Writing for a soap - writing for 25 characters day in, day out - is one of the most difficult jobs in Hollywood.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I'd much rather do an obviously commercial writing project than get a day job.
I started out in theater, and then I got a job on a soap in New York. With a soap opera, its every day, all year long - there's no downtime, and you're shooting a show a day.
People might think writing is a hard business, but it's nowhere near acting.
I'd rather see a writer write 15 minutes a day than save it all up for a Saturday. A work gets a coating on it when it's not been worked on for a while, makes it hard to break back in.
When I signed up for Y&R, my actor friends said, 'A daytime soap? It'll kill your career!' Now they'd trade places with me in a heartbeat.
I can't recommend technical writing as a day job for fiction writers because it's going to be hard to write all day and then come home and write fiction.
I'm not a believer that you have to write every day. If I felt industrious, I'd spend ten hours a week writing. The writing is going on all the time in my head; the trick is to capture it. Showers are great. Traffic jams are great.
We live a pretty real life within our Hollywood selves. I'm not working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, by any means.
I don't call acting a real job, and writing is a hobby.
If you're doing an hour-long show, you're working movie hours, doing a 12-15-hour day. We work three or four hours a day, and get every third or fourth week off to give the writers time to write. It's the cushiest job in Hollywood.