you are not alone in the struggle
writers have always struggled to write while living life under capitalism. you’re not alone. and yet brilliant writers wrote brilliant things and became known as brilliant writers. despite it all. so keep writing, and know, when it’s hard, there is strength in collective memory and survival.
This is how it works: You’ve always wanted to be a writer, but instead you decide you should become a health care worker. You go to school for four years. You get a degree in social work. You are at your first day of your new job, listening to an orientation, and you realize you really did want to be a writer. You quit your job, go to the library w
... See moreToo often, aspiring artists put pressure on themselves to make their creative work their only source of income. In my experience, it’s a road to misery. If art is your sole source of income, then there’s unrelenting pressure on that art, and mercenary pressure is the enemy of the creative elves inside you trying to get the work done. Having another
... See moreThe whole time I was practicing to be a writer, I always had a day job. Even after I got published, I didn’t quit my day job, just to be on the safe side. In fact, I didn’t quit my day job (or my day jobs, I should say) until I had already written three books—and those three books were all published by major houses and were all reviewed nicely in t
... See more“— you know, I've either had a family, a job, something
has always been in the
way
but now
I've sold my house, I've found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I'm going to have a place and
the time to
create.'
no baby, if you're going to create
you're going to create whether you work
16 hours a day i
People need to eat and pay the rent. “An amateur is an artist who supports himself with outside jobs which enable him to paint,” said artist Ben Shahn. “A professional is someone whose wife works to enable him to paint.” Whether an artist makes money off his work or not, money has to come from somewhere, be it a day job, a wealthy spouse, a trust f
... See more“He was a generational talent who wrote something that has lasted till this day. And yet he spends all his time worrying about running out of logs for the fire or switching rooms to avoid his creditors.”
- How artists make (or beg for) money
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