Why I'll Never Work A Day Job - Donald F. Glut

Donald F. Glut has been active in both the entertainment and publishing industries since 1966. Don has had a long and varied career. He has been a professional musician, actor, film director, executive producer, photographer, magazine editor, proofreader and (very briefly, for an advertising agency) copywriter, but is mostly known for his long career as a freelance writer. He has written and directed feature-length motion pictures, documentaries and music videos, authored approximately 80 fiction and non-fiction published books, myriad TV scripts (live action and animation shows, network and syndicated), comic-book scripts, short stories, magazine articles, even music and theatre. He has been involved with numerous popular franchises such as Star Wars, The Monkees, Tarzan, Spider-Man, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Vampirella, Masters of the Universe, The Flintstones, Jonny Quest and many others, and created original comic-book characters for Gold Key, Marvel and DC. Arguably Don is best known for his novelization of the second "Star Wars" movie The Empire Strikes Back (#1 Best Seller). Don currently executive-produces, writes and directs "traditional-style" horror for his company Pecosborn Productions, and writes scripts for The Creeps horror comics magazine. Also, he is a Southern California representative of Las Vegas Talent Agency. Note: Any motion picture titles that may be listed prior to Dinosaur Valley Girls (1997) are of amateur movies, the first of 41 of which Don Glut made when he was nine years old.

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[hexapusink]

His description of being the black sheep of the family and being skipped over at dinners and conversations is pretty much my experience as well. It's so great to hear someone describe it so succinctly. It's one of the hardest lessons I had to learn as the "black sheep"; a lot of people don't understand being a working artist and they don't want to understand it. They thinks it's easy or all fun and games. Or worse yet, they think it's a hobby. Give up trying to get them to understand. There's plenty of people around the world that will understand and be into what you're doing.

[Dellaluna]

Don Glut! He’s had his hand in so many things. Pleasantly surprised to see him appear here.

[bobbybigz]

I’ve been trying to change my life for almost 15 years now 160 some college credits got a lot of skills but I can’t sell nothing lol my networking sucks I’m working a real job delivering for FedEx for the last seven years. I’ve been doing deliveries just so I can listen to these videos and learn everything I can I may not have found success so to speak but I sure do love the fact that I don’t let nothing stop me from doing what I wanted to do.

[EasyZee]

Working a day job is very important. You meet unique and interesting characters that you would otherwise never know existed and you can use them in your writing. If you don't know real people, you wont write people believably. Looking at Mr.Glut's IMDB, he seems to only write sexploitation and animation. I am a writer in animation, anyone can do that. Also working a day job gives you the kind of life experience you need to be a better, more believable writer. People that only know working in Hollywood, write like they only know working in Hollywood. All their characters live in nice houses or huge apartments and never worry about bills, or having to get up on time. The characters all have jobs in advertising or marketing or some unspecific job. I went to College for animation in the 80's, when the word 'animation' was not a household term. Nobody knew what it meant. Whenever anyone asked what I was studying, and I said "Animation", they would reply "What's that?", and I would have to take a deep breath, sigh, and say, "Cartoons". Sorry, got off track there. My point is after College, I did not get a job in animation right away. It took me ten years. During those ten years I worked all kinds of day jobs, warehouses, factories, chemical plants, shipping, receiving, and packaging. I was a mover for one day before I quit. I worked in a salad packaging plant for half a day before I quit. I worked at a toxic chemical plant for 4 hours before I quit. I worked at an apple farm, picking apples, for a whole summer. I worked loading 40 foot trailers with boxes coming off a conveyor belt for a few years. I worked construction for several years. I worked at a warehouse that packaged art supplies for a few years. I worked at a kid's book publisher for a couple months. I had so many random, one time, day jobs I can't even remember them all. And all that work experience was rich with interesting characters, funny situations, serious situations, and conflicts. My 23 year career in animation, has been 99 percent on the drawing side or production, animating, or character design, or layouts, or storyboards. Over the past 5 years or so I've had the opportunity to write, animation and live action, and my ten years of day job experience makes a huge difference in the quality of my writing. Every script I have written, whether for animation of live action, has been praised by the producers for my dialog and interesting characters and funny situations... and all that comes from real life experiences.

[errhka]

One day I want to have enough money to have my own personal t Rex skull in my living room. Replica of course 😜

[twantlavish]

This really really helped me, I've been feeling really discouraged lately but despite that I will keep going and stay focused. Thank you so much for this video.

[elblaino]

Hysterical. I'm from Illinois, I know all about this. "Do you want to be a starving artist?" Still not sure anyone understands what I do to this day. I admire the hell out of your guts for going full-on into what you wanted to do. Thanks for the stories, Donald!

[MONSTERMADHOUSETV]

Don's great. I've been to his home, and been told SO many great stories. Dude is a walking thesaurus (sp) of knowledge.

[itsjameskmartin]

I don’t want to bring negativity into this, but I’d like to share a personal story about how not everything will go the way you want it to.

I had the same mindset as this guy. I was passionate about what I do and I didn’t want to work for someone else. I worked hard at marketing, networking, and everything in between for years. Nothing worked out. I was making no money. Eventually, I had to get a part time job to cover expenses.

My point is that you can absolutely keep doing what you’re doing and work hard at it. But sometimes other people get lucky. It is what it is. I’m sure someday everything will work out, but have a side income to pay for the bills and fund projects isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

[alexo]

Whatever you do dont quit. Yes, unfortunately we're not born with a bank account, I had to work 2 jobs to make my first short film which is now in 3 film festivals. Im talking from a latino immigrant POV. Yes, its frustrating and tiring, if storytelling is your passion you'll make it happen

[nopenope]

This is the type of cool calm and collected "Im living my life on my own terms" advice I needed to her right now.

[ajwalker]

Take nothing away from this man's accomplishments but so much serendipity was bestowed upon him and it skews the narrative. Now many people think if they just try harder, work harder, network more, sacrifice more, they too will be successful when the things that happened to Mr. Glut were for him at a particular time and place. The concept of pull yourself up by your your own bootstraps is doing a number on the mental health of so many because they think it 's their fault they aren't successful, unable to take into account all of the 1, 001 happy coincidences that worked for Mr. Glut.

After people "make it, " they often forget how many things and people came together at just the right time, in just the right way, for them to "make it."

[seanfrancisellis]

This is great stuff. Great philosophy and I can relate to a lot of it. His novelizations were favourites as a kid. Really inspiring interview.

[phourway]

Thank you for these videos. They helped inspire us to create our first short film coming soon. Please keep these coming.

[MicahSMoore]

“Luck is just taking advantage of or not taking advantage of a serendipitous moment”

[mentaltraps]

"My life's mission was really not to work in a regular job." Nice mission)

[Xero_Wolf]

I agree with him 100%. Got so annoyed at a family member who suggested that I get a "job" at a company for the sole purpose of having a pension. This was after literally just seeing me working for 5 years on my own and starting my own business making more money than I ever did in my previous "jobs" I swear some people can be so narrow minded.

[Theo-bbpn]

I don’t mean to be mean to Glut, but he mentions on his website that his family was well off enough to get him private lessons in both music and art. I’m sure that he did receive a fair bit of luck in his life, but many people, presented with the same situation - the same luck - wouldn’t be able to be so successful by no fault of their hard work.

Also, that Ronald Reagan example was just silly. Reagan was able to pay for a private liberal arts college and was born into an extremely rich family.

[visionarywriter]

Alot of people take for granted that there are far more ways to make a living other than the normal way 9 - 5 work. Old school folks and your parents will say "get a job son". Businesses are created because someone had an idea out of the norm. I've always wanted to write and see my creations come to life. I am FINALLY on my way!

[nickfindsgold]

A life lived intentionally, you have an abundance of time. A life lived distracted, time is precious and rare

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