I can't really criticize anyone for not having a Plan B, as I don't even have a Plan A at this point. Deciding to just take the leap and hope for the best without planning for the worst might be exactly right for some people. To say that's the only way or even the best way for everyone, though, I can't get behind that.

It's not exactly the same thing, but this discussion reminds me of John Cleese talking about how Fawlty Towers pretty much broke him and if, as it sometimes seemed, creative success and sanity were mutually exclusive options, he' preferred sanity. Paraphrased enormously and probably not remembered accurately, but you get the gist.

And they're the exceptions who got out.

My sense of the history of artistic endeavor is that the people who had the dayjobs and succeeded are the exceptions.

It's not exactly the same thing, but this discussion reminds me of John Cleese talking about how Fawlty Towers pretty much broke him and if, as it sometimes seemed, creative success and sanity were mutually exclusive options, he' preferred sanity.

Ha! And I'll take Fawlty Towers and John Cleese's cracked psyche. Whatever it cost him, he's still around and okay.

Having a dayjob career does not guarantee anything except you're doing crap work you don't care about when you could be writing songs or books or painting.

Why would it have to be work you don't give a crap about?

On the flip side, for every one talented artist who rolled the dice like that and made it big, how many ended up with ruined lives and absolutely nothing of artistic merit to show for the sacrifice?

I DO think that it is possible to have a dayjob and succeed at a creative endeavor, and that buying into the having a plan b robs you of your creativity idea is, at it's heart, a potentially dangerous and glib statement. So I'm going to bow out of this discussion, because I don't think I can continue it and be coherent or polite.

how many ended up with ruined lives and absolutely nothing of artistic merit to show for the sacrifice?

I don't know. I don't run that database. But that's not unlike anybody's life changing decision whether it's the wrong marriage or the wrong college.

Why would it have to be work you don't give a crap about?

Well, I'm just going by Mellville and Hawthorne and Faulkner and those guys. They hated and resented their jobs. Though I'm pretty sure Toni Morrison liked writing her own novels rather than editing other people's.

I don't know. Bob Pollard doesn't seem the worse for wear that he was school teacher for more than a decade before Guided by Voices made enough for him to quit.

and that buying into the having a plan b robs you of your creativity idea is, at it's heart, a potentially dangerous and glib statement.

How is it any more dangerous than taking any chance with your life? Seriously, locking yourself into a forty hour a week job is not conducive to doing other creative work. You can do it, but it takes an even more extraordinary effort and I'd guess more artistic careers were ruined by dayjobs than the converse.

Matthew Weiner's wife supported him for five years before he got on the Sopranos. He didn't go writing ad copy in the meantime.

And unless they flat out discussed this and *both* agreed to it? I judge him. Pretty harshly.

And unless they flat out discussed this and *both* agreed to it? I judge him. Pretty harshly.

Judge away. I'll take Mad Men.

(FWIW, I'm sure they talked about it. And I'm also sure it was a source of tension in their marriage.)

Valuing security too highly is an obstacle to making a creative career. Where the line of "too highly" exists is subject to a lot of discussion. But it does require a gamble, and absorbing losses. Risk management is part of the equation.

If you're young and unfettered by parental responsibilities, I don't think there's anything wrong in leveraging your greatest asset: your freedom. (Aka, "just another word for nothing left to lose.")