People often reach out to me with this question. The answer is long, and writing this page will take me some time. For the moment, just know that I’m always happy to chat with people (often academics) who are considering this as a “third way” (the first two being staying in academia and moving into industry, respectively). Just drop me an email at simone.pengue[at]ecfrasi.ch
One thing that might help is the Bulletin of the Swiss Association of Science Journalism. We give newcomers the opportunity to write their first article under the guidance of an experienced science journalist. I mentor those who want to write in Italian, as well as some who want to write in English. Not only the program is free, but you will be also awarded with one-year free membership to the association!
In the meantime, speaking of beginning, I want to share my all-time favourite opening in literature. Cesare Pavese, Il diavolo sulle colline (The devil in the hills)
We were very young. I believe I never slept that year. But I had a friend who slept even less than I did, and certain mornings you would see him strolling about in front of the station during the hour in which the first trains arrive and depart. We used to leave him late at night, on his doorstep; Pieretto would take another walk and even see the dawn in, and then drink his coffee. Now he was studying the sleepy faces of streetsweepers and cyclists. Even he could not remember the discussions of the previous night: but having stayed awake on them, he had digested them, and he said calmly: “It’s late. I’m going to bed.”
Some of the others who tagged along after us couldn’t understand what we did when the cinemas were closed, and the clubs, the inns and the conversation at an end. They would sit on the benches with the three of us, listen to us shout or cackle, become fired with the idea of going to wake up the girls or to await the dawn on the hills, then at our change of mood they would hesitate and find the courage to go home. The next day they would ask us: “What did you do afterwards?” It wasn’t an easy question to answer. We had listened to a drunk, watched the posters being pasted up, taken a walk through the Market, seen sheep pass along the avenues. Then Pieretto would say: “We met a woman.”