To chase my dream or not?

I have a mate who has just signed a pretty big writing contract, he has been writing for an hour or so a night for the past few years after work. Like you say you might not be writing for long periods throughout the day but if you get an idea while at work scribble it down on a scrap of paper and write it out when you get home.

when/if the writing takes off you should be debt free and have good life experiences.
 
Arite, it was always my intention to apply for the job, but a part of me is hoping I don't get it and its that really that I'm feeling guilty, or at least confused about it.

AHarvery, I know what you're saying but the past 6 months has been more living than I have ever done in my life (I moved to China on my own) and that was what inspired me to even believe its possible to chase a dream. I know that sounds like a gay cliche, but I'm not the sort of person who leaves his comfort zone, and if I can move to China then I can definitely submit a bit of writing here and there.

And Rhaos I dont think its harsh and I dont wanna come off like if I did decide to stick at the writing I would be happy being on the dole, its just there's a difference chuckin in 25 hours a week say in the garage at the bottom of my road and starting potentially a career like job. I've only been on the dole about 8 weeks and halfway through that I was absolutely jipped into a week's free labour as there was a "95% chance of a job" at the end but it was just a scam to extort that Work Trial thing the Job Centre offers.

And Curiousalien, do you know anymore about your mate's writing deal? Like what that contract is for, what he writes, how old he is and how long he's been having a go at it?

In all honesty I'm starting to think I wont even get to the first stage of this interview process anyway so this argument might have been pointless, still vaild though for other jobs.

Someone else has asked me for a writing sample, the only thing I have thats finished(ish) is a 10 page short film script I wrote, I'm extending it now to a full length play but it still serves a purpose. Thing is though it's obv in screenplay format and has swearing in so I wont post it here, I have emailed it other people on here before for their opinions so if anyone wants it just drop a quick email to my MSN address in trust and send you a pdf.

Cheers
 
shameless bump. Does no one wanna see some samples? One day I'm gonna be famous and you can tell your mates you told me I was gash back before I made it big.
 
lol, go on then. IMO if youre young, single and have no commitments theres nothing to stop you chasing your dream.
 
I'm a writer myself (part-time, aswell as being a stay-at-home-dad). Some questions:

Do you have any work published? Whether you take the job or not you should start building up a body of work that you could show prospective employers should a dream job magically appear. You wouldn't want to let any paid writing work slip through your hands as it is hard to come by at the start of your career.

Do you write purely fiction? If so you might want to think about dabbling in non-fiction (it's easier than you think and is never boring as you can write about any subject that grabs your interest). It'll bump out your CV nicely and you'll gain a lot of experience with research, deadlines (set them yourself if need be) and writing to capture your reader's attention.

Post some suitable excerpts of your work if you like.
 
Forde said:
I'm a writer myself (part-time, aswell as being a stay-at-home-dad). Some questions:

Do you have any work published? Whether you take the job or not you should start building up a body of work that you could show prospective employers should a dream job magically appear. You wouldn't want to let any paid writing work slip through your hands as it is hard to come by at the start of your career.

Do you write purely fiction? If so you might want to think about dabbling in non-fiction (it's easier than you think and is never boring as you can write about any subject that grabs your interest). It'll bump out your CV nicely and you'll gain a lot of experience with research, deadlines (set them yourself if need be) and writing to capture your reader's attention.

Post some suitable excerpts of your work if you like.
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Arite mate, not got anything published other than some stuff I've put on websites myself.

The body of work is what I'm trying to build up now, before I've just thought to myself that this one script or whatever I was writing at the time was summat Tarantino could only dream of and it was definitely, definitely getting made. Of course it was absolute tosh and I'm too embarassed to even read that stuff myself anymore.

But now I sort of have 3 things mid progress, one is a play script that was originally finished as a 10 minute film script. Another is a sitcom that I work on very rarely, my aim there is to have just one episode script done and dusted but that is slow going and all over the place.

And also when I was in China I wrote a journal, not every day but I have quite a lot, then when I was home and searching through my Writers and Artists looking for somewhere to send my short film script I came across an agency that speciailised in China and the Far East, it said contact by recommendation only but I thought whatever, its only an email, nothing to lose. So I emailed this guy and he emailed straight back saying he would take a look at it, email him the first 50 pages. At that point I had about 12 lines just copied from my handwritten journal, and that was just in note form.

So I set off writing that as well but I didn't really enjoy it and it was difficult to do, thats the only nonfiction story I've ever really had a proper go at. I've not written any on that in a while, which I don't mind as thats not really what I wanted to write, given an agent asked to see it I feel guilty about it.

Can I ask you all the same questions you just asked me please Forde?
 
I haven't been writing for long at all (about 2 years), but I'm getting paid work now writing copy for various people. Copy is the easiest and most common form of paid work for a writer. I am regularly published in a national magazine called Ghost Voices, have a column at Unexplained Mysteries.com and contribute regularly to lots of other web sites. I have a Hard-boiled style Film Noir short film script in pre-production with a TV production company I work with now and then and there's a marketing script of mine being shot as we speak by another production company.

I also have about 200,000 words worth of unfinished scripts, books, short stories and articles waiting for some love.

Your tale about our Tarantino script is a familiar one; I've written many things which I considered excellent only to read them back at a later date and cringe. That is the way of writing, no matter how much natural skill you think you have you must learn to write and the best teacher is experience. I would heartily recommend article writing for web sites to get started. Many sites will take your work (free, of course); you'll get experience writing for a real audience and at the same time build up a portfolio.

They don't take long either - some sites will take 500 word pieces which is about twice the length of this post. Article writing will teach you to research well, too. you can write about whatever you want, which means it's never boring.

I use this site: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/write/my-stories/10694 as it gets a lot of readers and you can earn a nominal amount of money per month from your hits. Some of the writers on there get paid a couple of grand a month apparently, but they are heavy users with lots of power users on Digg, Twitter and other network sites. You submit an article to the editors who approve it, give feedback if necessary, change your already excellent title to something salacious and then publish it.

You need to be approved to write on there but if you're interested I can invite you.
 
yeah mate that sounds great, I'd appreciate that loads.

How much writing a day/week do you do? Are you making any real money by doing this? I mean could you do it as a career or is it just for the love and the bits of money on the side are nice? Don't have to give me a specific amount or anything.

Just got a call from that job I was talking about before, got an interview on Monday so looks like I'm almost there, I'm not too bad at interviews so we'll see what happens.
 
get the job first, think after. Seems stupid to me to waste energy thinking about big decisions when it may never need to be made.
 
anksta said:
yeah mate that sounds great, I'd appreciate that loads.

How much writing a day/week do you do? Are you making any real money by doing this? I mean could you do it as a career or is it just for the love and the bits of money on the side are nice? Don't have to give me a specific amount or anything.

Just got a call from that job I was talking about before, got an interview on Monday so looks like I'm almost there, I'm not too bad at interviews so we'll see what happens.
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I wouldn't say I'm making 'real' money yet, but being a stay-at-home-dad I just don't have the time to dedicate myself to writing at all. For my circumstances I would say I'm doing pretty well and am ahead of my own plans. I write for a couple of hours most evenings (with the odd Team Deathmatch when no-one's looking) with more at the weekends. I charge about £35 an hour for copy. You could certainly do this for a career but it takes time to build up contacts and a portfolio. Much of it is word of mouth, too.

My advice would be to take this job and start writing a couple of 1k word articles on the side on subjects that interest you. Writing won't give you a steady income for a long time (unless you're insanely lucky), so perhaps do it for love for a bit and then reassess things a year down the line.
 
Maccy said:
Do both, I think you'd be foolish to pass up a job opportunity at the moment to be honest.
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Totally agree.

My dream was to go into music and although accounting is a million miles away, it certainly helps me to make the most of the time I'm not working to practice my music.

Your choice at the end of the day though.
 
boxman2000 said:
Totally agree.

My dream was to go into music and although accounting is a million miles away, it certainly helps me to make the most of the time I'm not working to practice my music.

Your choice at the end of the day though.
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do you do anything other than practise with your music mate?
 
I left full time employment to pursue such a dream. I made a little headway with working at the BBC for a bit but now I'm back to working part time and I'm about to go to uni.

No matter how busy I am I will always write when the inspiration comes. You're gonna have to keep down a day job to pursue this sort of dream unless you get to where the action is happening and start networking within the write (sic) circles. I.E. London, NYC and LA. It's the only way to go about it.

Just gotta plow on and when you've got something you're happy with try and get it out to agents and TV studios and the like. But as I said, you have to make ends meet in the meantime so I wouldn't say you're selling out. You can still write wherever you go and whatever you do.

I sent one script off to BBC Scotland comedy department. It was a pilot for a 30 minute sitcom. I got it back a few months later with a ton of absolutely invaluable feedback. You won't write your big hit right off the back but whatever you do it's important just to submit it to every where you can, even if that means entering scriptwriting contests and the like.

Right now, as I'm about to goto uni for 4 years to study film, I have written two shorts (one a 5 minute film which a director I know is interested in making and another which I've just finished the first draft for is a 10 minute short) and I'm currently working on a script for a film. This is before I even sit down and redraft the aforementioned sitcom with the notes I've been given.

The point I want to make is that I have done ALL of this as I've either worked full time or worked part time and been in education. I've had the month of August off and I find myself getting distracted far too easily when I have far too much free time on my hands.
 
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What film school are you goin to Woody?

A goal I got sorted on was to go do a summer session at NYU, its like 4 or 6 weeks doing screenwriting, don't think the requirements are particularly as high because the costs are but I was thinking of just getting a gig in Blockbuster or somewhere and saving for that but I doubt I'll be able to jack this job in for a month (if I get it) to go swanning off to New York.

Given its an American company I'm hoping they have offices in New York that I can blag a job at and then get in all those circles and whatnot.
 
anksta said:
What film school are you goin to Woody?

A goal I got sorted on was to go do a summer session at NYU, its like 4 or 6 weeks doing screenwriting, don't think the requirements are particularly as high because the costs are but I was thinking of just getting a gig in Blockbuster or somewhere and saving for that but I doubt I'll be able to jack this job in for a month (if I get it) to go swanning off to New York.

Given its an American company I'm hoping they have offices in New York that I can blag a job at and then get in all those circles and whatnot.
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I'm not going to a film school, just to Glasgow Uni to study Film and TV. I hope to eventually go to a film school in the US when I'm done though, but we'll see what opportunities open up in the mean time.
 
anksta said:
Forde, send one to my MSN address, there is no address in yours.
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Done. You have to upload a profile pic, but it can be anything. Have a look around the site, some articles are well-researched and in-depth and others are more throw-away and quick reads, so something for everyone.

Let me know if you want a few pointers about writing for the site. :D
 
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