Los Angeles Acting blog by David August

Monday, March 07, 2005

One strategy is to turn your day job into something that is rewarding, both creatively and financially. That's what David Grae did. A writer for the television show Joan of Arcadia in Los Angeles, Mr. Grae, now 37, spent much of his early twenties trying to figure out how to make it as a comic writer and actor in New York. At first, he was neither acting nor writing, but struggling to make rent, while working as a bike messenger and other jobs he describes as random. But he wasn't happy. I felt that I needed a day job - I didn't want to wait tables, he says.

Eventually, he co-founded Gotham Writers' Workshop, an organization that offers creative writing courses for adults, and found that owning his own business was a good way to make ends meet - without giving up on his dream. These days, he isn't involved in the day-to-day running of the business, but income from it was crucial to carrying him through his first few years in Los Angeles, before he secured a writing job.