Write like you're rockin' a sweet mullet: business in the front, party in the back.

When I signed with my second literary agent back in 2002, he asked me the magic question: "What do you want to do?"

I chattered a bit about money, book deals, steady employment and making a good living as a writer (a distant dream for me at the time), but he shook his head and said, "Obviously, you need money. Everybody does. But that's what you want to get, and there are much easier ways to get it. What do you want to do?"

I realized I'd known the answer since I was a little kid. "I want to tell stories."

"Okay," my agent said. "Let's talk about a five-year plan."

As our strategy for world domination unfolded, it included magazine articles, a syndicated newspaper column, book length fiction, and (unexpectedly) ghostwriting. Over the years, my career has evolved. At times I thrived, other times I barely survived. I seriously stepped up my professional side, worked harder and smarter, and reaped financial rewards far beyond the goals I set when making money seemed like a goal worth setting. The agent and I eventually went our separate ways, but that guiding principle (and the excellent habit of maintaining a fluid five-year plan) stayed with me. It's a litmus test that helps me budget my time and energy. I've always kept the underlying theme of storytelling, because that's the thing that gives me joy.

In Do What You Love; the Money Will Follow, Marsha Sinetar says: "Any talent that we are born with eventually surfaces as a need."

That line slapped me in the head. It's not only what you want to do, it's what you need to do. And the rewards of doing it are entirely available to you once you know what it is. If you want to make a career in the arts, work and joy can't be mutually exclusive. You've got to rock it like a sweet mullet: business in the front, party in the back.

So what do you want? If the answer is "money", go get a real job. If the answer is "I don't know", don't be surprised that you're not getting it.

Cue the Bangles.