"If you do want to get into creative work, you’re going to have to see it as a side hustle. Not your main gig. That’s just the way it is.  It could become your main gig — if you’re very, very lucky — but the chances are slim. It’s hard to make it work."

"You do not say to the creative self, 'Now it is 7:30. People are at their assembly lines. I am at my desk: produce.'"

"The thing is, it's hard to do great creative work at the end of the day when you're tired and worn down by trying to make a living in a day job, in a business that you've founded to bring in income etc."

"The bulk of your writing should focus on genres or niches that you enjoy. Sure, there will be times when you write to pay the bills, but spend most of your days on exciting projects."

"If you tell people you're an artist, they'll tell you that’s not much of a career path and you should get a real job.  If you tell people you're building a tech startup platform for artists, they'll be impressed and want to hear more."

"You have to balance doing what you want with make a buck, which is hard.  But if you do what you love and keep that as a goal in your work, you'll find that people will eventually come to you for it.  Instead of you going to them for money, they'll come to you with money and hire you for who you are."

"The [creative] work I'm doing now, and the work I will do, is why I left corporate America.  If I can't remember to embrace the craziness with a smile, then I've made a terrible mistake."

"I read a book called Quitter by Jon Acuff.  In it, he encourages people not to bail on their full-time jobs as soon as they feel like their dream is gaining some traction.  These were wise words that I needed to hear.  A full-time job provides stability so that you can take more risks on your dream.  In our culture, we're prone to demonize our day jobs and exalt our dream jobs, but we fail to see that the former can be a platform for the latter.  In his book, Acuff explains that the word no is the most valuable word you have as someone working toward your dream."

"We're basically abolishing the full time musician/writer/filmmaker. We're abolishing the full time creative. That's what's happening.  We're giving money to tech platforms to become 'Unicorns' off the backs of creatives, and driving creatives out of business."

"Sometimes the contrast helps: when you come home from your day job, you have so much to pour into your passion because you've been holding in your creativity all day."