Daniel Snell
Daniel Snell is a 15 year old writer from New South Wales' Central Coast.With aspirations of becoming a Journalist, Daniel also wishes to become a novelist; the ultimate creative endeavour for most writers. I asked Daniel a few questions
in order to gain an understanding of why he wants to pursue this creative avenue;
What first attracted you to writing? I have always loved writing, well at least for as long as I can remember. My best memory of writing was as a young boy at the age of 10 when the teacher asked the class to write a narrative. I ended up getting carried
away and wrote 6 pages. I basically love the arts. I love the fact that you can just express what you are feeling at any moment in time and share it with everybody without being judged. Whenever I start typing/ writing the words just flow from my mind.
What was the first story you ever showed someone and what was their reaction? I believe the first story I ever showed anyone close to me was when I was 13 and it was my mum that read it. Her reaction was the sort that you would expect from someone mum – “wow, that’s amazing, you definitely should do writing as a career”. It wasn’t exactly my best work but she is my mum so she had to say something nice. Since then I have shown quite a few people and they have said that my stories were good, but it’s really refreshing when people give me constructive criticism.
What projects have you started but have not finished? Why haven't you finished it? I started a page on Facebook, writing between a page or two every couple of days. It was a fan-fiction of The Hunger Games with lots of input from other people that started to read them. The input ranged from submitting characters to arena ideas. The reason I had started this was because I had never attempted fan-fiction and I was incredibly in love with the series. The reason I had never finished it was becoming hard to create stories as I was flooded with assignments and tests for school. After I passed that stage of writing assignments and studying, I had lost my fan base. It was very disappointing.
You stated in an email to me that you felt that your option for a career path as a 'Journalist' went down the toilet. Why do you think that? When I said that I meant that the traditional journalism such as magazines, newspapers etc. With technology advancing more and more people are turning to the internet to get their daily knowledge. If you look at famous newspapers, they are but a shadow of themselves just 10 years ago due to the lack of readership and advertising dollars. This means that the blog business is emerging as a source of information and when newspapers fall people will be turning to websites. But reading an article on a site is not nearly the same as when you read it on paper. Some people will become bored after reading around a page of the report as there are different and entertaining sites that they could be spending their time on.
The thing about newspapers is that the basic information is laid out before you and you can just skim the pages until you find an article that tickles your fancy. In this part, blogs will fail, the viewer will have to be familiar with the site to have to navigate it and locate exactly what they are looking for. You don’t exactly go onto a blog just to browse, you have to view one that specializes in a certain area – you have to know what you are looking for before you look for it. I realise that this is quite a long response so I’ll end it with one other point which is about the pay.
I go to the only selective high school in my area and I am privileged to be selected out of the 1100 people that sat the test. I have the opportunity to use my education to the best of my ability. Now I have done my research and have come to the conclusion that journalists generally gat paid around $52 000 a year. Now I’m no expert but I believe that that isn’t a very significant amount. My plan is to wait till next year until I can get the opportunity to speak to my careers officer and decide what a good path would be for me (I’m only 15, I still have a while to figure out what I want to do with my life).
There are many different 'writing' career paths in the world; Copywriter (advertising/marketing), Journalist, Script writer, Novelist, etc..... What would be your ideal writing career and why? I’m not exactly sure what the ideal job would be for me, but I definitely want do to something that will pay well and I have fun doing.
There’s no use in working at something you hate. I would love to become a novelist, I want to learn skills in keeping a story long and interesting so that
I can immerse myself in my stories. I think from there, if I get noticed, I would write quite a few short stories just for fun kind of like what Roald Dahl
does. The only downfall the being a novelist is the fact that there would be so many people out there waiting for the same opportunity that you are, to make it
big time. It’s every writers dream to make the top 50 list of bestsellers but the reality is just that, it’s every writer’s dream. I guess i would just
have to work hard and get it done, nothings worth doing if you dont have work hard to do it.
Have you competed in any writing competitions or completed any courses outside of School? I don’t believe I have. There have been a few opportunities
such as the young writer’s award last year and a couple of competitions this year but I have always doubted myself. Every single time I think, “I won’t get
it, someone else will surely be better than me”. I think I need to just do it as the Nike swoosh says.
in order to gain an understanding of why he wants to pursue this creative avenue;
What first attracted you to writing? I have always loved writing, well at least for as long as I can remember. My best memory of writing was as a young boy at the age of 10 when the teacher asked the class to write a narrative. I ended up getting carried
away and wrote 6 pages. I basically love the arts. I love the fact that you can just express what you are feeling at any moment in time and share it with everybody without being judged. Whenever I start typing/ writing the words just flow from my mind.
What was the first story you ever showed someone and what was their reaction? I believe the first story I ever showed anyone close to me was when I was 13 and it was my mum that read it. Her reaction was the sort that you would expect from someone mum – “wow, that’s amazing, you definitely should do writing as a career”. It wasn’t exactly my best work but she is my mum so she had to say something nice. Since then I have shown quite a few people and they have said that my stories were good, but it’s really refreshing when people give me constructive criticism.
What projects have you started but have not finished? Why haven't you finished it? I started a page on Facebook, writing between a page or two every couple of days. It was a fan-fiction of The Hunger Games with lots of input from other people that started to read them. The input ranged from submitting characters to arena ideas. The reason I had started this was because I had never attempted fan-fiction and I was incredibly in love with the series. The reason I had never finished it was becoming hard to create stories as I was flooded with assignments and tests for school. After I passed that stage of writing assignments and studying, I had lost my fan base. It was very disappointing.
You stated in an email to me that you felt that your option for a career path as a 'Journalist' went down the toilet. Why do you think that? When I said that I meant that the traditional journalism such as magazines, newspapers etc. With technology advancing more and more people are turning to the internet to get their daily knowledge. If you look at famous newspapers, they are but a shadow of themselves just 10 years ago due to the lack of readership and advertising dollars. This means that the blog business is emerging as a source of information and when newspapers fall people will be turning to websites. But reading an article on a site is not nearly the same as when you read it on paper. Some people will become bored after reading around a page of the report as there are different and entertaining sites that they could be spending their time on.
The thing about newspapers is that the basic information is laid out before you and you can just skim the pages until you find an article that tickles your fancy. In this part, blogs will fail, the viewer will have to be familiar with the site to have to navigate it and locate exactly what they are looking for. You don’t exactly go onto a blog just to browse, you have to view one that specializes in a certain area – you have to know what you are looking for before you look for it. I realise that this is quite a long response so I’ll end it with one other point which is about the pay.
I go to the only selective high school in my area and I am privileged to be selected out of the 1100 people that sat the test. I have the opportunity to use my education to the best of my ability. Now I have done my research and have come to the conclusion that journalists generally gat paid around $52 000 a year. Now I’m no expert but I believe that that isn’t a very significant amount. My plan is to wait till next year until I can get the opportunity to speak to my careers officer and decide what a good path would be for me (I’m only 15, I still have a while to figure out what I want to do with my life).
There are many different 'writing' career paths in the world; Copywriter (advertising/marketing), Journalist, Script writer, Novelist, etc..... What would be your ideal writing career and why? I’m not exactly sure what the ideal job would be for me, but I definitely want do to something that will pay well and I have fun doing.
There’s no use in working at something you hate. I would love to become a novelist, I want to learn skills in keeping a story long and interesting so that
I can immerse myself in my stories. I think from there, if I get noticed, I would write quite a few short stories just for fun kind of like what Roald Dahl
does. The only downfall the being a novelist is the fact that there would be so many people out there waiting for the same opportunity that you are, to make it
big time. It’s every writers dream to make the top 50 list of bestsellers but the reality is just that, it’s every writer’s dream. I guess i would just
have to work hard and get it done, nothings worth doing if you dont have work hard to do it.
Have you competed in any writing competitions or completed any courses outside of School? I don’t believe I have. There have been a few opportunities
such as the young writer’s award last year and a couple of competitions this year but I have always doubted myself. Every single time I think, “I won’t get
it, someone else will surely be better than me”. I think I need to just do it as the Nike swoosh says.
The Stories
Below are the tories that Daniel Snell has submitted as his first works to 'RightBrainFreeze'. Hopefully we will be seeing more of his work as the years go on;