Quit Your Day Job
By Jael McHenry | September 7, 2015 |
image by Kate Haskell
I have long been an advocate for not writing full-time.
Spoiler alert: I still am.
There’s a great deal of pressure in both directions. We all get romanced by the notion of the full-time writer’s life: wake up in the morning with nothing to do but write? Sounds amazing. But, modern society working as it still does on capitalist principles, we need money coming in, which is hard to come by early on in a writer’s career.
So, quit the day job to force yourself to produce? Or keep the day job, and risk neglecting your creative self, to the point where you might stop producing altogether?
As I started by saying, I’m an advocate for the day job. A month after completing my MFA, I started working full-time as a marketing proposal writer, and I’ve been working full-time all [mumblety-mumble] years since. Would I produce more fiction if I didn’t have so many hours of my life dedicated to writing the corporate stuff? You bet. Would I also be a huge drain on our household finances, resulting in pretty lousy trade-offs not just for me, but also my husband and two kids? Yeah. That’s the thing.
So why didn’t I call this post “Don’t Quit Your Day Job?” Because you aren’t me. It makes complete sense for me to keep working full-time, since it provides financial stability for my family, my boss is understanding if I need time off for retreats or book tours, my publisher’s timeline for new books doesn’t stretch me to the breaking point, and yes, I also really enjoy the work I do.
Your situation may be completely different. But you should still look at it logically and not emotionally. It’s a business decision, after all, and not just a creative one.
If all of the conditions below are present, quitting your day job to write full-time may in fact be the right option for you.
You don’t need the money. I hate keep harping on money, but life without it isn’t much fun. “Do what you love and the money will follow” is a delightful fallacy. If you have a spouse whose income can support both of you, or you live alone very frugally, and can take the money out of the equation, that is super-awesome. If not, don’t abandon work altogether. Consider part-time work or freelancing, maybe, but don’t put your life on credit cards. It’ll haunt you.
You’re already making a solid living from your writing. This doesn’t mean that you’ve sold a novel. It probably doesn’t even mean that you’ve sold two novels. Three might be the sweet spot, if your advances are large enough and sales are strong enough that you have reason to believe you can sell and write a book a year for the next, say, 10 years. Similarly, if you’re self-publishing, make sure you’re at a sustainable level – were there any conditions that helped you sell a lot initially that might change? Can you switch it up and start writing something different if the current type of writing you’re doing stops selling so well? It’s not just an issue of what’s in your bank account now, but whether you can keep it going for five, 10, 15 years, or more.
Another job at the same level would be easy to get. If you live in a big city and you’re thinking about quitting your job at Starbucks, it seems likely you’d be able to get another barista job a few years down the road if you change your mind about the full-time writing thing. If you’re a cardiothoracic surgeon at the only hospital for miles? That’s different. Writing careers are like restaurants: you never want to think yours will fail, but unfortunately, most do. Be as clear-eyed as you can about your chances to re-enter the workforce if you need to.
If you can afford it, your career is underway, and you can replace the job a few years down the line if needed, then yes. Leave that job behind, and make yourself a full-time writer. If not? Console yourself with the good company we’re in: William Faulkner, T.S. Eliot and Toni Morrison.
Jael McHenry is the debut author of The Kitchen Daughter (Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books, April 12, 2011). Her work has appeared in publications such as the North American Review, Indiana Review, and the Graduate Review at American University, where she earned her MFA in Creative Writing. You can read more about Jael and her book at jaelmchenry.com or follow her on Twitter at @jaelmchenry.
Aside from the monetary aspects, which is what most of the reasons to quit/not quit listed here come down to, here is one reason why keeping your day job is often good: mental stimulation. The day job forces you to leave the house and interact with people face-to-face, and that can actually help keep the brain firing on all cylinders.
I agree, Jeffo. The mental stimulation of working at least part time are (for me) well worth the lost writing time. It fills the well. But then again, I’m an extrovert…and we need the money. :)
I’ve often thought if I didn’t have to work full-time, I would be a more productive writer. I’m not sure that’s true. I have a busy job with lots if travel. I also have a job that leaves me mentally drained at the end of the day. But my job is intellectually stimulating and challenging and I meet all kinds of interesting people. And it forces me to be disciplined about my writing time (though I’ve gone off the rails this year trying to complete revisions for my WIP). I agree with every point in your post. Every writer should work full-time at least for a few years, even if they don’t have to work. It will provide rich material for your fiction. Thanks for a great post.
My situation is a bit different from everyone else here. I retired last year, not by my own choice, mind you. I was devastated at first, but that cloud has a silver lining. At first it was absolutely terrifying to realize that I didn’t have to go to work anymore, but that my financial situation was stable. All those years I worked according to someone else’s schedule and now I take full responsibility for my own.
I don’t miss being ‘forced’ to leave the house. While employed I met all kinds of interesting people, all right: bosses and managers who were the incarnation of Adolph Hitler, sly and lazy co-workers who would cheerfully backstab their own mother for a promotion if that’s what it took. I saw more than enough of the good and bad sides of human nature, and I’m using those incidents in my writing. Except for working on computers I can’t say I enjoyed administrative work; several times I attempted to escape into other occupations but apparently it was not to be. I’m much more relaxed about leaving the house and meeting new people. One size does not fit all.
Me, too – but I was retired by illness almost 26 years ago. An illness that still makes it very slow and difficult to write.
I’m not saying I had any intention of giving up research physics to write – the Dept. of Energy spent a lot of money training me, and I had the dream job at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab when I got sick – but when things happen, as they do in life, will you be happy with the choices you’ve made up until then?
I’m glad I can write, sad that I’m slow, and wondering whether a different path – with full-time writing in it – would have been a possible choice.
Thanks for this reality check, Jael. 15 years ago, I quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom when my daughter was born. I snatched bits of writing time in between diaper changes and naps. Two more kids came along, keeping me busier than ever, but when each one started entering school, I started to get more writing time back and it was great. Three years ago, to help with family finances, I went back to work part-time. I love my job, the people I work with, and the flexible schedule, but still I missed the days my time was my own and I could just write after dropping off the kids at school. But that is the fantasy writer’s life. It was actually quite depressing after doing taxes this year to realize how much I actually made from my writing last year, despite 4 published children’s books — I couldn’t feed a family on it. So, until I hit the big jackpot, the reality will have to be — work part-time (and I’m lucky my husband’s job supports us enough for me to do that) and keep snatching those bits of writing time in between piano practice and soccer games.
Natasha Yim
Author of “Otto’s Rainy Day”, “Cixi, The Dragon Empress”, “Sacajawea of the Shoshone”, “Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas”
Website: http://www.natashayim.com
Blog: http://www.kidlitrambles.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/natashayim.author
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/natashayim
Thank you! This blog and the comments arrive in my inbox at the perfect time. I left reporting 13 years ago to focus on kids and turned into a writer. However, it’s an uneven process and I do get stir crazy. As Batman says, “My head is a dangerous place to be.” So, I really do want to work with people in the outside world. I think you are correct to say the money and outside stimulation can enhance your own inner writer. Thank you again!
Anyone who has a day job and have children, will have to struggle to write, even when they would like to and get the calling.
I balanced a family (3 daughters) and a teaching career–for 20 years!–until my mom became catastrophically ill and it all fell apart. I left my plum teaching job (tenure-track! senior faculty!) and am writing every day, even when very very busy with everyone else’s needs. I would like not to worry about money, but it’s worth it to have the time I need to do what I love.
Morning Jael,
This is such an important post! It’s so easy to get ahead of ourselves.
Thanks for reminding us that few writers become financially independent on one book. Dreaming of the possibility can keep us going, but it’s important to be realistic. Stress is not a friend to creativity. Then again, some people do thrive under pressure.
I also agree that everyone has to do what’s best for them. There is no “quit or don’t quit your day job” police for writers. And just because you have more time doesn’t necessarily equal more productivity, or better quality.
As I mentioned on another post, I feel one of the most important things we can do as writers is to find our own daily rhythm. When that is rolling it doesn’t matter how many day jobs or children we have. It’s all good, because we’re respecting our gift to create.
T.S Eliot is one of my favorite writers, so that last blurb in your essay is good to know. Thanks.
For the past five years or so, while working a physically grueling and often mind numbing day job, I’ve been in different stages of my first novel. The last two years have been spent under the auspices of a small publishing house, and finally after working with two editors, and waiting out the long months in between we’re going to the proof editor. But looking back, I don’t think I would choose this ongoing journey to take a different route. I’ve learned a lot about tenacity. And besides my day job has a lot of interaction with people from many walks of life. It’s a never ending larder of story fodder.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way, anyway, anywhere, any how, I can.
Thanks for this post, and your positive message to the trenches. :)
Best solution: get old and retire. Or do as I did in 60s and 70s: be a hippie; work as long as your state requires then get yourself fired and collect. Life is too valuable to waste it making profit for some life-destroying corporation.
Great examples! I used to think I’d be more productive as a writer if I quit my full-time teaching job, but now I believe the opposite. Last year I went back to work after an extended maternity leave, and was certain I’d never get as much writing done as I had when I wasn’t working. A few things did fall by the wayside out of necessity, but overall, I found that working full-time kept me creatively stimulated, structured my days better, and helped me focus on the projects that were really important to me.
“I hate keep harping on money, but life without it isn’t much fun. “Do what you love and the money will follow” is a delightful fallacy.”
Had to laugh when I read that. Good think I had put my coffee cup down,or I would have ruined a dandy new keyboard. :-)
I really liked the fact that you didn’t say it was one way or the other – abut the day job. We really do need to make those decisions based on what is best for us, not what Joe Blow did and it worked for him. When making decisions like that, we should look inward, not outward.
Thanks for this. I know the day job is the right thing for us financially, but I am so frustrated with the pull to write. I’m now trying to make the business decision but keep my eyes wide open for a day job that feels a little more like it belongs in my whole picture. This was a much-needed reminder to stay smart. :)
As for me, a day job would interfere with my creativity big time given that I only like to work a maximum of 4 hours a day. I have not had a real job since I got fired from my Engineering job over 30 years ago for taking too much vacation. Not having a day job has helped me become a productive writer by only working 4 hours a day. This has resulted in my selling over 875,000 copies of my books (mainly self-published).
These words of wisdom have helped me attain my success:
“All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.”
— Plato
“Never be afraid to tread the path alone. Know which is your path and follow it wherever it may lead you; do not feel you have to follow in someone else’s footsteps.”
— Eileen Caddy
“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
“I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic
than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money’s sake.”
— John D. Rockefeller
“An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man’s entire existence.”
— Honoré de Balzac
“The most ambitious destination can be the easiest. Pursuing your wildest dream does three things. It gives you flight. It keeps you young. It makes you highly creative. Not to mention, the rewards are delightful.”
— from “Look Ma, Life’s Easy”
“You may not have made the best career decision
if the charm of working for a corporation is that it makes your life of deception more easily concealed.”
— from “Career Success Without a Real Job”
“Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.”
— Norman Vincent Peale
“Workaholism is an addiction, and like all addictions, it blocks creative energy.”
— Julia Cameron, writing in “The Artist’s Way”
“Getting fired is nature’s way of telling you that you had the wrong job in the first place.”
— Hal Lancaster
“I’d rather live precariously in my own office than
comfortably in somebody else’s.”
— Peter Mayle
If these words of wisdom don’t resonate with you big time, then keep your day job. I doubt very much if the majority of writers will ever be as successful as me if they don’t agree with these words of wisdom, particularly those of Plato.
Ernie J. Zelinski
Author of the Bestseller “How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free”
(Over 260,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
and the International Bestseller “The Joy of Not Working”
(Over 280,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages)