 For Authors: November 25, 2015 Issue [#7344] |
  For Authors
This week: Writer With A Day Job Edited by: Jeff  
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"The two most engaging powers of an author are to make
new things familiar, and to make familiar things new."
-- Samuel Johnson
Trivia of the Week: Gene Roddenberry led a remarkable life. He studied police science and aeronautical engineering, and was a pilot for both the Air Force and PanAm Airlines. During his tenure as a pilot, he survived three separate plane crashes, including one in Syria where he fought through the pain of his own broken ribs to drag passengers from the burning wreckage, then led them on a march through the desert to safety!). He also worked as a plane crash investigator, a police officer who started in the traffic division and eventually became the LAPD Chief of Police's personal speechwriter, and a technical adviser to many films and television shows. And after all that, he created a little franchise called Star Trek which has spawned 700+ episodes of 8 different television series, over a dozen feature films, and hundreds of comics and novels. After his death in 1991, he was also one of the first humans to have his cremated remains transported into space (aboard Space Shuttle Columbia).
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WRITER WITH A DAY JOB
I don't think it's any secret that most aspiring writers have dreams of living a freelance lifestyle where we're our own bosses, adhere to our own schedules, and work in some sort of optimal creative space. And I'm pretty sure that when most of us envision the life of a successful writer it doesn't come with an annoyingly long commute to a dismal cubicle, conference calls and meetings that bore us out of our minds, or working for other people who tell us what to do all day long. Yet the reality is that most writers, unless they're independently wealthy or being supported by someone else, will have to work at least the occasional day job in order to pay the bills and make ends meet. And one of the most common complaints about a day job is that it takes time and focus away from one's writing. Some writers (including yours truly, from time to time) even go so far as to say they can't write because their day job and other obligations are too demanding.
But what if a day job could be more of a blessing than a curse?
It's true that you have to spend a large number of waking hours at that day job. And sure, those hours could be spent writing if you didn't have that job. If you're a freelance and self-employed, you know what else you have to spend that time doing, though? Accounting and expenses related to running your own business. Managing the health insurance that you now have to pay for on your own rather than having provided through your employer. Possibly needing to find and apply for other freelance jobs to pay the bills in between your passion writing projects.
Just because someone is self-employed doesn't mean it's an easy life without real-world concerns. Sure you may not have a boss to answer to, but that means you now have to be the boss... and bosses sometimes have to do things they don't want to do for the good of the business. And yeah, you might not have to drive a long way to a dismal office setting, but that means you now have to figure out where to work... and working from home might mean dealing with distractions from family, while working from a coffee shop might mean impacting your bottom line by buying a few drinks and snacks throughout the day to keep the irritated baristas at bay while you occupy your table all day.
On top of all that, some of us just work better with structure. The very act of having a job to go to and other commitments on our calendar helps us schedule time for writing, whereas having an entire day free with no other obligations could result in procrastination or lack of productivity.
Okay, that's all well and good... but what about finding the time to write? Having a full time job takes up a lot of time, and if you've also got family responsibilities and other obligations, how do you set aside the time to write? The answer is... you make it a priority. Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day to meet all their various obligations. The people who manage to write with day jobs are the ones who can prioritize their writing over other things in their life. Maybe not everything (day job and family may be necessary higher priorities), but most people have at least some downtime during their day that they can spend writing. For example:
Let's say you have a really intense day job that you work at 10 hours a day. Let's say your commute is an hour each way, so 2 hours a day total. You spend 2 hours a day with your family for dinner, fun time, etc. And you sleep for 8 hours a night before getting up to do it all again. That's 22 hours out of your 24 total. Where do the other two hours go? For most of us, we consider that "downtime." We might watch a couple episodes of television after the kids go to bed, or go to the gym, or read in bed, or spend time surfing Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. And if we do those things before we spend time writing, we're implicitly telling ourselves "these things are more important than my writing." Writing has to be a priority if you want to be taken seriously as a writer.
Even if you literally cannot make time during the work week to write, what about weekends? Those 10 hours of work and 2 hours of commuting disappear for most of us at least two days a week. Which is 12 hours a day, two days a week that are now freed up; surely you can write for a couple of those hours every week, right? Or, if you need to write every day in order to stay in the habit, what about writing an hour a day during your lunch break? Or waking up an hour early and writing rather than hitting your snooze button a half dozen times?
Let's say that you are able to write about 500 words per hour. If you give yourself an hour of writing a day (or 7 hours of writing per week), that's 182,500 words per year... more than enough for one, maybe two novels. Or a half dozen novellas. Or a novel, two novellas, and a whole bunch of short stories and poems.
We all have the same 24 hours in the day, and we all fit our priorities into the same two buckets. There's the "Things I Will Make Time For Today" bucket, and the "Things I Will Put Off Until Tomorrow" bucket. As long as your writing is in the first bucket, there's no reason why you can't have a productive writing schedule while also holding down a day job and meeting your family obligations. It's all a matter of prioritization... and maybe your family and your day job that pays the bills often have to take priority over your writing. That's totally fine. The real trouble is when you knock your writing so far down the list of priorities that it falls into the second bucket and you routinely put it off until "later."
Day jobs can be a good thing for a writer. So can having a family. Having a structured, well-balanced life is one of the keys to success. You don't have to be a lonely, starving artist who sacrifices everything for his or her craft. You don't have to prioritize writing above literally every other thing in your life. You just have to prioritize the writing enough to put your butt in the chair on a regular basis.
Until next time,
Jeff
If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations"
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I encourage you to check out the following items:
EXCERPT: Procrastination. This is your enemy. And it is within you. Don't let yourself say "I'll do it in an hour." Because that hour can become two. Then a day, a week. And then you forgot all about what you wanted to do. Do it today! Today is the day where you BE bothered and do what you want to do! No more procrastination.
EXCERPT: I will use what I reviewed this morning as an example. I have done more than 600 Product Reviews here.
EXCERPT: ;) Recognize the symbol preceding this sentence? Semicolons are useful for more than the winking eye and sly smile from the technology generation. The origin of the semicolon actually predates texting.
EXCERPT: Everyone wants to change the world, or so they say. But, I think everyone wants to run the world. From every individual's perspective they have the best take on how to make the world better...at least better for the person running the world.
EXCERPT: Do you want to get into the psyche of someone on your first meeting? Here are five telling questions you can ask that will give you a real feel for the potential friend, lover, or business partner without being so direct that you scare them away.
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Feedback from my last newsletter about plotting versus pantsing:
ANN Counselor, Lesbian & Happy  writes: "I'm so glad you defined the two kinds of writers. I'm a 'pantzer' start the story, the novel, and with the book in mind, I write and expand as the story grows as planned without the drudgery of outlining, etc planning. For me, it makes the story real day by day as I 'live' it until the final word. I have written three books/novels and love how each turned out. Ann"
I really admire the way you write. Whenever I try to write without an outline, I always end up painting myself into a corner and getting frustrated that I wasn't watching where I was going a little closer before I made a wrong turn way back in the distance. 
chopstixd writes: "Jeff, Nice newsletter, but you forgot to mention that James Patterson is famous for working with co-writers, or, as a 60 minutes documentary revealed, dropping off highly detailed,hand written plots to hired writers. For him, the plot is the story, the rest is just pounding out sentence after sentence. Also, Stephen King is unenamored with James Patterson and James Patterson is well aware of it. From wikipedia:In an interview for USA Weekend, Stephen King referred to Patterson as "a terrible writer but he's very successful".[22] Patterson said of King in a Wall Street Journal interview, "he's taken shots at me for years. It's fine, but my approach is to do the opposite with him—to heap praise."
I read an article where Patterson said that he'll sometimes write nearly 100,000 words a year just in outlines, many for the books he collaborates on with his co-writers. That's a lot of outlining considering it's almost all plot and very little actual style or execution! And pretty time consuming seeing as he still prefers to write with pencil and paper rather than on a computer!
kerrimiller writes: "I am a hybrid, but I can often lean towards the pantser side of writing. I will outline, but halfway through the outline I am normally ready to start writing the book." (Submitted item: "Invalid Item" )
I had a friend once describe his writing process as being like stretching a rubber band. As he outlines, his patience stretches tighter and tighter as his desire to just jump in and start writing builds... and the key for him was finding that point where "snapping" that rubber band of tension would springboard him into the writing process. Of course, if you wait too long, the rubber band snaps and everything falls apart... 
Cadie Laine - spooky eyed lady  writes: "Thank you for this newsletter. It was enlightening to say the least in that I learned what it means to be a Plotter and Pantser. As much as I enjoy the outlines and getting the specifics on paper for my story, I also enjoy the fact that I can just sit and write a scene off the top of my head then come up with the details later. That's pretty much how I write at this time.
Thank you again for this clarification."
Thanks for writing in!
GaelicQueen  writes: "Pantser v. Plotter. By nature, I am a panster, letting characters drive the story to wherever it leads. This year, I'm trying to do an outline of the story first so the ending doesn't seem rushed or contrived. Map? Who needs it. The fun part is the journey between beginning and ending."
I like to have a road map of where I'm going, but then explore on the journey to get there. If my writing process were like a road trip, it would be one where I knew the destination and a few key stops along the way, but left me open to explore side streets, additional stops, or even complete detours along the way. This probably also explains why I have about 40 different routes I use to get to work.
Quick-Quill  writes: "I'm a plotter/panster. I have a story in mind and I write until I run out of ideas then go back to see where I need more work. "
I'm in the middle too. It's an ever-evolving process to find the happy medium before planning out what you want to write and discovering your story and characters as you go along. 
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