Writer's block, an owner's guide: How to keep your day job from killing your writing career

Here’s one of the best things I’ve read in a very long time - so good that I wish I’d written it, and that’s unusual - on the subject of practical survival as a not-well-paid-so-far writer. A long essay in David Anagaxoras’s Screenwriting Manifesto.

There’s certainly an argument that the function of a day job is to support your immortal art with such basic needs as copying and quiet time to think. Whether that’s true or not, it’s a thought that can keep you sane and cheerful during your Dilbert years. I’m not advocating theft, although it’s possible that in another century and another continent, I may have sold angry topical satire to the BBC through a local government authority’s fax machine (really ironic thing to do, now that I think about it!). If it’s only by feeding you, the day job supports your true calling, and you may as well be grateful and polite and take them for as much as you legitimately can.

Published on August 10, 2008 at 10:22 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/how-to-keep-your-day-job-from-killing-your-writing-career.html