Conversation On Going Professional with Ronika Merl

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 [email protected] 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: [email protected] 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...