Calling All Applicants
By Steven James | August 30, 2016 |
Photo by: A. Birkan ÇAGHAN
So, here’s the job I’m offering you.
There are no benefits. No dental, medical, or retirement. You get no days off. No sick leave. No personal leave. No vacation time. There’s no job security.
You get to pay your own taxes.
Seniority means nothing.
You’ll be on the hook for any college classes or professional conferences or online courses you sign up for. Degrees in this field will do little or nothing to land you a position or put you ahead of the other applicants.
And there will be plenty of them.
Hundreds of thousands.
Applying daily.
Any compensation at all is uncertain, wildly sporadic, and if you do get paid, the person who helped you land your job will get fifteen percent of everything you make. Forever.
There’s no bonus for working overtime. In fact, you’ll probably put in some form of overtime nearly every day for the rest of your life.
Long hours? You better believe it.
An ergonomically designed office? Unlikely. That cluttered corner of your basement will probably have to do.
If you don’t like feeling pressured, under the gun, stressed, or overwhelmed, this position isn’t going to be a good fit for you.
It’s the kind of job you can’t leave at the office and it’ll nag at you, scratching away at a corner of your mind when you’re at your son’s baseball game, your daughter’s piano recital, your wife’s birthday party. You’ll notice the sunlight dance across your son’s helmet, hear an off-key chord that takes you back to your own childhood, catch a snippet of dialogue that sounds just right and you’ll hastily scrounge for a scrap of paper and a pen, or whisper a transcribed note into your cell phone so you don’t lose it.
“What are you doing, dear?”
“Nothing. Just had an idea.”
“Pay attention to the movie.”
“I will.”
And you do.
Until another idea comes along. And you don’t.
Though a few rare exceptions exist, nearly everyone in this job fails financially in some way, and over the course of your career you’ll almost certainly not even manage to make minimum wage. Many who take this job become depressed. More than their fair share commit suicide.
You’ll never attend an office party or get a Christmas bonus.
In fact, you’ll be denied nearly everything that most people look for in a job.
But you will get something else.
You’ll have no traffic to battle.
No daily commute.
No mind-numbing meetings to attend.
You won’t have to hide your weirdness, your quirks, your curious insecurities under the thin veneer of workplace customs and conventions. You will befriend a cat. You will find solace in nightmares. You will be able to watch Dr. Who in the middle of the day and not feel guilty.
You will be a writer.
It is risk and adventure and imagination.
It is living on the razor-edged trill of a dream.
You will write.
But know this: Most people will not understand you or your career choice. Many will judge you. Some will ask when you’re going to get a “day” job or a “real” job, which means (although they don’t typically phrase it this way), having someone else tell you what to do, what to wear, when to work, and when you get to spend time with your lover or your children.
You will let passion drive you. Ideas will awaken you in the middle of the night and they will not rest in the cage of your mind until you set them free.
And so, you will scribble in notebooks at midnight.
Just as your predecessors did before you.
You will get lost wandering among the musty shelves of used bookstores. You will lurk in the corners of coffee shops. Eavesdropping will become your secret addiction.
For you, tragedy will be fodder.
Sorrow will be your Muse.
Pain, your barbed blessing.
You’ll feel a chill—yes, yes, that one right there—that comes when your book weaves together in a way that you hadn’t dreamed of and never would have planned, but that is Honest and True in All The Ways That Matter Most.
You will rip away the soothing, crippling lies about success that society likes to spin, and you will offer people a gift in their stead—laughter in the face of sorrow, a fist raised against the tyranny of the urgent, and a chance to actually believe the things we already know: that compassion is more important than possessions, that love is always worth the risk, and that no one dies wishing he’d spent more time in the cubicle and less time telling his daughter bedtime stories.
You’ll invite people who rarely cry in real life to shed a tear over the phantom artifices you have cast onto the page. In this way, you’ll lead people to be more human, more vulnerable, more awake, more alive. More free.
You will be forced to live with both eyes open to the glory and the pain, the wonder and horror and grief and joy of the world. You will not be able blink or turn away. The tears you shed will be real. The blood-drenched passion you offer the world will somehow scar you and heal you at the same time.
And you will be driven by the insatiable, unquenchable, uncompromising obsession to get others to open their eyes as well.
It’s a wild life and perilous, and you’re almost certain to fail.
You want to be a writer?
Here’s the dotted line: ………………………………………………
There’s room on there for your name.
Right next to mine.
Steven James is the award-winning, critically acclaimed author of more than fifty books, including seventeen novels. Publishers Weekly calls him “[A] master storyteller at the peak of his game.” His groundbreaking books on the craft of fiction, Story Trumps Structure and Troubleshooting Your Novel both won Storytelling World Awards of Excellence. When he’s not working on his next book, he teaches fiction writing at conferences spanning the globe and hosts the podcast The Story Blender. For all things Steven James, click to stevenjames.net.
The coffee is always excellent. You are less likely to die in the mangled remains of your car. You can wear your Spidey pajamas and nothing else for a solid week and no one (except, perhaps, the wife) will even notice. You get to spend what little you make on conferences where you can get lavishly drunk with other people like you. And if the cat gets on your nerves, the final option is always available (try that with a co-worker and people get aggrivated…don’t ask me how I know).
And here I thought I was the only one with Spidey pajamas.
Oooooh! Spidey PJs!!
Thank you for putting this into words.
Steven–Thanks for Story Trumps Structure. It makes a useful contribution to the body of instructional literature for writers.
Up to the point at which you begin to wax poetic in your post on the sturm und drang related to being an author, your desperate catalog is perfectly aligned with the “career” of Hispanic laborers picking tomatoes in Immokalee, south central Florida. No benefits, no holidays or retirement plan, etc. The difference, though, is this: although migrant laborers may work twenty or thirty years without getting a raise, they don’t have to pay for their own buckets for collecting tomatoes, and they get free transportation to the job site in the owner’s truck. Writers don’t. With no guarantee of any payday, they must also buy the tools of their trade: books like yours, computers, advertising, conferences, etc.
As I say, a sobering thought. Thanks again for your book. It’s a keeper.
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it. My follow-up book on craft, Troubleshooting Your Novel, comes out next month.
—SJ
I had to laugh a bit at the comments on conferences and on-line courses as I’ll be seeing you at your Breakout Novel Intensive course this October. Thanks for your tongue-in-cheek but oh-so-true litany of the ups and downs of being a writer. As a serial entrepreneur, I’m used to no guarantees, so I’ll gladly sign on your line.
Look forward to seeing you.
—SJ
So beautifully written, Steven. It was a real treat to see a post by you up here–I love Story Trumps Structure and thank WU’s David Corbett for pointing me toward it. It changed how I think about writing. Thanks for sharing on what it means to be a writer. I will keep striving.
Appreciate the kudos. David’s book on character is excellent. My followup volume on craft, Troubleshooting Your Novel, releases next month. Keep on writing and breaking the rules.
I’m reading Art of Character right now. As with Story Trumps Structure, I’m learning so much and know I’m in good hands. And hearing you’re writing a second craft book just made my day–that one’s going to the top of my list!
Thanks, Steven. :)
I signed up for this without even knowing what I was getting into … and it’s grand! Thank you for this.
I love this! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you. Can I borrow your pen?
Sure. There’s enough ink to go around.
“…no one dies wishing he’d spent more time in the cubicle and less time telling his daughter bedtime stories.”
Without those stories our world would have no shape or meaning. We’d wander through the minutes of our days, wanting nothing but the next thing, destroying because why bother to build?
I have seen first hand what happens to human beings who have no story in their heads. They are lost. They have no future. They are dead while alive.
But with a story to follow, we have direction. We have hope. We measure ourselves, challenge ourselves, strive. We live up to the story we’ve internalized, or try to.
No job benefits? I beg to differ.
I was literally just thinking this morning how lucky I was to be able to write stories every day, then I read your article… it made me laugh, want to weep ;) and inspired me at the same time… I feel even more fortunate to have this privilege of being an author. Thank you for sharing your take on this crazy, yet fabulous occupation.
Keep laughing, weeping, and being inspired. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Ha! Nothing like a bit of realism to start your day, right? Yeah, I signed the dotted line too. Steven, your book Story Trumps Structure is the #1 best book on storytelling. I’ve read it twice, have it underlined and marked with my notes. I think because you *are* a prolific fiction writer (13 novels!), your advice on storytelling is superior to what the story coaches and writing instructors are pitching these days. I loved how you say in your book to ditch your outline, maps, and templates: ” … uncovering your story word by word might be the best thing you can do for your fiction, just as it was for me.” That’s the jewel here, “just as it was for me.” No one knows the deep waters better than the swimmer.
I’m glad you said this, Paula. Like you, I trust people who practice what they preach.
Thanks to you and to Barry, for his comment below. I’ve run into so many thousands of writers over the years who have been beating their head against the wall trying to follow a system or rein in a story that’s trying to head in a different direction. It inspires me to hear stories from people who’ve fallen in love with writing again by stepping back and letting the story have its way. Keep it up.
Wow, you just really put it all out there, didn’t you?
This post lit a fire under me. Can’t wait for the NWI in October!
I look forward to seeing you in Dallas. We just had one person cancel, so if you know of anyone else who’d like to come, spread the word.—SJ
You sweet talker, you. How can I resist signing up for the gig?
The depressing, brilliant truth. Sigh.
I signed, of course.
Grateful for my co-signers. :)
So true! My family is moving in less than two weeks to Nashville area, for the soul purpose of focusing intently on this “career”. Inspired by you, Ted, Eric & Tosca five years ago! So I gladly and proudly sign my name on the dotted line!
Ha! I remember that conference. How cool to know that it inspired you. Good luck in your new endeavors.
So, Steven, this writer thing—there’s not a lot of unwanted facial hair or spontaneous drooling, right?
And can I still indulge in my some of my special needs, like wearing spats before noon, and yodeling? I’m in!
I have been known to sport a beard. The drooling is mostly under control these days, but that’s for asking. I’m not sure what spats are, or if I want to see you yodel in them, but hey, as long as it’s before noon we should be good.
I remember the shock of paying my own taxes and health insurance but can never imagine going back to the day job that I left in 2010. This was a lyrical summary of what it is like to gamble all to be a writer. Will definitely check out Story Trumps Structure! And btw, I wanted to tweet this post but looks like the link is going to a Stephen James :-( working on his first novel. Will copy and paste it the old way. Thank you!
I think the link was fixed. It should be @readstevenjames Thx for letting us know. Hope you enjoy the good. Good luck in your non-day job.
I signed up a long time ago–no regrets. Thanks.
And you will be a man, my…um…er…writer, my daughter.
I love this…so full of truth…underlies why I’m adding my name.
I signed so long ago that the ink has faded. All those promises are true.
This ought to be a poster on the office wall of every writer.
Steven, I took your classes at Blue Ridge this year. When I applied what you taught, it made a huge difference in how I told the story. Thank you for your teaching and I’ll never use ‘because’ again in my lifetime. :)
Thanks, Janetta. I really enjoyed that conference and I’m thrilled it was beneficial to you. For those who are wondering, the because comment refers to causality. (Chapter 13 in Story Trumps Structure.)
I think I signed on that dotted line when I was eight years old, the night I stood on the end of my bed and wrote in the window sill after my mother gave me a swat and threatened a ‘real spanking’ if I got out of bed or she saw my light on again. That was almost sixty years ago. I don’t remember what I was writing, only the sense of urgency; whatever it was, it had to be written that night.
Although I’ve done many other things, writing has been the one constant, my core, the center around which everything else has revolved. I can’t imagine a day without turning something into words, without grasping a fleeting thought and securing it to a page. While you can’t live without existing, you can exist without living. The way I look at it, paychecks support existence, but writing supports my life. And, I’m pretty sure that living is the point of our time here.
What is about reading and writing that seems to require financial justification? Over the course of my life I’ve indulged in downhill skiing, running, mountain biking, hiking, and camping, in addition to needlework, watercolor, drawing, sewing, and photography, spending time and money on classes and equipment for all these activities without anyone suggesting I was wasting either the time or the money. When I bought books about drawing or photography, no one suggested that my drawings or photos would have value only if they were good enough to share with the world. When I took a skiing class, there were no subtle accusations that I had Olympic pretensions, or that my efforts were futile (“You do know there are already millions of skiers? Do you know how hard it is to earn a living as a skier?”). It was understood that I enjoyed these activities, and that the more skill I acquired, the more I enjoyed them.
But, sign up for one writing workshop and you’re suddenly delusional. Unlike painting, sewing, photography, golf, dance, chess–even Scrabble–it seems that becoming a skillful writer is a valid pursuit only if the goal is to publish.
Some people find joy at an easel, or making a solitary climb to the top of a mountain…and some of us find it at a keyboard. I think joy happens in those moments when life makes complete sense, and for me that happens when I’m writing. The process isn’t always joyous (neither was face-planting on a snowy mountain), but there are moments of pure bliss. And, the way I see it, we may exist for a hundred years, but we live in moments.
I like what you wrote. The joy comes when you write. For me, sometimes I’ve told people that I pray with my fingertips.
Your comment just struck me: “I’ve told people I pray with my fingertips.”
Be still my poet’s heart.
Thank you!
“The blood-drenched passion you offer the world will somehow scar you and heal you at the same time.”
Scars are signs of healed wounds. Maybe the passion wounds and heals at the same time?
ohmygosh – yes! Hubby and I were on the beach today – a rare day away from our adult special needs daughter and his mom, who has dementia. And you know what I did ALL DAY?? I ran ideas past him for a plot for a new book idea. Ha!! Seriously – we walked the beach, took pictures of the seagulls, splashed in the Atlantic (which was a marvelous 74*), worshiped the sun, and went to a local Chinese restaurant. And the whole time, I obsessed with a new story idea, and he bravely brainstormed with me.
Yeah. He’s great like that.
And you know what? I wouldn’t want to do anything else.
BTW – I’m reading Story Trumps Structure right now. Loving it!
Those people who love us and support us, even if they don’t understand us, are invaluable. Give him a hug and thank him for believing in your dream. Glad you’re enjoying the book.
This post is worthy of printing off and laminating along with the praying with your fingertips comment. It often feels like shouting into the void, but once in awhile there’s an echo, or a stranger saying, “Thank you. I thought I was all alone out here” and there you go. Better than pensions, job security, and promotions.
So here I am, a stranger, saying thank you.
Also, I think I need Story Trumps Structure in my life.
You are not alone. We are your tribe. Those of us who fend off the darkness with our pens must stick together. Be encouraged and keep the story alive.
Hi, Steven,
Halfway through your piece I was wondering how I might make the time to actually take on such an internship, or job, in payment for a long-term class you were offering. HA.
I like this piece very much. I just published my first book, have 3 more manuscripts and working on another. Don’t want to do much else except write. We’re in the same tribe. Thank you thank you.
I understand why people might feel like “the writing life” is an either/or choice–either devote your whole life to writing or be a miserable corporate shill in a cubicle–but it’s honestly not. In fact, I believe the best thing I ever did for myself as a writer was to pursue a career in a different field entirely.
Dedicating your whole existence to a solitary activity like writing severely limits your worldview. I don’t believe writers succumb to depression because the job is hard and unrewarding. Soldiers and nurses and subsistence farmers in underdeveloped countries lead lives even more dismal and difficult, but they very rarely stick their heads in lit gas ovens.
Full-time writers tend to become depressed because, first, they’re introverted intellectuals prone to depression to begin with, and second, because they’re isolated. Few develop a supportive network of colleagues. In other professions, building good relationships with coworkers is necessary for success. Friendliness and sensitivity are just as important as intelligence and skill. But in writing, people can get away with being insufferable jerks as long as they write stories readers will buy. It’s an industry that attracts and feeds big, delicate egos.
Because writers don’t interact much with other people–and I mean in real life, not just through text on a screen–they can feel like they’re the only ones in the world who are suffering. Too many develop martyr complexes. They mope around thinking, “I’m such a genius and I’m doing something so important for humanity, but nobody appreciates me.”
Quite frankly, if a writer is that self-absorbed, she can’t possibly write as well as she thinks she does. Writers write about people. We have to know and understand people. We have to see through BS. And thinking we’re super special snowflakes because we spin yarns, well, that’s BS. We’re just like all other humans on Earth with dreams and passion and ideas.
I love this so much!
How true… How true. But I love being a writer much better than when I was working in the corporate world. No benefits but great benefits for my inner self. I’m much happier and I make my own time which is most of the time. I enjoy telling my stories. I wrote three books so far and three in the making. No matter how I analyze my life now, I like it better than when I was working as an accountant which I think was the most boring job I had. Too much pressure but so is my new deadline now but somehow I don’t mind this time. I finally find my niche and will stick to it.
Thanks for your great post.
Excellent post! I agree, it should be on a poster and I’m thinking… maybe I need Spidey PJ’s. :-)
The reality is so painful, the looks you get as they ask what in the world you are doing…and yet, yet your books entered into my house because of a single speaking engagement. You sent my family two of your books, and my mom has devoured the rest…renewing one of them again and again before she left the country. Thank you, for the hours you put in without reward. God sees your work, even when we don’t…
Thanks for the kind words. I hope their travels are safe. Best wishes in your writing endeavors.
Looking forward to seeing you again, Steven. I consider you my mentor. I hope that doesn’t offend you in any way, but I have learned more from you in the writing intensives and those sessions to come than anywhere else. God bless you for what you do, and for being willing to share your wisdom and experience with others–with people like me.
Don, how could I be offended? Your kind words inspire me. Thanks and keep up the good work on your next novel.
This is phenomenal…I’ll leave my comments at that.
Love, love, love this!! I’ll be reading it again and again, when I get discouraged, insecure, worried about finances, and yes, even excited and overjoyed with writing. Every time I think ‘why am I doing this? It’s crazy! It’ll never amount to anything’, I’m going to pick this up and remind myself of what my dream is and why I have this strange compulsion to write. Thank you so much for this. Did I say how much I love it? ;)
Excellent essay, Stephen. Congratulations on your accomplishments. You’ve come a long way from the storytelling workshops in my living room. I’ll be ordering Story Trumps Structure as I continue to dabble. With warm thoughts, Mimi
Great to see your name here! I remember those days and that living room. Keep the stories alive.
What a treat this is! Sitting here with one cat on my feet, coffee at my elbow, some paints behind me in case I get stuck on the MIP, all the sounds under my control.
When my husband talks about all of his meetings, I whisper thank you under my breath every single time.
Sounds very much like being a farmer. Except, it’s really hard to name a famous farmer. Otherwise, very similar. I have great respect for anyone who spends months, or even years, working without pay in the hope that when they finish what they produce will be valuable to others. Not knowing for sure if they will even break even.
Mr. James,
I think I had that aha moment. I need to write it down. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good, sure. It’s always best to be both. What started as a journal musing in a mental ward- mildly trite- might just develop into something. I think I know how the story will end from my musings. It’ll have to be a fictitious account being that I can’t see the future. Wish me luck.
Hullo Steven, We haven’t met but you just wrote my story! ha! (me and a thousand others, right!) You are spot on sir!!
Very well written. So true, too!