# Breaking In

Survival is tough in this town. Like following a hundred pieces of string that just fall to dust in your hands.

I was so focused on selling and too green to know myself that I ended up losing myself in the process.

Was there money in it? No. But there was that other thing, possibility, which over time, can end up being worth a whole lot more.

If you’re super entranced with a story, if you can’t wait to get home from your day job and work on it every single day, that’s going to come through in your writing, right?

I’m no guru, but I can share what I’ve done in hopes that it encourages and enlightens you on how to make money while fostering industry connections until you become a working screenwriter.

You will have to make changes to your story, at some point or another, that you might not want to ... This is just how the world works, for better or worse.

The decision to go to school for something isn’t as straightforward as “do you want a job?” anymore.

The only thing your heroes all have in common is that they work really fucking hard. And it’s only through doing this work, quietly and in the background, that you can ever hope to have a respected career.

It’s not as easy as it may seem to take notes when you put your heart and soul into something.

I don’t want to be famous. I don’t want to be the next ‘so-and-so’ anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still on my grind—I still bleed this shit. But I’m just ... enjoying the ride.

If I flew, I’d know this path was meant for me. If I fell, I’d finally be able to put an end to all of the story ideas that went off like sparklers in my brain keeping me up at night.

They call it a “big break,” but it is, in truth, more the culmination of a million tiny cracks that finally give way.