Unemployed = Full-Time Writer

The only way to be a full-time writer is to be unemployed.

Writing means spending hours skimming online postings of contests and other submission opportunities. Screenwriters and playwrights have to network, too, which means attending events and meetings with directors, production companies, actors, and other writers. You have to pursue pitching your works almost with the same energy you invest in writing.

Treat writing like a business, if you want to earn a living at it.

Last September, I declared my intention to become a published, real paid professional playwright. I was going to clean up the existing plays and submit things to various producers and publishers.

And then reality happened.

Nope. Nothing publishing.

I did have a new show produced, after swearing I wouldn't write a new script, and it was a good experience… but I'm still not published. Still an amateur, I suppose.

Writers and other artists have to be the most secure insecure people on Earth. We don't stop trying to pursue our crafts, confident we have something worthy of being shared. We also never stop doubting the very convictions that compel us to create.

My passion, as the post from last September indicates, had waned after mixed reviews and no publications. By the time I started to want to write again, I was teaching an overload schedule with no time to read through submission opportunities. Now, I have time to pursue writing again. For better or worse, I'm not planning to teach full-time in the coming school year.

Without other work to distract me (or to pay me), I should be pretty motivated to make this writing thing work. At least, that's the plan for now.