Every now and then, students and aspiring journalists write to me for advice about entering the field. Here’s an email I sent recently, published with permission.

Hello, I am a reader and novice writer,

So far, I’ve been trying to build experience in Anime/Otaku writing.

Currently, I am graduating high school and about to start college. I don’t have much guidance in terms of my journalism interests, but reading your work has helped me progress significantly. I still have a few questions I would like to ask, and they are as follows:

• How would you advise getting started in paid writing?
• Should I stick to unpaid work for now to build my resume, and if so, what sources would be good for developing a larger audience?
• Is there anything I can do during the summer between now and college to advance myself?

These are all great questions, so let’s start from the top. How do you start a career as a paid (journalism) writer?

Now, a much easier question would have been if you had asked me, “How would you advise getting more work as a writer?” That’s simple! You build a portfolio of your previous paid writing work, and show it off to blogs and magazines you want to write for.

The same advice goes for your first writing job. But since you don’t have a portfolio of paid writing work yet, you’ve got to start by writing for free. This brings me to your second question about unpaid work. The answer is yes, kind of, but that unpaid writing portfolio might already exist!

Just a few examples: you could build it out of journalism class assignments, articles for the school paper, or work you’ve written at an internship. If you’re serious about writing, I’m guessing you write nearly every day, too, and might even have blog entries or personal essays you’re proud enough to add to a portfolio. Keep your portfolio online so you can direct editors to a link—it’ll also show you know your way around the internet.

The next step is asking for what you want. When I decided to become a freelance writer, I started out by making a list of dozens of websites I’d like to work for. Then, I began contacting them one by one. Sure, most of them didn’t hire me. But the ones that responded brought me opportunities and connections I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

So! What should you be doing this summer? Even though you’re still in college, there’s no reason you can’t start building your career right now. I’m not talking about trawling elance or Craigslist writing gigs, though you could still do that. I mean networking.

Write to your favorite blogs and ask if they’re looking for contributors. Don’t forget your portfolio. Reach out to professional writers you admire and ask them about how they got to where they are today. You might even gain a mentor in the process. And above all, read lots of the types of articles you want to write in the places you’d like to write for. Get familiar with the writing style. Leave comments and tweets and let the editors know you’re reading and enjoying. They might remember you next time they’re looking for somebody to join the staff.

I hope this is a good jumping off point for you. For more advice on similar topics, check out my previous advice columns, How to get hired as a journalist when you lack experience, and What to do when you’re thinking about becoming a journalist. Good luck!

Do you have a question you’d like to ask? Drop me an email or visit my Tumblr Ask box.

Salty broth. Tender noodles. A soft-boiled egg. When I’m exhausted, there’s nothing I find more comforting than a bowl of ramen.

We arrived in Honolulu at what my internal clock was telling me was midnight, but what the brilliant afternoon sun was telling me was only 6 PM. We knew Ramen Nakamura had to be good when we saw the handwritten sign on the door: “$ and ¥ accepted.”

When John and I got engaged a year and a half ago, we’d had our hearts set on traveling to Japan for our honeymoon. But after research about the exorbitant prices and fourteen hour flight, we had to scale back our plans. We eventually discovered we could spend two weeks living large in Hawaii for less than one week economizing in Tokyo.

It was the right choice. In some ways, Honolulu is like Japan Lite.

At Ramen Nakamura, I couldn’t read my menu. I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure most of it was in katakana. Luckily, the stuff that counts was in English: a bowl of ramen in either shoyu, miso, and shio flavor.

Just about everyone in the restaurant, including the staff, spoke Japanese. The radio was playing Japanese music. Hawaii has a large Asian population, but also plenty of tourists from all over. This is Waikiki, so I guessed mostly tourists.

Throughout the trip, there were constant reminders that we were a short plane ride away from Japan. One Piece advertisements on tourism trolleys. Restaurants sold okonomiyaki and rice balls. One beach bar boasted an anime bikini girl mascot. Nearly every day, I ate sushi for breakfast, though it was more of a Hawaiian thing — spam musubi is a local favorite. Later in Maui, the hotel spa offered Japanese style bathing with benches, buckets, and a steam bath. I didn’t know how to use any of it.

I try to be thoughtful, but there’s no working around the fact that I’ve spent a large chunk of my lifetime fetishizing Japanese culture. Learning to make rice balls. Wearing a yukata. Buying a kotatsu. A few failed attempts to learn the language.

Being in Hawaii, and being around lots of Japanese people, made me realize that no matter how much anime I watch, no matter how much I embrace this stuff, I don’t know a damned thing about what Japanese culture is actually like.

Take our tour of Pearl Harbor. I expected the hordes of American tourists, but not equal amounts from Japan. Before we took a ferry out to the Arizona Memorial, we sat in an auditorium to learn about attack on Pearl Harbor, which framed it in the view that U.S. embargoes gave the Japanese “no choice” but to attack. The woman next to me wore a headset that translated the movie into Japanese.

It’s been 72 years since Pearl Harbor, or an average lifetime. I understood why I wanted to visit — an interest in history, curiosity as well as commemoration. I would have thought Japanese people wouldn’t want to have anything to do with it, the way Americans prefer to forget our imperialist era (including the not-so-nice way we took over Hawaii itself).

The whole time I was in Hawaii, I was forever going starry eyed over triangle onigiri at the general store, Japanese sweets at the mall, even the time a cute girl bumped into me and automatically said, “Sumimasen!” What I’m trying to say is, part of what made Hawaii so much fun for me was its very proximity to Japan.

But after Pearl Harbor, I was wondering if it was really OK for me to appreciate the parts of Japanese culture I like without putting much thought into understanding the rest in it. In other words, when does it go from tourism to potentially offensive cultural tourism? It’s a tough question and I don’t have an answer yet.

It’s a bit heavier fare than that perfect bowl of ramen.

(For more photos from my trip, check out my instagram.)