The point of this story is not to encourage you to play every beer store or to boast about our huge fan base of terminally ill people.

The more that you are actively working in your field — whether that means writing for magazines, playing music at clubs, hosting gallery events or building furniture for a hotel — the more you’ll find yourself needing to execute contracts with other businesses and people.

Do you dip your pen in company ink? I know what you’re thinking. Of course, not! Who would be so foolish, right?

Generally, novelists and dramatists can get away with fictionalizing real life people and events without permission.

When you’re making money — even just scraps — from your creative work not as an employee of some other company, guess what: You’re running a business.

For anyone who is stuck in a long-term project, or just starting one, I’ve put together a list of advice that, in hindsight, I wish I knew from the get go.

If the Dear Rich Staff was in your position, we’d probably give up on the $800.

Maybe we as artists and performers are undervalued. But we try to make it work financially, anyway, because it’s so much fun.

If you apply to a gallery, you’re basically applying for a job, and every gallery is going to be different.

Artists do not share secrets if they have a lead on something or they’ve found something works for them.

A website with your work on it can’t be the only way to carry your art career into the big time.

What Pomplamoose has helped me realize is that a different kind of musical career path can be cultivated.

How things have changed in four short years! So now, what do I do? Go back to waiting tables? Work in an office? Have a boss?!

It may feel awkward actually taking money from your fans. Get over it. This money helps you keep going. Every purchase is a vote to keep your music alive.

Boutique hotel on Bequia island in the Grenadines, southern tail of the Caribbean. Make mirrors. Make chandeliers. Of course, there must be negotiations.

Achieving your dream of [insert dream here] will most likely also include a day job. Or a night job. Or a day and a night job. Or any job you can find.