SWF just kicked off, as did NaNoWriMo. No doubt you're feeling the urge to follow your not-so-lucrative passions and share your soul with the world. Here's our complete guide to channeling the muses.

1. Sort out your priorities. Who needs their own HDB when you’ve got a Singapore Literature Prize on the horizon.

2. Spend what little money you have on a vintage typewriter.

3. Smile and nod when someone asks if you’re a freelancer. Then go home and write a poem about it.

4. When your dad expresses concerns about your financial future, write a poem about it.

5. When your boss catches you rehearsing your slam masterpiece at work, write a poem about it.

6. Choose your pet themes—some combination of nostalgia, growing up in an HDB, your mom, your dad, your ex-boyfriend, having no culture, the gahmen, the role of Singlish in your life.

7. Hang around the Singapore Writers Festival, clutching the latest Haruki Murakami novel.

8. Read your two best poems at Canvas. Then read them again at Artistry two weeks later.

9. Sign up for NaNoWriMo every year and write a daily update on your novel-writing exploits on Facebook.

10. Get published by Math Paper Press.

11. Or just self-publish instead.

12. Apply for a grant from the NAC.

13. Pretend to be surprised when you get it.

14. Spend it all on Moleskines and LAMY pens.