Don’t quit your day job—at least so says Oscar Wilde in a recently discovered letter, advising a young writer that one of the most important things a successful writer can do is not depend on their craft for income.

For those of us that would love to devote our time to that thing we are most passionate about, the advice is a bit of a bummer. And yet, though his words over a hundred years old, they are never more true than today, where even published authors I know seem to make a very small income from book sales. So what’s a writer to do?

Sacrifice what they want to do with what they have to? Do what they love and live a life of poverty? Or find a balance in the middle?

I for one am still figuring it out—thought I suppose the answer will be always be changing.