First off, Best of Luck! I understand your government feelings, I avoid any government body as much as possible.
Best opinion I can offer, Is you are obviously good at writing, You have the experience. Work on a project you have already or do another one in your spare time, and Maybe put together a Partially Illustrated Novel (keeps cost down) and try self publishing with a Ebook, and limited run or print on demand service.
In the meantime do what you gotta do. I know how you feel, I was working as a general contractor here, self employed, 40-50 hour weeks etc. Took me 10 years to get a system and 2 years of creating spare time to get my businesses up and running.
Regardless You just have to believe in what you're going to do, keep your chin up and keep on truckin.
I'm sure loads of people here, Myself included would be happy to give any work you produce a bump online and off.
May you live long and prosper. (and dont eat the yellow snow)
Hey, @rubido.
Well, thank you for the well-wishing. It's been a long road so far. I keep expecting to get to the end of it, but it hasn't happened yet.
I've been spending most of my spare time on HIVE. Even at $0.30, what I make here has been by far the most lucrative of my creative endeavors. Unfortunately, it's not designed to be a living wage, at least not in America, and there is that pesky thing called retirement that I would eventually like to enjoy. :)
re: a system
That sounds about right. I used to refer to us as a lean, mean machine, because we had just enough people to comfortably get the work done, because the people in those positions were good at what they did. Takes a while to find that kind of personnel.
re: chin up
There isn't much else that can be done of any great effect, is there? I've managed to complain and rant against it, but really, that's more self-therapy than anything else. :) Sometimes it leads to a spark of an idea, but mostly, it's the doing and trudging and keep keeping on that gets you where you ultimately need to be. Not necessarily want, but need.
re: live long and prosper
You, too. May we all. (that and avoid the yellow snow. Fortunately, we don't get a lot of snow of any color here, so it's totally avoidable. :)
That's the spirit! Well if you ever decide to do something illustrated I'd happily contribute for free. Could do a compilation, a few panels in a theme with different artists, It worked for a buddy of mine in the 90s, he even got picked up by one of the indie comic book publishers, Think it was Antarctic press But I cant be sure.
See I can DOODLE!
Seriously though With a community project I'm sure a lot of the talented artists here would contribute, Could be fun.
Keep up the good fight!