Have your say: day jobs for authors
Q&Q is doing some informal research on the best day jobs for authors. What jobs provide the most flexible schedules to accommodate creative writing? What jobs provide the best raw material or inspiration for fiction?
So, this is a call-out to authors: please comment and tell us about your best day job ever, then stay tuned for our report.
Stage acting isn’t a bad day job. Your rehearsals are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., but once you’re in production you only have to work at night (and Wednesday and Sunday afternoons) and have your days free.
I plan to work on my next novel heavily during my upcoming gig as part of the cast of Beauty and the Beast at Persephone Theatre in Saskatoon.
This is about what’s not a good day job for authors — or at least for me.
I thought that teaching, at the post-secondary level, would be a good job for w writer. After fifteen years in broadcasting (private radio and the CBC) I had published articles and one non-fiction humour book.
I thought teaching would give me more flexible hours and those long summers in which to write.
So I got a job teaching broadcasting at a community college. I did less writing than ever, for print anyway. I kept up writing for broadcasting on a freelance basis — but only in the summers.
As a broadcaster, I had spent many 13 hour days, but still found time to write. And lots of stimulation — you connect with all kinds of people and their stories every day.
As a teacher, I could not write during the academic year. It felt as if those 100+ students had got inside my brain, opened up all the file cabinets, and tossed the papers around.
I am now taking a sabbatical year in which I am working on a novel. as well asan academic project. If there’s anything left to write when I return to work, I hope I can carve out the time, and keep my brain tidy, to finish it.
I don’t know what the best job might be for creative writing. For me, in order to finish my last book, I had to quit my job to give myself the time to sit and write. I fear I may have to do this again. After a full day of dealing with many issues and people (I’m a librarian), I cannot simply go home and write. My brain needs to purge first, which usually takes several hours.
It may simply be that I lack other possibilities, but to my mind, there’s no better job for a writer than as a bookseller. The constant contact with books and with the reading public provides invaluable insight into how the two connect, and how (oh so often) they fail to. There’s much to be learned from how actual genuine real people relate to the written word, what draws them, what repels them, what they pick up, what they ignore. There are many heartbreaks — the undeserving non-book that tops the bestseller lists, while far more deserving and personally stirring choices languish, forgotten save by the booksellers — but a daily dose of reality can help inform the writing process (if it doesn’t send you screaming for the hills).
I work in magazine circulation. I love it because more often than not it means freelance consulting work with very flexible hours, but perhaps more importantly it’s the “unemotional” side of publishing. It means I can remain close to the publication process yet not worry about the dramatic world of editorial. I get to make connections and be close to a wide variety of writers, yet my bread and butter is still apart from my own writing. Circulation is rarely subjective (or in the spotlight) the way writing is.
I used to work for a bunch of despicable, socially oblivious accountants. Our workplace was a rabbit warren of nondescript offices that included Internet connections, air conditioning, and — most importantly — doors. One of these offices was mine. After a few months of hating my job, hating the city I lived in, hating myself, I realized that if I closed the door, no one would have a clue what I was doing inside. In fact, no one even cared. I could spend hours at a time thinking up dialogue, working out syntax . . . whatever. The only interruptions were the odd soul-murdering meeting and lunch. It was awesome. And awful. The best jobs for writers are the ones they hate. If they don’t hate them, they won’t steal the time they need.
I actually took a year off & started writing 3 books. I’ve been back at my ‘job’ for about 6 weeks & have been managing/balancing the writing/creating with not only the job, but regular day-to-day errands as well.
Book #1 will be ready to go to the printers/recording studio by the start of 2008. Tons of research & a great headstart on book #2 - that will be out Q3, 2008 and the third book will be out early 2009. So far - so good. I think what helps me do this too is the fact that I am very good at what I do re: the job - but the idea is to transition to writing/creating full-time within the next 14 months.
I’ve been working in the transportation sector for the past twelve years. The various jobs I’ve done have upsides and downsides for writers.
For parts of five years, I worked as a cargo-handler and in-flight loadmaster for an airline in the Eastern Arctic. It was hard to get much writing done while I was working, because I basically worked every day for six weeks straight. The occasional long flights I’d take as loadmaster, however, were great for reading and writing. And the reward for my 6 weeks of labour was 3 weeks of leisure. Big chunks of time off, I’ve found, are far more useful than weekends or evenings.
When I transferred further north to become a cargo load-control agent, it got better. My workload was quite light most of the year, I had my laptop in my warehouse, and my rotation schedule went from 6&3 to 4&4.
Now I work onboard the train for Via Rail. Again, I don’t get much if any writing work done while I’m on shift (although one-day layovers in a hotel room have been quite productive), and my shift is 6 days long. But then I have 6 days off. And until I accrue more seniority, I get laid off for several months a year.
All of these jobs have been good, too, because they’re not intellectually oriented. This frees up the mental resources required to get writing done. And it keeps me in touch with a reality outside the writing life, which I think has been extremely beneficial. My cargo work and Arctic travels also provided a ton of fodder, which translated into the content of my first book.
Law. And the practice of legal representation in particular. Why? Because if you find human habits to be interesting you’ll find no shortage of human interest in a courthouse. Fodder and folly, free for the picking.
That and the copious amounts of free time I find I’m able to spend on the computer goofing off. It looks like I’m working. I’m not actually working. I’m not BILLING, but I’m not working. I could be writing, doing something productive, I guess. Maybe I will someday.
Narf. Who am I kidding? I don’t have the conviction. Or the attention span.
Is there going to be a test on this? Oooh! My wine glass is empty…
In my opinion, the best day job for a writer is a night job. Shyam Selvadurai actually told me this many years ago when I asked him how he managed to finish his first novel. He said he worked at Book City at night and wrote during the day. I adopted the same strategy not long after, going to work nights at two bookstores, and it allowed me to have my days free to finish a novel. (Which might actually get published some day.) The best thing about this strategy is that it allows you to use your freshest energies each day for your own work. The worst thing is that your social life goes down the crapper.
I agree with the idea of giving your days’ best energies to your writing — for me, that means rising at 3.45, and being at the desk by 4.30. The day’s writing is generally done by 7 or 7.30, leaving plenty of time for (an occasionally stumbled-through) day job. It comes down to personal rhythms — for me, the pre-dawn hours are the best. A night job would definitely interfere with that.
Honestly, I suggest substitute teaching. Unlike regular teaching, as mentioned by a previous poster…When you work as a substitute, lesson plans are provided for you, and you are not responsible for marking students work, etc.
You should have ample time to hone your craft.
So many people have a different opinion of what works for them; what works for me is babysitting in my own home, being around kids and seeing the way they see the world opens up my creative mind. Playing with them allows me to test out my ideas and theories. It’s like getting the futures outlook on your writing and at the same time inspires new writers to open up their creative minds.
I’m a technical writer by trade who works on contract only. This way, I can earn enough money to take time off
between each contract. It’s the only way I can get any creative writing done. I make notes, jot ideas, and consider
aspects of stories, poems, and other pieces, but it’s not until I have downtime in large chunks that I can actually
put it together.
I’ve tried part-time gigs; one at a talent agency was particularly helpful because of the creativity of the clients,
but the one as a meat-wrapper at a local chain grocery store was awful.
For me, the time between contracts is what makes slogging in a corporate environment less painful.
Maybe John Tomasi is right. Maybe we have to steal time from jobs we hate to make time for our work.
If that’s the case … on to the next unfulfilling gig!