No matter if it’s been three weeks or six months or two years, the plague of searching for a job is the same. It eats a hole inside your very core. Just like burnout, you start to feel resentment and finally indifference. No matter how many applications you submit, informational interviews you set up, and pay cuts you’re willing to take, you never feel satisfied. It’s like looking at the top of Mount Everest at base camp, hardly able to breathe, and knowing it seems unlikely you will ever make it to the peak.

This is not a fun place to be. It tears at you emotionally, mentally, and physically. As writers, we’re used to rejections, but unless our everyday livelihood depends on it, it’s not as brutal as a stream of job rejections. They’re not only rejecting you as a person — they’re rejecting your chance at a better life, a life you’ve worked so hard to build and yet to have crushed by an unstable economy and “lack of experience.”

My friend and colleague Dawn Gannon puts it blatantly when she says she wants to shout from the rooftop of her Baltimore row house: “somebody fucking hire me already!” We all know what she means. Kudos to Dawn for revamping her blog and starting with a difficult topic. I look forward to reading more. You should check her out at pinktintedbrain.com. She’s got some killer stories to tell.