Thank you so much for this great article.
I love it and your suggestions are concrete.

I remembered that I also started writing as a child and loved it. I painted as well, so it took me awhile to decide which discipline to follow. Either way, I am not great at insisting on being paid.

I detest conflict. In fact, I’ve recently had a signed contract broken, and a year and a half of intense work down the drain with it. When I insisted on being paid (writer for hire, they dropped me from the project knowing I cannot afford to pay an attorney to sue. The Writer’s Guild cannot help as they are not signatories.

The issue of being paid and insisting on it should never leave me or anyone else feeling “guilty”, or being punished. I find that some business execs will take advantage of the artist unless a great agent is involved.