If, as in the East, writers were trained through a kind of apprenticeship, a good master would say right away, at the very first meeting with the apprentice: “First of all, we must resolve your financial situation. You must, if you do not already have them, create the conditions so that you never depend on, nor expect, money from any of your writings.” So, before grammar, before reading the classics, before anything else, the disciple would have to practice mathematics: calculate how much he would need, monthly, to live; calculate how much he would need to save to have that income, or what kind of work he could do, alongside writing, to raise the amount or secure that monthly income. Without a very well-defined financial plan—the success of which means overcoming the problem of money, freeing oneself from all sorts of financial disturbances—every writer tends to end up, with luck, like Mário de Sá-Carneiro; with bad luck, like others not worth mentioning. Cioran is right: any physical labor is preferable to paid textual work; the need for money must not contaminate the act of writing.