The Business of Writing

By Margaux Froley Outhred

Yes, the Oscars are right around the corner, but the real looming thing I can’t get away from is my taxes.

This is the first year I am filing as “married”, and with that comes a strange re-thinking of my own status according to the IRS, the City of Los Angeles, and society at large. This week I have to figure out to file my Business Tax renewal. No, I don’t secretly run a candy factory in my kitchen or take-care of five toddlers in my living room, finally the City of LA caught up with all my years of using my writing as a business expense. It’s a strange predicament because, for all intents and purposes, I don’t get paid a whole lot as a writer. I make my real (read: W-2) living doing my day job, and do small writing gigs (read: 1099) to pad my meager wages, while writing as much as possible in my free time to prepare for my million dollar writing career. One day that writing will pay off, right? But, for now, all those years of claiming a piece of my rent in my cramped apartments as business expenses, my over-priced faxes sent from the nearest Kinko’s, my small ink cartridges for my rinky printer, are catching up with me. Los Angeles actually wants me to declare myself as a real business!

The first year I did my taxes myself, I went with “Bob”, the trusted industry assistant tax man who would set up shop in a nearby Kinko’s conference room, spend about 15 minutes with me, and somehow got me a substantial sum in return. Part of the magic about “Bob” would be that he tallied things like my Internet costs, movie tickets, magazine purchases, a percentage of my rent and utilities, and told me that they counted as part of my “business”. So, the vague business of Margaux Froley was built on Bob’s sage wisdom. Nevermind that multiple friends ended up getting audited from their tax years with Bob, I was busy building my “business”. And now, years later, somehow my dining room table, Arclight Cinemas membership, and sneaking to friend’s offices to use their fax machines are part of something I have to declare. Shit.

I don’t have a pile of representatives, residuals, or contracts that make up the business a real, well-paid, writer must deal with. And this isn’t one of those “Secret”-type of things where I need to embrace my career path and boldly declare, Yes, I am a writer! But, maybe the universe, as does the City of LA, deserve to know that this writing kick isn’t going away and I do spend the majority of my time and excess income supporting this meager business. I’ll have to report to the City exactly how much I make in my business, to which I expect the City to laugh in my face and move on to the next 1099-ing creative type. But, in the meantime, gathering receipts, estimating what percentage of my apartment I fill up with my writing, I’m learning how much my writing really is a business. Without my knowing it, this business, this dream, has become wrapped around everything I do.

When I write, even when I’m pacing the house, washing dishes while mulling over a character’s word choices, I try to stay in the creative zone. The zone where character’s talk to me, where new ideas spring into action, and when I’m lucky, where my fingers fly around the keyboard. When I’m in the zone, I don’t pick up my phone, turn on the TV, or check email; the creative zone is too precious to mess with. And my small business, it seems, follows that same logic. My writing, this business, is a huge part of my life, and no matter how much income I have to declare, it’s a business worth protecting. So, City of LA, I’ll register my business for 2008, face your judgment of how worth it I am to you, and happily go back to writing at my dining room table office, which makes up 20% of my apartment, I’m guesstimating.

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