People will tell you that quitting is a bad thing, but as far as advice goes, "Never give up" ranks AT BEST a slim notch above "Give it one hundred and ten percent!" and the slightly less well known "You can do it, Duffy Moon!"

Make no mistake: these are encouragements, not truisms. Say it as often as you like, but Duffy Moon cannot always do it. Even on his best day, he can't give more than one hundred percent. And, yes, sometimes Duffy Moon can, should, and thankfully DOES give up.

I started teaching because I wanted to do something more for my community. I had just spent five years working in corporate offices, analyzing and distorting data to support questionable management decisions. And I was sick of it.

(Also I was laid off, but for now let's just concentrate on me being noble.)

As a wannabe professional writer, it bothered me that I had to have a day job at all, but as long as I did, I wanted it to be something meaningful.

I came into teaching expecting it to be hard. Heck, that was the point. If it was easy, everyone would want to be a teacher, and no one would need me.

But I wasn't prepared for just how hard it was.

But educators are expected to be responsible. To be role models, even. They're expected to put up with shit and, well, not say "shit." And I could feel my little bit of nuts getting bigger every day.

We've talked a lot about writer's block on this site recently. Imagine ten to fifteen lesson plans a week, thirty six weeks a year. Plus hand-outs. Plus grading papers. Plus graduate school work.

Imagine a stand-up comedian writing three hours of new material... every day.

Or worse, and closer to the truth, imagine a stand-up comedian faking his way through a three hours performance, every day, with the same audience. Two thirds of the jokes become cheats. Variations on the same rhythms.

Your schtick called. It wants a nap, because it's so tired.

Well, as of today, the answer to that question is, "No. I'm really not."

So what am I going to do?

Well, that's a good question. As a rule, and despite the title of this particular column, I would normally advise AGAINST quitting your day job. People have day jobs for all sorts of good reasons that include, but are not limited to:

The time to quit your day job is when your, um, let's call it your "not day job"... When you're making more money from THAT than from your day job, then it's okay. Anytime before that is just stupid.

I'm reminded of Kevin MacDonald (a/k/a Simon), a columnist and would-be novelist who wrote for SilverBulletComicBooks.com a few years back. He quit his day job to write a novel and, well, things went downhill from there.

So I need to figure out how to get more of this "money" that everyone is always talking about.

Thankfully, I've been covering my perpetually unemployed roommate's rent for the past couple months, and he's recently become uncharacteristically employed, so at least for the next few months, he's got my back on rent.

And I still have a few thousand dollars worth of ArchEnemies money coming to me in 2005. And hopefully some more money from more projects after that.

And hopefully I can make up the rest temping.

And longer term? Well, I need to get as many books into development as possible. The goal is to be "the next big thing" by San Diego next year, with a steady stream of work from mid-2006 on.

Failing that, I'd just like to eat, sleep indoors, and be able to--not all the time, necessarily, but at least every once in a while--impress others enough that they will ignore their better instincts and consider having sex with me.

So, um, yeah. I'm probably screwed.

Drew Melbourne, when not predicting his own inevitable descent from cocky whiz kid to schizophrenic drifter, maintains an eponymous website at SchizophrenicDri--we mean DrewMelbourne.com. The first issue of his debut series, ArchEnemies, should debut April 5th of next year (from a publisher to be announced at a later date). Expect a deluge of other series after that. Or, more likely, a lot of polite, but uneasy stares to be followed thereafter by a long, sustained, and unremittingly awkward silence. Cue the crickets.