Making The Decision To Go Professional

In this episode, I talk with Ronika Merl, a screenwriter out of Ireland who at the time of the interview late last year had quit her day job and decided to take her craft to the next level and went professional. Ronika reached out to me via email and wanted to share her experience with going professional. If you are thinking about taking your practice to the next level, take a listen to someone who has just recently did that very thing and learn from her experience.

Ronkia Merl's Bio

Ronika is an award-winning screenwriter, writer, and producer.
Having placed highly in both the Academy Nicholl Fellowship as well as the Austin Film Festival in 2019, she has since expanded her slate to contain more than 22 feature-length scripts, 4 of which are currently in preproduction or development with various production companies.

She is also producing her "Wicklow Stories" Anthology "The Pier" in coordination with No Wifi.

Her autobiography "The Unfinished Heart" is slated for publication in the coming years, and her textbook for Irish Screenwriters "The Hustle" is now available on Amazon or can be purchased directly from her.

She has consulted on projects in the US, UK, South Africa and Australia.

Discussion topics on Going Professional

• The hardest point of going professional that Ronika was unprepared for
• What drives her to overcome obstacles
• Advice she gives artists who are considering going professional
• Dealing with collages who are not as professional as she is
• Who inspired her to make films
• Her definition of success

Links to Ronika's work

• Ronika Merl's Website
• Ronika Merl's IMDB
• Ronkia Merl's Instagram
• Ronika Merl's YouTube
• Ronika Merl's FaceBook

Reaching Out

To reach out to me, email timothy@createartpodcast.com I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

• Email: timothy@createartpodcast.com
• YouTube Channel: Create Art Podcast YT Channel
• IG: @createartpodcast
• Twitter: @createartpod

Transcripts for Going Professional Introduction

Tim: Create art podcast conversations going pro with Ronica, Merl. Hello friends. This is Timothy Kimo. Brian, your head instigator for create art podcast where I use my 20 plus years in arts and education. To help you tame your inner critic and create more than you consume. Now, have you ever wondered what it would be like to quit your day job and go full professional?
That's a scary thought. Isn't it? Some of you may have thought there's no way I'd be able to leave the security or a steady the security of a job or a steady paycheck. Well, if this pandemic has taught us anything, it's that the time to dive into your passion may be now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying at the end of this episode, you should give your boss a two weeks notice and start doing underwater basket weaving full time.
And that if you do it, it'll pay the bills. What I am saying is that it may be time for you to take a look at your, at the next step in your practice and start thinking about making this your vocation with anything there is risk. And even if you don't feel like going full price, You may want to listen in on this conversation that I had with Ronica Merrill, who at the time of the interview had just quit her day job and decided to go full pro doing screenwriting in Ireland.
Now she just didn't decide one day to drop everything. She did have a plan and had been working on it for a few years before she made that leap. Now you're probably asking, well, who is Ronica Merle? Well, she's an award-winning screenwriter. Writer and producer, and has placed very highly in both the academy Nicole fellowship, as well as the Austin film festival in 2019.
She has since expanded her slate to contain more than 22 feature scripts, four of which are being currently pre production or development with various production company. And she also is producing her Wicklow stories, anthology, and the peer in coordination with no wifi. Now her autobiography, the unfinished heart is slated for publication in the coming years.
And. The her textbook for Irish screenwriters, the hustle is now available on Amazon, or it can be purchased directly from her. She has consulted with projects in the U S the UK, South Africa and Australia. And you can look at her work on her website and ID B IMDV page. Now links are going to be in the show notes, and then we'll also have the transcript of the conversation we had in the show.
For you to look at now, when it came, when I came up with this topic Going pro is one I really wanted to tackle and it's not because I'm technically a professional artist. However, I've consoled others to make that break and start earning income from their practice. Now, luckily Ronica reached out to me at the perfect time, and I'm very pleased to bring you the conversation that we.
Feel free to share this episode with your friends and with somebody that, you know, that may be thinking about going pro also drop by Ronica his website and let her know that I went ahead and sent you. And now here's the conversation that I had with Monica mural on going pro

Interview

Ronika: So I recently quit my day job. Which was probably the most exciting moment of my artistic career so far, it was an absolute thrill. Right. And literally today it's 2:00 AM here. So today is my last day in employment. Ever, hopefully fingers crossed ever. And it's been quite the journey like it has been, it has been quite the journey to get me here.
I started freelance copywriting in 2017 am. Now it's 2021. So it took me, it took me four years to get to a point where I thought, okay, I'm going to be able to make that leap. I'm going to be able to make that jump and really live off my writing. Immediately after I, I wrote my resume resignation email.
I immediately regretted panic. Completely lost my mind because I thought, oh my God, am I good? Am I God? What am I doing? What am I doing? I am not prepared for that. Capable of this. But I think as you'd expect it to but I think that's kind of when, when the, when your confidence in your craft has to, has to come in and you have to.
Bring yourself back down and say, listen, you got this, you know exactly what you're doing. You are a professional, you know, no matter what happens there, your craft is what is going to get you to the next level that you need to be reaching. And I think that's why it's usually important that before anybody stops thinking or starts thinking about stopping their day job is that they first are a professional artists in whatever field they're in.
They need to be confident that, you know if push comes to shove, they can create at a, at a full-time level kind of pace because chances are as soon as you stop as soon as you stop your day job, it's not that you stop working it's that you work that much harder at what you, what you want to be doing.
Which is also, I think why it's usually important to actually have a day job for a good while. I think it's important to understand what it feels like to work for 40 hours a week or six years a week or 80 hours a week, because that's what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life. So, and if you don't have that discipline in you if you, if you think, oh, I'm just going to be, I don't know, I'm just going to be an artist on.
Because the old saying goes, you know, if you give him on a job that he loves, he'll never work a day in his life. No, no, no, no. You'll work. You will work a lot. You will work very, very, very hard. It's just that hopefully you have a lot of satisfaction doing the work. But it's still going to be work. Like you're going to be up as I am now.
You're going to be up at two o'clock in the morning and you're going to be super, super happy to be up at two o'clock in the morning, talking about what you love doing and talking about your art and talking about your craft. But the fact still remains you're up at two o'clock in the morning and you're working.
And I think a lot of people are, are misunderstanding. That aspect. And I think as soon as people who aren't maybe involved in, in, in a creative or an artistic pursuit, I think, oh my God, it's some sort of magical innate. Beautiful mysterious landscape that an artist just sneezes and a portrait exists, or, you know, a writer just sits down and types a sentence like Carrie Bradshaw at her window looking out
that's immediately. It, no.
It's not it's, that's not what, that's not what it is. It's it's work. It's really, really hard work. And so quitting the day job to be able to, to pursue a different day job. Doesn't mean that you're, that you're, that you stop working. So I think that that was kind of my major takeaway was that, yeah, I wasn't going to have any more free time now.
I wasn't going to, I could structure my day a little bit better around, you know, my small children or, or other, or the things that I need to take care of, but it was never going to be that I worked less.

Tim: True true. And will. And especially in your field with, you know, with the screenwriting and with making films, I've got a tiny bit of experience.
I, you know, I looked at your bio and I've listened to a couple of your interviews. And I know the work as just an actor in a film, in a small film, not in a much less, you know, major motion picture. A lot of work and it's a lot of standing around and not doing anything. And then to have that, you know, two minutes of, okay, you know, getting the character, make sure that you have all your lines, all the, you know affects and, you know, make sure that the sound guy, especially the sound guy is is on point physical point.

Ronika: I was. Sorry. Yeah. I was going to say the film industry, like as it's very, it's very topical at the moment. I know when this goes out, it'd probably be boiled over, but the whole film industry in the state just went on strike. So yeah, for good reason, because they're 16 hour days, you know, they're 16 hour days in the sunshine, in the freezing cold.
And so I absolutely stand in solidarity with my, with my colleagues over there. So yeah, but as you were, sorry, you were saying. Oh, well, I, I was gonna ask I, I was going to pop back a little bit and ask you, you know, you know, you're, you're doing the resignation letter, you know, today's your last day.
I feel privileged to be here with you to do that. I, you know, I want to grab, you know, a cake for you or something, but, you know, what's, what's the hardest thing about going pro that, that you weren't ready for it. And, and how are you overcoming that? I think the hardest thing about making the jump is the big dip that comes just after making the jump, because everything is beautiful and everything is rosy. If you know where your next paycheck is coming from, but there will come a time. There will come a moment in time. It's just, it's just going happen.
Where you don't know where your next paycheck is coming from, and that will happen for most artists, unless you like, you know, I don't know. Hozier or someone who had like this big hit with their first song and at 22 who never had to worry about a paycheck ever. But you know, if you're, if you're a normal, if you're a normal kind of artist trying to, trying to go pro for a few years and then making the jump, there will come a time.
It might come a week after you make the jump. It might come a month. It might come a year after, but there will come a moment. And in that moment, Is where you have to question. And in that moment then is where you have to rely on your gumption and have to remind yourself of how hard you worked to get here.
Because chances are before you took the jump you had long nights, you sat at your kitchen table while your kids were asleep, or your partner was watching TV. You sat at the kitchen table looking at. Script researching something, writing a song, practicing you're practicing your craft, you know? And that's what you have to jump back on.
That's what you have to remind yourself on. Is that okay? Yeah. No, at the moment, it's a little bit difficult, but look what it took to get you. And yeah, you have to, you have to keep that perspective alive. And I think that that's for me, at least for now, for the first few weeks when I'm kind of looking at, okay, my finances and Christmas is coming up and I have to kind of struggle around, okay.
I'm going to have to make things, structure things differently until the big gigs come in. Yeah, you have to remind yourself of, okay. It took a while, but it's going to be fine because you, you got. It's going to be fine. Yeah.

Tim: And I was gonna, cause you had mentioned about having confidence in your work, having confidence in your craft and from what I'm hearing, that's one way that you can It helps you to overcome these, these hard times is having that confidence in there.
Is there anything else? And you'd mentioned the word gumption. And is there anything else that's helping you get through these through the tough times of going pro?

Ronika: I think CRA, I think crafting con or confidence in craft is the most important thing. Because I know. There isn't anything somebody could put in front of me that I couldn't write.
You know, there isn't, there isn't a concept that I couldn't possibly write about because that is what I do. This, this is my profession, you know friends. Who are supportive family who are supportive, that's extremely important. I, I don't have to worry about family cause I don't have family, but friends who are important or friends who are supportive, that is hugely important.
Friends who cheer you on friends who are always no matter what going to be in your corner and want you to succeed. I think that. And I think what gets overlooked a lot of the time is just rest. You know, it is so important to also cause you're hustling, you're hustling, hustling, you're running, you're running, running, you're, you're trying to make this work and you, and you think, because again, you think, because this isn't your job, your, you know, old-timey job where you have to, you know, do things that your boss wanted you to do.
You keep on running and you keep on, on trying to make something because you think, okay, this is what I always wanted to do. I've been working towards this for God knows how many years. Yeah. Yeah, no, you still need a day off. You still need to recharge your battery is specially in the creative industries.
You cannot be expected to create a masterpiece every single day. You have to rest, you have to recharge your batteries and you have to know how to that's really important because I think a lot of artists they go into it and they love creating their art and they have natural kind of breaks. Before you become a professional, you have natural forest breaks because you are as an actor waitressing, or you are as a visual artist, you know, it's just, you just cannot paint 24 7.
It is not possible. Or as a writer. Yeah. You're going to sit in the office and write up reports about numbers in columns and Excel sheets,
which is what I did. And so. So you have natural breaks that, that recharge your creative juices. And as soon as you become a professional, all of a sudden you don't tend to take those natural breaks, but you have to, and you have to know how to recharge those batteries. For me, for example, it's painting.
I, I know I'm not. I know, as soon as I, as soon as I find myself holding a paintbrush, I know my writing isn't, isn't, isn't going great. But you know, and I would never, I would never want to be known as a painter. It's not it's I I'm not, but I know it's, it's important. And I know that this is how I recharge my, my, my batteries.
So yeah, taking breaks and resting in between. Is important also. And I think the last thing I would, I would say is it to, to, to kind of alleviate the struggle is before you take the jump, understand how to market yourself, please, please. Before you become a professional. Please understand that you're going to have to be up at two o'clock in the morning doing podcasts.
That's how it works. You have to market yourself. Nobody's going to come rush towards you unless you market yourself. And unless you, you know, people love working with you. And so, yeah, those are, those are the kinds of the kind of Biggest tips I can give to somebody turning pro is be confident in your craft, know that you can do this, you know, have friends and family around you to support you work really, really, really hard and be disillusioned about that.
Absolutely kill your illusions about having to work less. You're going to have to work more and Yeah. Put yourself out there. Don't be shy about that.

Tim: Yeah, no, I completely agree with you because unless you are a huge name you know, like Peter Jackson, for instance, or our Tom Cruise or something like that, people aren't going to necessarily come and looking for you.
So you need to go to where those people are and go, Hey, you know I, I do screenwriting, I do poetry. I do podcasting. You got to put yourself out there because. Yeah, that's how we got hooked up. You put yourself out there, you, you know, you messaged me and you're like, Hey, and of course I'm going, you know, head over heels.

Ronika: I'm talking with a screenwriter in Ireland. Yes, that's fantastic.
Exactly. Yeah, and I think also the biggest hurdle for me in that regard was Overcoming the imposter syndrome and overcoming the kind of odd, why would anybody ever want to know about me? Yeah. People do want to know about me. I have things to say, I'm a writer for God's sake.
Of course I have things to say, you know, if I didn't have things to say, I'd be not a very good writer. And so you have to, you know, it's not being arrogant, thinking that you have...