I started to post this as a comment on my friend Eric Lee’s post called “Keep Writing.” I could not have said it better than that. You hear it again and again: you have to write everyday. You have to make time and force yourself to do it. The reason being, the only requirement to be a writer is to write. Lawyers litigate, police officers patrol, politicians raise the roof (which is apparently the same thing as the debt ceiling. Every time I heard this story, I couldn’t help but picture a chamber full of old men and women doing that palms up arm pump motion)…writers have to actually write, everyday. At least a little.
Now to the point of my post. While you’re writing and trying to get internships on shows that may one day lead to a paying job, your friends will be leaving their apartments everyday and going to actual buildings with people in them where important decisions are made about what makes it onto your television set. (Run on sentence, I know) They will get jobs and start making money. Meanwhile, you may be looking for jobs waiting tables or doing anything not related to the industry that will leave you with enough free time and flexibility to write and work at one of these aforementioned internships on a show.
It’s going to feel like you aren’t getting anything accomplished at times. You’re going to keep writing knowing that it isn’t going to put food on your table or pay your rent. You’re going to do twice the work of most of your friends for a long time. (Write full time and work to pay your bills) It’s going to be discouraging. What’s going to keep you going? For me it’s knowing that one day when I finally break in, while my friends all have to dress up and work in the heat on sets, or wear suits and have migraines from that loss of oxygen…I’m going to have a job that I can do in the air conditioner, sitting in my underwear.