This post by Chuck Wendig originally appeared on his terribleminds site on 4/22/14.
This is one of the questions most frequently asked of me.
How do you become a full-time writer?
I am, and have been, a full-time writer (on and off) for the last ten years. The most recent “off” period, many moons ago, was simply because I was trying to get a mortgage on a first home, and the bank was like, “OH YOU’RE A FREELANCE WRITER SURE, SURE, WE KNOW WHAT THAT IS, EXCEPT THERE’S NO BUTTON ON MY COMPUTER THAT SAYS ‘GIVE FREELANCER A MORTGAGE NO MATTER HOW MUCH HE EARNS,’ OH WELL, SO SORRY, GOOD LUCK.” *toilet flushing sound*
This past year, 2013, was my most financially successful year yet.
You want to know how you become me.
In the loosey-goosey full-time sense, of course. To actually become me means cutting clippings of my beard, dipping them in a saucer of my heartsblood, reciting a thousand words of vulgarity that haven’t been heard by human ears since Caligula was prancing about, then eating the bloody beard puffs. With milk. Whole milk, not two percent, c’mon.
And it’s gotta be velociraptor milk.
Whatever.
Point is, full-time writer status: you want it.
But, I want you to slow down, hoss. Ease off the stick, chief.
You want to jump off the ledge and land in the pool 20 floors below. But it doesn’t work like that. I mean, it can — you might get lucky, you might survive the jump. Or, you might crash into some portly lad bobbing about on an inflatable Spongebob raft and kill the both of you.
Do not quit your day job.
I know. Your butthole just clenched hard enough to snap a mop handle. You hate your day job. The fact you call it a “day job” is a sign that you basically despise it as a grim, necessary evil.
But I’ll repeat:
Do not quit your day job.
Not yet.
If you’re going to become a full-time writer Cylon, you need a plan.
Click here to read the full post on terribleminds.