so I'm in my twenties... now what?

So no one ever told me how hard it was to be an adult. Okay, that’s a lie, lots of people told me how hard it is, how much it sucks, but when you’re a kid all you want to be is grown up and the grass is always greener, isn’t it? So I eagerly got out of high school as soon as possible, finished college as soon as possible, all to start "living life" and "being an adult" as quickly as I could. And then I realized all I'd ever done was eagerly anticipate and now that I was ready to start living, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I didn't want to teach, I didn't want to become a lawyer, all I really wanted to do was write and travel. Who actually pays people to write and travel? (okay, yes, there are travel magazines which would be AWESOME but they are brutally hard to get into and I prefer to write fiction rather than flowery puff pieces about how wonderful the hotel was and how they folded the towels to look like monkeys...)
I've done some pretty cool stuff, I'll admit; I moved to LA right after graduating college and tried to get into the entertainment industry- and what everyone says is right: unless you know someone who knows someone, you aren't getting anywhere. I managed to intern with a pretty cool production company for awhile but all that led to was a bunch of first interviews with management companies, agency companies, all of which said I was "too nice" or "too inexperienced" or simply gave me the once over and pointed to the door. When you're trying to make your way in the land of Barbie and Ken and you look more like their slightly pudgy friend from high school that they paid to do their homework, your ego takes a serious hit. Needless to say, the entertainment industry didn't want me and I ended up working at a printing company with a rather egotistical boss and hating my life. When the writers went on strike right around Christmas, it was sink or swim so I threw in the towel and headed back to school, the only thing I knew I liked and was good at. I've always wanted to live in the UK and managed to find a pretty cool university out in the sheep fields of Wales; for the first time in months I felt like I had a direction.
THAT year was amazing, stellar, by far the greatest thing I've ever done. But, like all immigrants, my visa eventually expired, I finished my classes, and the UK happily sent me home. So now I'm here, trying to figure out what to do next, learning that being almost 24 is not as awesome as everyone tells you it is, working retail sucks, not having a career or a direction or even my own place... it's enough to make you want to pull your hair out. Well, my hair anyway.
I can't be the only person feeling this way. The recession has certainly helped turn a whole slew of us young, determined, career-seeking twenty somethings into over-educated book/shoe/toiletbrush sellers who are having a hard time seeing a way out of the hole. But what else can I do except try and save money to pay off the bills, get my own place and try and start "living"? Because how can anyone really consider this living?