By the time I turned 30, I had written 17 episodes of an iconic television show ("Lizzie McGuire"), been nominated for two Emmys, had an agent, a manager and a size-6 body that I could cram into all sorts of fun outfits.
By the time I turned 35, I was near-broke, hadn't had a writing job in 18 months and was working the front desk of the spinning gym that I had formerly been a customer at.
"Drugs?" one of the clients asked me.
Had I been inhaling too much of the shoe disinfectant? Excuse me?
"Someone told me you used to be a TV writer. And now you work here. Was it cocaine?"
I handed her a towel and smiled. "Nope," I told her, "I never earned cocaine money."
She waited, hoping that I would spill my secret to my failure. Con artist boyfriend? Affair with the married boss? Pyramid scheme?
"Have a nice day," I told her, and helped the next client in line.
The years 2006-2009 were a vast wasteland of work. There was a manager who gave me the overall note "rewrite it for Ashton Kutcher." There was the agent who got offended at an abortion joke in a script and stop returning phone calls. My bosses who had previously hired me were out of work themselves. There was the Writers' Strike. A perfect shitstorm.
Still, I was lucky. I had just married my husband. I had insurance. We had a cheap place to live, even if it was in a moldering, mouse-infested apartment under our landlady who was a hoarder.
But I was no longer a professional TV writer.
Total Number of Writers Reporting Earnings in 2009: 4522
Total Number of TV Writers Reporting Earnings in 2009: 3166
(Source: WGA 2014 Financial Report)
I scoured the Internet for writing jobs. Entertainment Careers, eLance, Craigslist. I submitted bids, took writing tests. I scored a ghostwriting gig which had me churning out a book in eight weeks. I wrote a comic book for a Nigerian billionaire who took eight weeks to pay me $200 because he was waiting for investors. I wrote press releases for a bipolar business owner on a drug binge -- he did have cocaine money, though always had an excuse why he couldn't pay me.
I felt like a failure. I probably looked like a failure. Let's just say I was a failure. But with every new humiliation, at least you're writing.
I continued to blog. I got a Twitter account. I got on Tumblr. I heard that a network executive thought I was "girl funny" but couldn't write for boys. In retaliation, I wrote a spec script called "Max & Trevor" about two teen dorks who just want to touch a boob. I didn't have representation. I emailed it to the last few people I knew, who patted me on the head and said nice job. I knew it was a long shot, so I tucked it away and went back to spraying rented spinning shoes. You'd think that people who earned enough money to pay $20 a spinning class would cough up $100 to purchase their own pair of spin shoes, but you'd be wrong. Instead for $2 they'd rent shoes, which were like bowling shoes that someone had run a marathon in.
My old "Lizzie McGuire" boss called me up and asked me if I was still doing "that Internet thing." During my years on "Lizzie" I had been blogging, and was always being dragged into meetings regarding Lizzie's digital presence. "Yes, I am," I told him. "I may have something for you," he responded.
The project was called "Valemont," and he wanted me to write all of the online material, as well as an ARG. I nodded. I could totally do that.
When I went home, I googled what an ARG was.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew that I had about eight to 12 weeks to figure it out, quick. I worked 12 hours a day. When the project went live, I worked 15 to 18 hours a day.
My boss sent my work to an agent he knew. He passed. My boss' assistant said she knew a manager who was looking for new clients. I got a meeting. The manager worked for herself. There was no fancy office, no plush carpets and walls of thick glass, no assistant whose heels clicked over the marble as she offered you a bottle of water.
She had read "Max & Trevor," a script I never expected anyone to see. She wanted to represent me. I said yes.
"Valemont" won awards for the online component. I was asked to speak at conferences at MIT, in New York, in Sweden.
I was still unemployed.
I worked on a couple of more online projects. While I had the contacts, my manager made me a deal that was much better than the one I would have made on my own.
I continued to write.
I got a meeting at a production company who had was waiting to hear about a show pickup at Nickelodeon. The show got picked up. The exec told us it was a long shot. The EP was hiring most of the people he knew from other projects.
I got a meeting.
The EP told me he read five pages of my script, then put it down, knowing that he had already decided to meet me. When he was done going through the slush pile, he told me I went back to your script because I wanted to see how it would end.
I got the job on "How to Rock."
"How to Rock" ended and then I got a consulting job on "House of Anubis."
I got an email -- a producer friend of mine was reading my Twitter and thought I was funny -- was I interested in appearing on the Brit List on BBC?
I developed with Disney Animation and Cartoon Network. I pitched shows to Amazon, to Dreamworks Animation, to Disney Channel, to Nickelodeon. I had a project optioned at Hasbro. I worked at Mattel on Monster High and DC Superhero Girls. A producer brought me a book that I adapted into a screenplay pitch that has a production company on board. I developed a movie with my old "Lizzie McGuire" EP and Disney Interactive. I punched up friend's pilots. I have a super-secret project that is about to be pitched that may have everyone flipping their collective lid.
But none of these things could end up happening. Because life.
There is an arbitrary line in the sand that we give ourselves:
By [age] I will have figured out [giant, important thing.
By 26 I will have figured out my career.
By 32 I will have figured out my love life.
By 41 I will have figured out my health.
This is a mathematical equation that is near-impossible to solve. Because all of the big stuff: work, love, health, involves hard work, yes, but it also needs a little bit of luck to make it through. (It bears noting that a heaping spoonful of privilege -- that I, as a cis white woman have -- also helps a ton.)
Total Number of Writers Reporting Earnings in 2014: 4899
Total Number of TV Writers Reporting Earnings in 2014: 3888
(Source: WGA 2014 Financial Report)
This is far from a cautionary tale. Partly because my tale is far from over and partly because there wasn't really anything that I could have done to pull out of the nosedive that my career took in the mid-2000s. It was a Rube Goldbergian series of unfortunate events that landed me in a dark cubby spraying rented spin shoes for the 1 percent.
William Goldman famously said about the entertainment industry that nobody knows anything. They still don't. The only thing you can do is do the work. Write like nobody's watching. Because chances are they aren't.
Until they are.
Anyone who says they've got it all figured out is just trying to make you feel bad. And there are enough people in the world who want to make you feel like shit. Don't help them.
This post originally appeared on Medium.