I’d like to introduce another one of my applicants: Nine to Five’d in Dublin (MovieWriter for short), who is looking stop working a day job to focus 100% on writing screen plays.

In a nutshell, I want to “retire” so I can write films full-time. I write now even though I have a full-time day job, but I’d like to lose the day job and write all day. It’s a compulsion, and something I’m good at, but not one that might ever make me much money (I’m going with worse-case scenario here).

I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t always been good with money. Right now, I’m carrying credit card debt of nearly 4,000 euro. I don’t save enough. But I’m willing to change, and as a first step I’m selling my house which is in a nice, suburban location, and moving closer to the city so I can walk/cycle to my day job. I don’t own a car and have no plans to. So that’s got to be steps 1 and 2 addressed somewhat, right?

My biggest problem areas, that I need to address, are expenses relating to clothes and those relating to my screenwriting (entering competitions, traveling to festivals, etc, etc, etc. Last year I spent 4 grand on this – must find a way to promote my stuff more cheaply).

Anyway, that’s it. I’m prepared to make some big changes for this, because I’m now 31 and have been working one day job or another that I hated since I left college. I want to escape nine to five and recognise that I need to change my financial thinking in order to do so.



The best way to maximize creativity is to ensure that money is no longer an issue. This great talk on what motivates us by Dan Pink (with animation) which I got from Robert Hurdman. There are four ways to do this: 1) Grants, which have a problem of running out and restrict what can be done with the creativity; 2) Writing for profit, which may or may not work depending on where one’s interest lies; 3) A job which does not zap the creative energies, e.g. don’t take on a writing job to support the writing; and 4) financial independence, which is what I use.

You may also want to read this post about a dramatic shift in priorities by Raymond Tung.