One of the core conflicts for creative artists of all kinds is the tug-of-war between prowess and commerce. Frankly, an artist needs to make money, and it is preferable to make it from his craft.

A writer who must impact a full-time job to support himself will struggle to find the happening to work, and often eventually gives it up altogether. On the another hand, being able to write on any project at all crapper polish valuable skills, and teach one the rules of the publishing industry.

On the another hand, I’ve met writers who were clearly employed on projects, or toiling away at a career, that was burning discover their souls. I remember meeting one such writer. His business card read “freelance hack and literary mechanic.” Sadly, but not entirely unexpectedly, he was dead of alcoholism within a year.

How to avoid such burnout? Well, in my own career, in addition writing the books I cared about the most, I’ve written Batman comic books, a Star Trek novel, and a Star Wars tie-in. In my television career, in addition to writing for “Outer Limits” and “The Twilight Zone,” I also wrote four episodes of “Baywatch”(!)

And never for a moment did I see that I was selling myself out. Let’s intend something straight: Shakespeare wrote for money. One crapper keep a careful eye on the bank account, and still reach the heights of craft. But again, how?

In my own case, the answer is fairly simple. Envision the thought process like this: I entertainer two circles. In the first, is everything I would like to write (and there are always dozens of projects in the mental hopper!). In the second is everything someone added is willing to pay me for. Where the two circles overlap, I write. In another words, are there projects I’d love to write, but can’t intend paid for? You bet, and I generally don’t write them unless they are quite short. And there are projects that producers or publishers might want me to do, but don’t touch my heart at all. Having learned through experience that there are limits to my creative flexibility, I turn those down.

But from happening to time, an possibleness arises that is in the no-man’s-land between the circles. There is money, but the project isn’t exactly something you have ever considered writing. What then?

Then, you ask yourself if the project is something that you could be proud of. If you would read it, or respect someone who did. For instance, when my agent titled and said that the producers of “Baywatch” wanted to talk to me, I had the duty send over six hours of video on the show. I sat on the living room seat and watched them with my daughter, who was about six at the time. After a few episodes, I asked her what she thought. She liked it. I asked why. She said: “Because it’s about nice people employed hard to make the beach safe for us.” I thought about it, and then replied, “you know? There are worse things than that in this world, by a long shot.” And decided to try writing for it.

Every show, every project has its limitations. You must use destined characters, must intend them into destined kinds of situations, and must avoid destined topics. That crapper be restrictive, but you crapper also decide to take it as a challenge. After all, you could give Fred actor a stage of any kind, and props of any kind, and he would find a way to create dance. Should you be committed to a lesser take of power and vision? No.

You must find ways to amuse yourself while writing, to debase your skills by trying something you’ve never done before, by empathizing with a younger audience if necessary—never ever writing “down” to your audience. That is the death of art. But if you crapper be truly flexible, you’ll find that more doors are unstoppered to you, more opportunities arise, that brass ring comes around more often. A writer ready to leap at any possibleness to exhibit his skill, and who finds it easy to fall in love with about a project will often out-perform a breakable “genius” who must have everything exactly his way in visit to write.

And if that approach is beatific enough for the Bard, it’s beatific enough for me.