Close to the end of first year and the beginning of summer, I was faced with a career crisis. (It’s a bit early in my career for that, I know.) I was comfortable as a cashier at my local grocery store. Even if it was not the most invigorating job, I could take time off easily, I could discreetly use my phone, and it was a really easy job. I told my highly ambitious and driven friend this–that I was comfortable and didn’t really mind staying at the grocery store–and she looked at me with that look and asked me, “But do you really want to be a cashier for a few more years? Is that where you want to be?”

This prompted a new bookmarks folder (“Opportunities”) in Google Chrome with over twenty links to literary-related internships and jobs (as well as a handful of non-literary-related opportunities that paid more than minimum wage, just to keep my options open, of course).

I received a few rejections, but not enough to faze me. (I even got one “reapply in December, when we have an opening!”) I knew I was up against graduate students, many of whom already had work experience in the industry. I did, however, get through a gate with book scout, Simone Garzella.

Despite the aspiring novelist and avid publishing world researcher that I was in early high school, I had never known that book scouts even existed. For the record, they are to books what sports scouts are to sports: they find the good ones and sell ’em. Specifically, if you wanted to get your soon-to-be-published/up-and-coming bestseller published in foreign markets, I was among the first people you wanted to impress.

After a horrifying and embarrassing incident involving attaching the wrong file to a kind of “audition” for the internship, Simone Garzella took me under his literally virtual wing. By mid-May, I was a remote intern for SG Literary Scouting.

The job was never stressful to the point that I wished it were gone. I never felt so overwhelmed that I was unhappy. There will be no sugar coating in this blog post: being an intern with SG Literary Scouting was stressful and overwhelming.  I had to read 100 pages of manuscripts and then provide a synopsis and a cogent opinion about those first 100 pages within 24 hours. I also often got these manuscripts between 8 and 11am, sometimes every day of the week, sometimes twice a week: a schedule contrary to my plan-months-in-advance attitude.

However, these are not complaints. Aside from being a student, being an intern with SG Literary Scouting is probably my favorite job yet.

I learned so much, about both the publishing industry and myself.

I learned what it takes to be a “good book”. I learned that, to be published, writing cannot just be a craft, despite what I must have believed when I was a starry-eyed NaNoWriMo winner, dreaming of becoming the next Christopher Paolini, published before finishing high school. A good book is not always the same thing as a published book, a bestselling book. There are trends and readers to consider. Of course, Younger Me, you can write for the sake of writing, but you cannot just do that and make money, and there is no shame in knowing that.

I’ve learned that there is not a complete checklist of criteria that will get you through the publishing door. I read books with awful cliches but pulled at my heartstrings and made me laugh and cry. I met characters who made me seethe and made me want to punch walls but ultimately got my approval because of it. I read wildly postmodern books, making statements about art and sentences and writing that are no doubt important statements but did not get my recommendation because, despite its beauty, think-deeply-and-complexly-about is not what the market is looking for.

I learned that I cannot work just from home. With Facebook and Tumblr and Twitter and even my email just a few clicks away, I cannot work from my bedroom–at least not very productively.

I also just love working with people….

It is not a well-known fact, but reading and writing at their best are not solitary activities. Reading and writing are made even greater when they become reciprocal acts, acts of humanity and communication and community. When you write with the intention to be read, your book becomes a different animal. When you read books and discuss them, stories take on new lives. Great books are “great books” because they have been shared and thought deeply about. Great books give good reasons to bring people together.

I’ve learned that, above all else, I still love books. I love wondering about books, authorial intent, decisions made regarding syntax and structure, and what you might think about it. I love books, especially good ones that make me want to share them with the world.