A Word of Encouragement: Even Shakespeare Had a Day Job

A lot of the time new writers are convinced they won't be able to write unless they somehow become independently wealthy overnight and can quit their day jobs. Untrue!

Shakespeare (according to our best information) worked in his glovemaker father's shop before spending his early twenties as a schoolteacher, and throughout most of his career supplemented his writing income by acting. He invested in his theater company and also made some extremely sound real estate investments. He did not leave his livelihood to the capricious market. And when the playhouses were closed for two years because of the plague, he tried another avenue - that's why we have the sonnets. Guy de Maupassant spent much of his adult life as a civil servant, writing all the time.

The point: NOT that can't ever expect to make your income purely through writing if you want to. That's a goal you can work on and which is certainly achievable. But if you haven't achieved it yet it doesn't make you any less of a "real" writer. You are in extremely good company!

And doing much better this week with the writer's block, thank you. A couple of days off and some focus on one project - the sequel to The Suspicious Room - seems to have done the trick. I set out to do my at-least-one-page this morning and came up with two.

Keep writing! A little at a time is all it takes - really.