Can writing hurt a potential career?

Many writers maintain full time careers in addition to writing. For some, it comes easier than others. You'd just have to see how well you can manage your time!

People googling a name as common as Thomas Anderson, and finding both the author and the commercial pilot will probably, initially assume that there are multiple T. Andersons.

That said, the only way I can see your carreer as a pilot messing with your career as a writer is if you do something amazing, like landing your failing aircraft on a river and save everyone on board. Then you'll be looking at a nice bump in sales if you happened to write about piloting.

I can see the writing having a negative impact on your ability to find work if you wrote hardcore porn, or an insiders' manual for terrorists on how to sneak onto a plane.

But if you stick to non-related subjects, I think you'll be able to do both without concern.

I think I must be missing something in your question. Of course you can have another career. Most authors do. I know I won't be able to quit my day job (which is a career that took 7 years of higher education) based on the sale of one novel.

You said you write Sci-Fi, so I don't see any reason why that should interfere with your chosen career.

It is certainly possible to harm you primary career, I mean if you write about an alcoholic pilot who fantasises about crashing his plane it could well come up in your apraisals. You have to assume you boss will know what you have written and published and write with that in mind.

Generally it's not much of an issue (a) if your name is relatively common, and (b) you work in a field that wouldn't hurt your writing reputation or write books that wouldn't hurt your professional reputation. As someone mentioned above, writing erotica, porn, or overly violent material might be frowned upon at work, especially in these days where many employment background checks involve a Google search of your extracurriculars.

I know people in the corporate world and government agencies who refuse to publish under their own name because their employers expect them to be devoted to the corporate interests. Certain types of extracurriculars (sports, for example) are considered more beneficial than others (writing) - especially if they promote team-player attitudes versus lone-wolf artistic mindsets. Plus, for someone working in a desk job, if your employers know you write they will always suspect you are using company time to do so.

Another reason this could be a problem is if your professional reputation is very important - if you're building a name for yourself, for example as a lawyer, real estate agent, expert, etc. In some cases, if you're writing similar material, it could help you boost your reputation, as long as you're not writing stuff that reflects poorly on you. (For example, people might not want to visit a lawyer who writes novels for fear that they will become fodder in the next story).

In the case of becoming a pilot, I don't think it would cause problems so long as you're not writing about terrorist pilots, or your writing life is not interfering with your professional life. Some colleagues might even think it's cool to find out they work with a published or soon-to-be-published author.. though unless you're a bestseller, most probably won't care anyway.

You can always use a slight variant of your name for writing.

So if your middle name is 'Kevin' you could just be 'T.K. Anderson' for writing, and 'Tom Anderson' for your normal career. Neither is lying or an attempt at 'hiding' or 'being ashamed' of your writing.

I do this as a favour for my employer. The last thing I want is for a potential client to google my previous projects and come up with some discussion about Vampires in Sci-Fi.

Mac

I'm a nurse who is working fulltime. At this point the writing has to take second place to that. I write when I can fit in the time.
I also use a pen name

There's an AWer named "Pilot" who's retired from flying (I believe). You might want to look him up and PM him with your question.

I can't imagine it would matter much with being a pilot (as far as reputation goes). I don't know for sure. But.

"Ahhhh we're flying at a steady 30,000 feet ahhhh the temperature in California is 89 degrees ahhhh for those of you with computers at home check out my Amazon page at..."

I imagine you'd be alright. I have a full time career in IT. The only time my writing would have been an issue was when I was working for a company that had an employment contract which tried to prevent its employees from doing any work outside of the company regardless of whether or not it conflicted with their work or was in the same field (one poor woman wanted to teach Saturday ballet classes and was threatened with dismissal).

I don't think that's very common.

From what I hear, pilots actually put in pretty long hours while working their way up to senior pilot status. But that doesn't mean you can't combine an aviation career with a writing career. Many writers have busy careers in other fields - including quite a lot of nonfiction writers, I think.

Kathleen42 said:

The only time my writing would have been an issue was when I was working for a company that had an employment contract which tried to prevent its employees from doing any work outside of the company regardless of whether or not it conflicted with their work or was in the same field (one poor woman wanted to teach Saturday ballet classes and was threatened with dismissal).

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I've refused to sign a contract like the one you describe. I can't understand the concept of company loyalty for staff in the first place, and putting those clauses in a contract would prevent me from buying anything from them, never mind about actually working for them.

BigWords said:

I've refused to sign a contract like the one you describe. I can't understand the concept of company loyalty for staff in the first place, and putting those clauses in a contract would prevent me from buying anything from them, never mind about actually working for them.

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I had been working for them for two years when they brought the contract in.

A few of us actually refused the first draft of the contract which had a clause saying we would not seek employment for six months after resigning or being terminated - not employment with a competing company, any employment. They claimed it was an oversight and tried to get us to sign it anyway. Didn't work.

ClaudiaGray said:

From what I hear, pilots actually put in pretty long hours while working their way up to senior pilot status. But that doesn't mean you can't combine an aviation career with a writing career. Many writers have busy careers in other fields - including quite a lot of nonfiction writers, I think.

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I just wanted to second this - I would also recommend looking into the current reality of flying commercial. It's changed dramatically in the past ten years. Out of the established pilots I know, a few have been laid off, and there's also a family friend who graduated from flight school and opted not to be a pilot because the benefits are not as good as they once were and finding a job is incredibly difficult. I would try and talk with some pilots about the state of the industry. Flight school is expensive, and trying to juggle a writing career with trying to pay off student loans is not especially fun - especially if the career is not as financially lucrative as it once was.

That said, if you really want to go for it, I say go for it.

I'm an assistant prosecutor and I tend to write contemporary fantasy. There's generally some element of crime/mystery/police work thrown in.

My boss knows what I'm doing, and I made him aware of the writing and topics when I interviewed for my job. If I'm ever called on to speak about being an assistant prosecutor, or to talk about crime writing, or generally from my own experience, I make sure he's aware of it. I've mentioned that I have a blog. He gets the update from me about what I'm talking about, and for the most part, is okay with it. We've had to come to an agreement about what is and is not acceptable to speak about in public.

Otherwise, I write fiction. I don't write about prosecutors, except as very minor characters. I'm making it up. I can see him getting upset if I really got it wrong, or if I went too far, but I have no interest in doing either. And the writing should never get in the way of the primary job, because that's what pays the mortgage.

ajkjd01 said:

My boss knows what I'm doing, and I made him aware of the writing and topics when I interviewed for my job.

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I was just going to say don't mention your writing at job interviews. I still think if you're aspiring, you shouldn't. My experience has been employers always think you won't be as dedicated to them if you have another potential career path you're passionate about.

Thomas_Anderson said:

I was just wondering, can you have a primary/secondary career in addition to writing? I don't mean just a simple job at the local market or food chain, but a real career line?
However, I also really like to write, but the pay is good, and I will sacrifice it if I have to. But I want to know, do I have to sacrifice one for the other, or can I be both?

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No, you don't have to sacrifice one for the other. But you will have to sacrifice time. I was a very busy conveyancing paralegal and loved my job but also loved to write. I'd get up at 4:00 am to write because I was beat when I got home. Then add a couple of small kids to the mix and you've got more time constraints. I did it though and you can too. It all depends on how motivated you are to write.

Thomas_Anderson said:

Hey, sorry to resurrect this, but somebody said if my stuff is erotic or violent, then I might have something to worry about.

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What an odd idea. Did this someone say why this might be a problem?

Because they know how workplaces are. Lets say you write erotica, lets say your potential employer thinks this is immoral.... Given that people find things out and people gossip the odds of this sort of problem are pretty good even if you use a pen name.

Thomas_Anderson said:

Hey, sorry to resurrect this, but somebody said if my stuff is erotic or violent, then I might have something to worry about. While I don't plan on publishing erotica for money, my work does get a little steamy at times.

Would a pen name help in this regard? Or should I not really worry about it?

What about if I just did the first two intials and then last name thing (Such as 'K.B. Wall')? Does that even count as a pen name?

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I would think it could be an issue if you want to be, say, an elementary school teacher. Or a minister. Perhaps even with a pen name. What happens when you want to market your book and go on book tours, etc?

Ravenlocks said:

I was just going to say don't mention your writing at job interviews. I still think if you're aspiring, you shouldn't. My experience has been employers always think you won't be as dedicated to them if you have another potential career path you're passionate about.

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Actually I did mention it as a hobby of mine in my last job interview. I have a job that does require a lot of reading and writing, and they took it as a positive thing...I care about writing, and they figured I spend enough spare time doing it that my writing skills should be fairly polished.

From my last evaluation, it sounds like they were happy, and it didn't come as a surprise to them that they were happy with my professional writing.

I would not, however, market myself as a fiction writer in a legal job in any other way. It's okay to mention it as something you do on the side but if you're trying to do it professionally, I would at least let your boss know about it if your company has restrictions on outside work. As long as they're reassured that you're not doing it on company time (other than maybe the lunch hour/break time), it's smart to let them know that outside compensation is the hope. This way you're not in violation of company policy on outside employment, because you've informed them.

Of course, this came up in a discussion of hobbies, not of my professional writing goals. I constantly refer to my writing as "my other job", and have taken pains to make sure my co-workers know that the writing stuff takes place on breaks, lunch hours, off hours, weekends, and vacations. They are all very understanding and encouraging.

I wouldn't ever tell a potential employer that I'm an attorney until I get my big book deal. (Because 1) I'm not that egotistical to think it's that easy, 2) because I like being an attorney, 3) I get material from being an attorney, and 4) I wouldn't ever want an employer to think I'm only here until I get something better.) I'm here because I want to be here...the writing is secondary.

As for the erotica thing...yeah, it does depend on your job/community/comfort level. You have to use your own judgment on that. Understand that it may well become public at some point in your career and be prepared for the fallout. That's why I think it helps to have a supervisor aware of the off-hours writing...they can advise you on the corporate culture of the company you work for and the potential pitfalls to avoid. Prepare for it to become public. Have a plan in place to handle it. That way the actual unveiling is less stressful.

I'm a deputy coroner and part-time college professor. Both places know I'm an author. They're cool with that, so long as I'm not using names/dates/places/incidents that haven't been changed enough that they're still recognizable.

That said, I don't write full time. I get a bit done each night before I go to bed, but that's how I work.

Susan Grant, scifi-romance writer, is a 747 captain (for Northwest, if I remember correctly) and is a best seller. It's possible to do, you just need to figure out how to put your writing into your schedule.