Spider Jerusalem, To His Assistant

[Author's note: This is a little Transmetropolitan fanfic. I started this blog to try to break the ice with writing, because I've been feeling like I want to write for a few months, but whenever I sit down to write, ideas don't come like they do when I'm not trying.]

"Why do you want to be a reporter?"

"Well..." She thought. "I thought I could help people. Reporters reveal the truth and help take down the big liars who are ruining the world. Besides, I like interviewing pe...."

"NO!" Spider Jerusalem slammed his palm on the table in an exaggerated gesture. "Don't tell me what you like, what you enjoy. If that's your motivation, you'll get out of reporting as soon as it gets tough. Once you start thinking like that, start asking yourself what brings you the most pleasure, you'll look for the easy life. You'll take the easy stories, without realizing what you're doing. If you tell me you want to spit in the faces of the liars in charge, OK. But you can't be doing it because you enjoy it. That won't last."

She didn't buy it. "Life doesn't have to be that way!"

"Maybe some reporters live that way, always taking easy street. Maybe most do. But they aren't worth their weight in piss. They go home and leave the job behind at the end of the day. If you want to be great, you've got to live it, breath it. And everyone wants to be great."

She started to look annoyed. (She always attempted to be the calm collected one in conversations, but Spider would inevitably break this mask.) He reminded her of the old saying about Americans: Europeans work to live. Americans live to work.

"To be a reporter, you've got to turn yourself into a gun. And aim the gun. And shoot it. That's reporting."