With all the changes I've made, I don't feel like I'd be disrespecting Jane the Great by submitting it for publications, but the roots do show.

Only a bad thing if it's your hair dye you're talking about. (Yes, Spike, I'm thinking about you again!)

Often times, I'll print out a hard copy of a double-spaced first draft, get me a big ol' red pen and go to town on it in a big comfy chair. Then I'll type the whole thing in fresh. There's also the "remove five words from every big paragraph" game. You'd be surprised how many excess words there are when you start looking for them.

I have very few excess words. I do a lot of longhand writing, and then play edit-as-I-type. My first drafts tend to be pretty tight, though.

One of my literature teachers said that Kafka used to read his bleaker stuff out loud to his friends, and he'd keep cracking up in the middle of things.

Oh, hell. Kafka is me.

I find that I get a lot of ideas and inspirations just from the simple act of running things by my friends. They don't even have to say anything. Just the act of physically having someone else in the room really helps me. I don't know why.

I did a lot of writing for a text-based rpg, so I tend to be all about the senses. Sometimes so much so that it sounds like they're being experimented on. And does it feel damp there? And how loud is that in your ear? Uh-huh, and it smells musty? Round and round.

But I learned a good deal by having to write an environment where someone had to live. To feel immersed enough to roleplay.

Was a lot of that in second person? Doing that smoothly is a real feat.

As an inaugural effort toward my goal of becoming a freelance writer, I'm drafting an essay for the "Alumni Voices" column of my university's alumni magazine. It's a personal experience thing, and I've seen everything from the trials of raising an autistic child to being involved in grassroots peace efforts in the Middle East. How do the paragraphs below sound for an opener? Would you want to read the rest? Is it clear, and does it flow well?
------

When I got my acceptance letter from Penn back in 1989, I thought my future was made. I dreamed of attending my ten-year high school reunion as a rich and successful stockbroker driving a Jaguar or a Mercedes, with an equally accomplished husband and maybe a cute baby to show off. When I graduated magna cum laude from Wharton in 1993, I was still optimistic. The sole job offer I had received wasn’t what I’d hoped for—I was scheduled to start June 1 as an administrative assistant to an attorney—but I saw it as very temporary, a way to pay the bills until I could move on to more interesting and prestigious things.

Ten years have passed. I have yet to hold a job that I couldn’t have done just as well if I’d gone to an in-state junior college like so many of my high school classmates. I don’t regret my Penn education for a moment, not even when the monthly student loan bill shows up, but I sometimes think Penn must regret educating me. By most measures my adult life thus far has been a failure. I’m only now beginning to figure out what I really want to do, how to translate my youthful raw ability into mature happiness and success. And I still look back at my work history and wonder how someone who looked so promising, who is even now talked about as one of the smartest kids ever to come out of Shelby County High School, could go so badly wrong.

Susan, it does flow well. However, if you'd like the reader to want to know more, I wouldn't use the terms, " my adult life thus far has been a failure(italics mine)" and "could go so badly wrong".

I understand you're speaking to not living up to what was once percieved as your potential, but it sounds more that you're feeling sorry for yourself, and that's a fast way to lose readers. I'm sure you can convey that life has dealt you a curve in much more interesting and humorous terms. You're very witty, let that show.

For example:

but I sometimes think Penn must ((might)) regret ((having)) educat((ed))ing me. By most ((many)) measures my adult life thus far has ((veered from the expected path)) been a failure. I’m only now beginning to figure out what I really want to do, how to translate my youthful raw ability into mature happiness and success. And I still look back at my work history and wonder how someone who looked so promising, who is even now talked about as one of the smartest kids ever to come out of Shelby County High School, could go so badly wrong ((wander so far)).

Sounds more positive, uses humor, and offers some hope of redemption from eventual and utter failure.

Just how I read those opening two paras.

Beverly, would this be an improvement?

Ten years have passed. I have yet to hold a job that I couldn’t have done just as well if I’d gone to an in-state junior college like so many of my high school classmates. If I published the biography of my life thus far, I’d have to call it I Was an Ivy League Secretary. I don’t regret my Penn education for a moment, not even when the monthly student loan bill shows up, but I sometimes think Penn must regret educating me. I’m only now beginning to figure out what I really want to do, how to translate my youthful raw ability into mature happiness and success. And I still look back at my work history and wonder how someone who I recently learned is talked about as one of the smartest kids ever to come out of Shelby County High School ended up where I am now.

YES!!

I was piddling with HTML, and you went and were brilliant in the meantime. That's loads better.