivory has left university with a degree and a debt. It's time to either take another course and defer the outside world for three more years, or get a bloody job... The thing is, she's still an alternative student at heart and some jobs just don't accommodate that. So for current students looking for holiday work, or uni graduates seeking a career, here are...
Alternative jobs: Train driver
Meet Alena, a girly pagan train driver. There are only 2 other girls on her team but she's treated equally by the boys and on nights out they look after her. She can have her hair any colour she likes, she can drive 100mph legally AND she earns over £35k a year. So who wouldn't want to be a train driver?
Alternative jobs: Interpreter
Meet Briggie, Intrepid interpreter and globetrotter who often attends 2 or 3 major world conferences in as many countries all in one week! So much expenses-paid travelling and jetsetting can't be too bad a job, so we asked her how she got into it.
Alternative jobs: Hypnotherapist
Hypnotherapy (using hypnosis to help people heal themselves) is not the same as hypnotism (using hypnosis to make people think they are a chicken). Heather explains what her job as a hypnotherapist entails, and - interestingly - most courses won't let you in before you're 24 so you have the opportunity to live your life first...
Alternative jobs: Graphic / flash designer
LaJura is a free spirit who realised theatre work wasn't going to pay a regular wage and got into designing t-shirts, business cards for models, flash websites and more... let LaJura teach you how to become a graphic designer and how to build your design empire once you are!
Alternative jobs: Nursing as an alternative career
Cookie True describes what it's like to have a truly caring support system at work, be able to keep your tats/piercings/hairstyle, and what it's like to deal with cutters and people in a depressed phase of their lives as part of your job. Lots of alternative girls get into being a nurse. Find out if being a nurse might be the alternative job for you.
Alternative careers: Gothic alternative model
Pepsi is an alternative goth model who calls the shots - she works part-time with who she wants and gets to vamp up in her own clothes for the camera. She does need to take safety precautions though... find out if you too would like to be an alternative model.
Alternative careers: Rock girl radio DJ
After a false start of loving Kylie and the Spice Girls, Hayley Foster discovered riot grrl and now hosts her own female-fronted music show on Catnip Radio. Find out how she did it, and how you can do the same.
So you'd like to be a Renegade Grrrl Freelance Comicker?
Thanks to the popularity of 'Subculture of One' and the friendly feel of the 'Mangapunk' community, Rachel Nabors has done a lot to change the face of comix. Our veteran Mookychick Guillame tracks her down in her stylised iridescent lair to find out more in this Alternative Careers special feature.
Flight Booker
Mama Africa Orange (blatently not her real name, but she felt like venting some spleen and thought it would be cool to do it incognito) spills the beans on how mind-shredding and unglamourus it can be working in the tourist industry...
Fashion and music photographer
Whether you're drowned in festival mud, being spat on by music fans or smooched and told 'you look lovely too, darling' by male models, you'll never look back as a fashion / music photographer, says Shirlaine Forrest. Do watch out for the flying beer cans though.
Media Make-up Artist
The real downside of being a make-up artist is the constant danger of a bad back or being involved in soft porn shoots (the two aren't related). The upside is it's one of the best jobs in the world, says Andrea Perry-Bevan
JIGGY BURD: ROCK SINGER CAREER SPECIAL
Ex-screamer of the Dirty Burds (RIP), current screamer in The Swankers, the rockalicious Jiggy Burd tells you how to become a rock singer and what to do with the swathes of skinny indie boys dying to kiss your hand when you come off stage...
PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER
Nadia Foley-Comer knows that if you want to warp expand little childrens' minds and have them grow, there's nowt more satisfying than becoming a primary school teacher. It's the career that's as alternative as you are.
MARILYN MONROE LOOKALIKE
Wanta wiggle in high heels and fend off bitchy profesh Marilyn wannabees? Got hot looks and a GSOH? You could have what it takes to be a Marilyn Monroe lookalike...
MUSIC VIDEO DIRECTOR
Stacey Goldschmidt helps out the underground music scene she loves by making music videos for the guys and gals concerned. Find out why her job is more fun than a hatful of rabbits.
CUTTING-EDGE MAGAZINE EDITOR
Holly Kirkwood co-created and edited a super-sexy and dare we say 'fresh' magazine called SpinOff. It was for people who usually get their politics from gangsta lyrics and watching South Park. It all happened by accident, but it sold well and changed her life for ever. Could you see yourself doing the same?
GIRL IN A CHIP SHOP
Forget being a cabaret artist or music producer, working in a chippy (a fast food outlet for those overseas) is one of the finest jobs we can aspire to. Hurrah for Melissa Bishop!
MUSIC PUBLISHER
Caroline Robertson is the super-fresh music publisher that's been proposed to, drugged up and nearly shot at by people in the music biz. Find out if you'd like her job.
YACHT CHEF
Michelle Bush says that being a chef on a yacht isn't all job perks and hanging out with Dolph Lundgren. The good news is that some of being a yacht chef is!
Underground / erotic Cabaret Artiste
Can't be arsed to have a crap working life? Meet the mermaidalicious Miss Roxy Velvet, who'll talk you through what you need to know to become a vampish cabaret performer. Go, Roxy!
POLEDANCING TEACHER
Missy X wants to make it really clear that being a poledance teacher is not by and means the same as being a stripper - but you do get an equally fit bod.
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