can we talk about "day jobs" and "writing life"

Hmm. This post isn't getting any love here. I'm stealing it for the Roundtable where we will brush and feed it. Walkies!

Hi Willow,

Welcome!

The only way my day job and my creative writing conflict is that my day job is non-fiction legal writing. So, I spend my day in the legal arena writing these pretty detailed case histories (our cases in the firm) which get published only in our provider's files, and sometimes in courts, and then I go home at night and write on my story. You know how difficult it is to switch those gears? I run and do weights after work, which is how I prepare myself for my creative writing. It's tough sometimes.

Please tell us more about what your write.

The only conflict between my writing life and my day job is in scheduling. The day job takes up too much of my time and energy. And there's no fix for that because any hour spent at the day job is an hour wasted and lost, as far as I'm concerned. And no amount of money is ever enough to make up for that. It's what's known as a bad attitude, and I've had it since I was a kid. In fact, my siblings have it, too, and so do several of my aunts and uncles. Guess being a pain-in-the-ass employee who'd rather be doing anything else -- such as writing and making art -- runs in the family.

ETA: Yes, tell us about the writing, but not the job -- we wouldn't want to get you into trouble there. If you're gaining name recognition, then least said online about the job, soonest mended.

muravyets said:

The only conflict between my writing life and my day job is in scheduling. The day job takes up too much of my time and energy. .

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This is basically my same issue. My job and writing compliment each other well (I'm a writing teacher!) It's just a matter of not getting overwhelmed with teaching work...like right now. Assignments have just been submitted and a new unit is beginning, so it's harder to find free time.

Mine don't compliment either other at all (though I sure use my writing on the job. Even something as simple as an email is helped enormously by writing skills). However, what helps from the job is the soft business skills training I can take, because those help me all around, not just in the job. I was trying to fix an organizational problem at a new job--and discovered the same problem was having a huge impact on my writing. If you have the opportunity to take training, do it.

The job does take time and energy. I usually have to come home, eat, rest for about 2 hours, and then I can write. I've also brought a notebook to work and did some preliminary development over lunch hour. I also read about a guy who wrote the Metro (our version of a subway, though don't call it a subway for an hour each way every day. Since he didn't have anything else to do, he write his entire book on the way to and from work.

No real conflict between my day job and writing - other than the time I'm at work is time I'm not writing. Personal life and writing life is another matter. Finding the balance between the two can be difficult but I do my best.

I work anywhere from nine to eleven hours a day, and stay up most of the night writing. I don't see it as a conflict, but my sleep is definitely the loser here. Sometimes I stay up until 3:30 or 4:00 a.m and have to get up at 6:00 a.m. to go to work. But it's worth it, and maybe one day I can quit the day job and just write. Maybe not, but it's worth the lack of sleep and hard work to me to try.

Writing is my Right-Brain-Recess and has been very cathartic since my job is left-brain intensive. The career eats up a lot of time and attention, so that leaves evenings and weekends for story-time. More often than not, it's the latter. Early Saturday mornings seem to work the best.

If the day ever comes when writing keeps the lights on, then I'll go full-bore. Till then, the job takes priority and stories are left to my limited personal time.

By day, I work as a technical writer in my nation's capital (not in the gov't, TG). If I get more high profile as a fiction writer, I will certainly choose that path, provided I can make enough money at it.

Until then, there's no real conflict between my novel writing and the day job, except the last thing I want to do after spending all day on the computer is to go back on the damn computer.

Try reading the book Ignore Everybody. The author makes an excellent case for not quitting your day job. It is possible, maybe even easier, to be creative when you don't have to worry about how you'll pay the bills.

I work full time. Luckily my job involves writing, creativity and responsibility. But it's very different from writing novels. That, I do because I love it. I don't see the two as conflicting, but complimentary.

Welcome to AW.

My job is laid back, 40hrs a week. It pays the bills.

Though I write almost every day, it never feels like I've done enough.

I write under a pen name because I write erotic romance, and even my non-romance stories have a lot of explicit sex.

Under my real name, I am a consultant who works on a number of projects intended for children.

I absolutely would lose those clients if my sekrit identitee were more widely known. I think I can replace the income via my writing within two years if things stay on track, but that's a big if.

I know it's too late for you to have a pen name, but I'll tell you what I've done to put off my day of reckoning

- Full disclosure to the boss (the woman who runs the consulting group). She won't be blindsided if someone goes running to her crying about the OMGPORNOGRAPHY. Moderate disclosure to colleagues, who know I write "genre fiction."

- I tightly schedule my working hours, and I'm transparent about the schedule. My calendar is available to anyone who wants to look, and it proves that during working hours I'm focused on my day job, not my writing job. Ironically, if I just went out and got some cube warrior job, I could probably write at my desk and no one would care.

- Never cross the streams. I do not ever, ever promote my fiction with my professional ID. That's simpler for me because I have two separate internet identities, but you can do it too - if you use Twitter to talk about writing, don't allude to any other aspect of your life on Twitter. If you're on LinkedIn, don't mention your writing. If you're on Facebook, don't promote your fiction (or if you do, unfriend/restrict your colleagues). Etc. Keep your writing in one backpack, your job in another. (Edit: I know you said you never comment publicly on the day job, but that's not really the issue - problems are more likely to come from your colleagues, so it's equally important to avoid mentioning the writing to them. I grew up outside DC with feds for parents.)

Good luck May we find such success with our writing that this becomes irrelevant.

I don't let anything interfere with anything. I am like the Netherlands. If I need more land...I steal from the sea. My sea is SLEEP. I work 40 hours a week. I write novels. I write plays and poetry. I write articles. I am on a busy busy planning committee for a writers' conference. I tweet for 2 writing organizations too. Oh...and I just finished judging a writing contest...where I had to read about 30 entries (short stories) and judge them as second tier judge. (-:

Right now...I am going through edits for a novel coming out in July. I'm writing a play tomorrow that will be performed Friday evening in front of a live audience of 200 people. (so..when I get up tomorrow morning at 4:30am, I will not go to bed again until Friday at about midnight. Up for two days! and then...up Saturday at 7AM for a writing group meeting!) We're gearing up for the writers' conference that will be put on April 30th...meeting regularly. I'm in charge of registrations...which are really amping up right now.

I get home at 4pm every day and my wife gets home at 5:30pm...so it only makes sense that I make dinner every night.



I get up at 4:30 every morning...so that I can write for 1 hour before I start the rest of my day.

I have kids...and a dog who likes to be walked for an hour once a day. And of course, there is the therapist for one hour a week too!

There are so many wasted hours in a day. Take control of those wasted hours and you have more than enough time to write.

For me, there is NO excuse.

Can we talk about day jobs? Hoo-boy... Only if you want me to start crying.

Seriously, there is no greater foe to the writing of interesting words than dealing with petty and irrelevant squabbles all day long, and that is without the customers being brought into the equation. If I thought, for a moment, that I could afford to tell my boss to stick his job, I would.

Damn RL concerns, and economic uncertainties, mean that I am stuck with the day job until I finally work up the courage to rob a bank win the lottery.

No conflict here. I write when I'm not working. When I'm at work, I don't write. But only because it takes up company time, and for absolutely no other reason. I don't reckon on making enough money by writing in the foreseeable future to quit the day job, and the day job is fairly tolerable and intellectually stimulating. I write during my lunch breaks, before I leave the house, and after I come home. It works. For now.

I have a fantastic day job, but I've been realizing lately that if you google my name, it's no longer my college crap and race scores that come up - it's all writing-related stuff. Which, makes me think I should have started out doing everything under a pen name just in case. I'm worried about future employers googling me and thinking that I'll have one foot out the door all the time.

Other than that, no real conflict. Yes, the time gets crunched, trying to write around long work hours, but it's managable. I don't talk about my writing with my colleagues or write at work, but that's fine - my day job pays me well and deserves my full attention when I'm there. I get up early to write before work and also write on the weekends. I think traveling for work in many ways gives me more time to write, so that's positive.

AlwaysJuly said:

I have a fantastic day job, but I've been realizing lately that if you google my name, it's no longer my college crap and race scores that come up - it's all writing-related stuff. Which, makes me think I should have started out doing everything under a pen name just in case. I'm worried about future employers googling me and thinking that I'll have one foot out the door all the time.

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Maybe, but the same argument could be said for any "hobby." If you spent most of your free time with beekeeping, photography, rebuilding classic cars, etc and had an Internet presence because of it, would a future day-job really hold that against you? One or two might, but I have a feeling the odds are slim. A lot of people have two or three jobs, so is it that wrong to make a little money on the side with stories?

Not that I have, of course. Too distracted with the hand-modeling career.

^Yeah, that.

My boss's search history is full of knitting patterns. She doesn't hold it against me if she happens go through mine and find places like this. Maybe I'm just lucky, I dunno. The folks here know I'm a writer. It doesn't stop me from doing my job, and they know that too.

Every person will have different financial requirements, different family responsibilities, different amounts of available time, and different energy levels. It's up to the individual to work out an appropriate compromise for integrating writing into his/her life and lifestyle. If writing (or lack thereof)becomes a source of irritation in the compromise, it is up to the individual to do something about it or to adjust to the situation. The most important thing is to set realistic and appropriate priorities.

As others have said, the only conflict I have is that it is sometimes hard to find the time. I'm a firm believer that a person has to make the time for writing...but some days, it is just impossible. I teach my kids, I drag them around to their sports things, I work out, I make 3 meals, I work on my part-time job and my own school work...and then I just drop. There is no way I could squeeze out a bit of intelligible writing.

But then there are days like this...the kids are running around in their PJs, I'm ignoring the housework, playing around on AW, and getting ready to dive in to my new WIP.

I've been writing alongside a day job ever since I began, and so I've managed to achieve some sort of balance for the most part. In some of my jobs, I managed to write during lunch hours and during other breaks. Some jobs were so low maintenance I could actually write during work hours so long as I was attentive to arriving customers or the phone.

Right now, it's mostly writing during off hours, in the evenings and such (not a morning person). Sometimes the challenge has been simply keeping my sanity and energy levels high enough that I can manage the writing once I'm let out of the cube. Other jobs have also had a high writing focus, web writing, freelancing, etc. There, it's a juggling act of doling out the creativity and focus so that the job/client doesn't leave me so drained I can't attend to my WIP later.

Unless your writing interferes with your work duties, reveals workplace secrets or would somehow embarrass your employer, I don't see a problem.

I keep my dayjob and writing life very separate. I also have a visible, governmental job. I use a pseudonym for just this reason. My hope is to retire in about 5 years and just write full time.

Stinks that you might have to choose, Willow. If you think that is the option, I'd start planning financially for when you move to writing full time.

I'm a bookseller, a prolific reviewer, and a writer.

My life would be nothing but conflicts, but I decided, long ago, that I wouldn't indulge.
I review books honestly and candidly, whether I know the author, whether we're hosting them, whatever. I schedule events for the good of the store, irregardless of how I feel about the author or the book. And I write.