double "day jobs"
Did you hear the one about the actor who was "discovered" while running errands and landed a role on a hit TV series within a year of moving to LA? Or the one about the writer who got his script to the right person and sold it before even graduating from college?
They sound like jokes... but they're not. Things like that actually happen. But consider those stories the exception (the BIG exception) rather than the rule. Much more often than not, actors, writers, and other creative types toil away at a variety of "day jobs" that pay the bills, while spending all other hours working for free on projects that feed their creative fires... all in the hopes that this will lead to that and everything will pan out and you'll get the big break that will let you do what you love for a living. It usually takes years. And sometimes, it never happens...
Fortunately, this has led to that for me and I'm now working on a project that I love and getting paid for doing it. But I haven't dropped my day job just yet.
What? Michelle has a day job? I didn't know that!
Yes, it's true. But where some of my creative compadres substitute teach, wait tables, sell real estate, or turn tricks on Sunset Blvd (just kidding) to make a living, I work with hi-tech companies as a corporate communications writer. She doesn't just write creatively, folks - she also writes corporatively. ;-)
How I got into this line of work is a long story... and as for how long I've been doing it, let's just say it's been long enough that I can carry my own in conversations about network lifecycles and the benefits of a converged infrastructure; and if you just can't sleep at night wondering why federal agencies are scrambling to migrate to an IPv6 network backbone, I'm the gal who can explain it well enough to send you off into dreamland...
I really love the work I do with my corporate clients. And, of course, I love the work I'm doing on this still-unnamed television show for Logo. But I have to admit that having a lot of work on both fronts can be a bit much. These past few weeks, while I've been working on beat sheets for episodes 2-6, I've also been writing an article, a white paper, a solutions overview, and a quick reference guide for my corporate clients. My brain has had so much back-and-forth between the creative and the semi-technical that my eyes have crossed...
The good news is that my eyes are slowly but surely uncrossing: I'm now in rewrite mode for my corporate work, the beat sheets are nearly done, and soon I'll be able to start focusing on the actual scripts for the show. With a bit less on my metaphoric plate, I may even be able to post a bit more frequently! (she says hopefully, yet still reserving the right to take that statement back) Fingers crossed! :-)
And now, back to work...
They sound like jokes... but they're not. Things like that actually happen. But consider those stories the exception (the BIG exception) rather than the rule. Much more often than not, actors, writers, and other creative types toil away at a variety of "day jobs" that pay the bills, while spending all other hours working for free on projects that feed their creative fires... all in the hopes that this will lead to that and everything will pan out and you'll get the big break that will let you do what you love for a living. It usually takes years. And sometimes, it never happens...
Fortunately, this has led to that for me and I'm now working on a project that I love and getting paid for doing it. But I haven't dropped my day job just yet.
What? Michelle has a day job? I didn't know that!
Yes, it's true. But where some of my creative compadres substitute teach, wait tables, sell real estate, or turn tricks on Sunset Blvd (just kidding) to make a living, I work with hi-tech companies as a corporate communications writer. She doesn't just write creatively, folks - she also writes corporatively. ;-)
How I got into this line of work is a long story... and as for how long I've been doing it, let's just say it's been long enough that I can carry my own in conversations about network lifecycles and the benefits of a converged infrastructure; and if you just can't sleep at night wondering why federal agencies are scrambling to migrate to an IPv6 network backbone, I'm the gal who can explain it well enough to send you off into dreamland...
I really love the work I do with my corporate clients. And, of course, I love the work I'm doing on this still-unnamed television show for Logo. But I have to admit that having a lot of work on both fronts can be a bit much. These past few weeks, while I've been working on beat sheets for episodes 2-6, I've also been writing an article, a white paper, a solutions overview, and a quick reference guide for my corporate clients. My brain has had so much back-and-forth between the creative and the semi-technical that my eyes have crossed...
The good news is that my eyes are slowly but surely uncrossing: I'm now in rewrite mode for my corporate work, the beat sheets are nearly done, and soon I'll be able to start focusing on the actual scripts for the show. With a bit less on my metaphoric plate, I may even be able to post a bit more frequently! (she says hopefully, yet still reserving the right to take that statement back) Fingers crossed! :-)
And now, back to work...
posted by MP at 5:10 PM
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