When I was a young student at San Diego State, my creative writing professor, Dr. Sanderlin, asked me what I wanted to do for a living.
“Write,” I said.
He studied me for a moment. Then he said gently, “Yeah, but what do you want to do for a living?”
At the time, I didn’t understand. He explained that even though he was published in The Saturday Evening Post every few weeks — an achievement that seemed like the height of success to me — it wasn’t enough. “Why do you think I teach?” he said. “I love teaching, so I’m lucky. But I live in Southern California. $1,500 every six weeks might work in for a single guy in Lorain, Ohio, but not in San Diego with a wife, three kids, and a swimming pool.”
Later, Robert Wilder told me something similar. Wilder was a successful novelist, but he didn’t pretend the royalties kept him in La Jolla. “I don’t live here on my books, Son,” he said. “Movie rights to those books bought this house.”
And years afterward, Gordon Jump, the actor from WKRP in Cincinnati, echoed the same point. We were both teaching continuing education classes — he in voice-over, me in creative photography — while I was also working at a newspaper. He laughed and said, “Maybe one percent of SAG actors live on acting.”
It wasn’t just the big names. A colleague of mine — a successful “more-than-an-extra” with some forty film credits — worked in the same department as me as a building inspector for the County of San Diego while I was employed on the County newsletter. As a full-time actor, he had been a divorced alcoholic. As a carpenter and building inspector, he was married and sober for twenty years. Movies on one hand, steady work on the other. That was the reality.
Different men. Different careers. Same lesson: very few people in the arts live on the art alone. Writing, acting, painting — the dream may fuel you, but the living usually comes from teaching, options, or steady work elsewhere.
And yet those lessons never discouraged me. They grounded me. They made clear what so many learn the hard way: you create because you must, not because it pays.
Dr. Sanderlin was right. Robert Wilder was right. Gordon Jump and my colleague were right. The art is the passion. The paycheck comes elsewhere.
And in the end, maybe that’s how it should be. The work pays for the life, and the art pays for the soul.
About the auhtor
Dale Scherfling is a former National Guard and Navy journalist and photographer. His work has appeared in Third Act Magazine. Does it Have Pockets Magazine, Lost Blonde Literary, All Hands Magazine, Pacific Crossroads.
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