How Long Is a Piece of String?
By Bryn Greenwood | September 25, 2018 |
Photo by Ben van Meerendonk / AHF collective IISG
Later this week, I will put in my final hours at my day job. For the first time since I was eight years old, I won’t have a job, but I won’t be unemployed. Instead, I’ll be self-employed as a full-time writer. I’m not exaggerating when I say this moment has been more than twenty years in the making. When I decided not to pursue a PhD all those years ago, my reasoning was simple. I wanted to be writer. Not a writer/professor, just a writer. From where I was standing, it seemed to me that working as a secretary was more likely to provide me with the extra time and emotional energy to pursue my writing than working in academia. With that thought in mind, I got the first of several secretarial jobs, and started work on the first of many novels. I took Anthony Trollope as my patron saint. For thirty-three years he supplemented his writing with a paid position in the British Post Office.
There was no fast forwarding through the next twenty years, but for your sake, I will sum up: I worked. I wrote. Slowly, I started selling what I wrote. Some short stories, some essays, then a first novel, then a few more. This year, I reached a tipping point. My writing income exceeded my secretarial income, but more pressing, my writing time exceeded my secretarial time. I was exhausted and burned out. As scary as it was to consider being self-employed, I knew I had to choose. Of course, I chose writing.
Something interesting happened as soon as I submitted my official resignation. People starting coming around to congratulate me, but once the well wishes were offered, most people had the same question: “What are you going to do with all your time now?” I found myself explaining repeatedly that writing takes up just as much time as a regular job, and frequently a lot more. In fact, for the last five years or so, I’ve essentially worked two full-time jobs.
In a good week, I spent forty hours at my day job, and then came home to put in another forty hours on writing and writing-related tasks. Skyping with book clubs, producing newsletters, answering emails, and interacting with readers on social media can really eat up the time. Not all weeks were good, though. All of January and February this year, I worked on a major revision of my next book. My writing time was more like fifty hours a week, plus ten hours for the aforementioned writing-related stuff, all tacked onto the forty hours a week at my day job. I was officially a workaholic putting in hundred-hour weeks.
The funny thing is that every time I explain this math to people, they are shocked. They say, “You write forty hours a week?” or “How long does it take to write a novel?” (A question that has as many answers as How long is a piece of string?) Even my sister, who has witnessed me writing over holidays, beside hospital beds, on weekends, even on the rare vacations I take, was astounded that my writing was already a full-time job, because so much of the work is invisible to other people.
While the question about my time is certainly the most common response I get to my resignation, a surprising number of people say, “You’re living my dream!” The tone of the statement often makes it seem like I have won the lottery, and while success in the arts is so much about luck, you have to do the work to be ready. I started out saying, “Well, I hope your dream comes true, too!” but the treacly sweetness of my well wishes was soon undermined by my curiosity. Was it true? I wondered. Do all these people long to be writers?
Now my standard response is, “What are you doing to make your dream come true?” This has produced a variety of awkward silences and a few tears, but so far no specific answers. I suspect this is owing to two factors. Either the person has not yet thought about what might be required to translate a dream into reality, or they are not yet comfortable talking to other people about their work. I know from experience that it was incredibly hard to confess how much of myself I was putting into becoming a writer, when I knew how few writers ever get to leave their day jobs and focus entirely on writing.
Part of that difficulty is the logistics of such a thing. If you’re like me, you need a job to pay the bills while you try to become a writer, and working eighty to a hundred hours a week is brutal. Not everyone can even find those extra hours, especially if they have children or care for an elderly relative. Some people have to have the guaranteed income of a second job to live. For the first ten years of my double life, I worked twenty hours a week at the writing with absolutely no income from it. By my rough calculations, the advance on the first novel I sold worked out to less than $2 per hour in terms of the time I spent writing it. The arts are so rarely a moneymaking proposition.
When I ask people what they’re doing to achieve their dream, my intent isn’t to shame them for not doing enough, but to encourage them to think about how that question is directly linked to the question of how many hours a week I spend writing.
Too often, as writers, we are surrounded by people who don’t understand how much work writing requires. As a result, they don’t value the work or the time it takes. I have been in relationships with people who were annoyed every weekend I opted to stay home and write. I have lost friendships, because I wasn’t available for events or activities that cut into my writing time. An ex I won’t name once said, “Why are you wasting so much time on what’s basically a hobby?” (Emphasis mine.) When that’s the constant message writers receive, it’s no surprise that we come to question our commitment to a dream that may never come true, or may only partially come true.
Writing is like an unpaid apprenticeship. You work to get better at it, but no one pays you for those years of incremental improvement. For that reason alone, many of the people in your life will undervalue the work that goes into writing. If there’s no income attached, it’s easy to say that’s wasted time and effort. Faced with such doubts and dismissals, it’s up to writers to recognize and value the commitment necessary. We have to claim the time for our work and insist on respect for it. None of that is easy, but if I’m living your dream, I promise you that it’s necessary. Part of my journey to this point involved me declaring that my unpaid work had inherent value, that my writing time deserved the same respect as the forty hours a week I put into being a secretary.
If you’re working toward writing as a career, what are some of the things you do to claim your time and affirm the value of your unpaid work?
BRYN GREENWOOD (she/her) is a fourth-generation Kansan, one of seven sisters, and the daughter of a mostly reformed drug dealer. She is the NYT bestselling author of The Reckless Oath We Made, All the Ugly and Wonderful Things, Last Will, and Lie Lay Lain. She lives in Lawrence, Kansas.
Preach it, Bryn! This is magnificent.
Thanks for sharing! I’m a full-time student and over the last 4 years I have written 7 novels, now working on my 8th and learning something new from every hour I put in.
It’s sometimes so hard to cling to the time I put into my writing, and part of that struggle is definitely justifying it to friends and family who think that my “hobby” can easily be re-scheduled to see them or do other tasks.
I love that you write that you don’t ask the question to shame anyone – I feel like these kinds of articles often make me feel inadequate for not doing enough writing-related tasks.
I am curious to know, if you care to share: Did you find that being a secretary was okay fulfilling for you, or did you hate it? And did you feel that it gave you more mental energy to write than for example being a professor? I am currently trying to find out what job to get that can keep me fed + housed, let me have mental energy to write and yet not kill my will to live ;)
In many ways, being a secretary was perfect. I never took the job home with me, unlike the professors I knew. It was a different set of skills than writing, so I never felt burned out the way so many of my friends whose day jobs were writing-related did. I wouldn’t say that it fulfilled me, though. That’s what the writing was about. The secretarial work was just to pay the bills and keep my health insurance. The sad reality is that so many of those people who are saying, “You’re living my dream” to me are professors who 20 years on can’t find the time to write, or the writer friends burned out from 20 years of technical writing. So I feel like I chose well.
Bryn, congratulations!!! It’s really something to be able to stop the day job and support yourself through your writing. Not many achieve this, so you should be right proud.
People don’t realize the work that goes into writing but what a blessing to do what you love. I am, in fact, living my dream as a writer-mama. From the very beginning, I *knew* I’d come home to myself. As a child, I dreamed of being like AJ Cronin, physician-turned-writer. I’m a scientist-turned-writer, so that’s pretty close. And as to the unpaid work, I’ve always viewed it as an investment. And it *is* paying off. All of it. And in ways that I could not have imagined. ’tis a wonder!
It’s a fantastic feeling to see that the plans you made are turning out the way you hoped. Of course, like all investments, there are no guarantees. I think that’s the hardest part. Some people, like you, find that they are getting returns & moving in the direction they want, but for some people the stock market crashes.
First, congrats, Bryn. Celebrate. You have earned it.
You mention someone said, “’Why are you wasting so much time on what’s basically a hobby?” (Emphasis mine.) When that’s the constant message writers receive, it’s no surprise that we come to question our commitment to a dream that may never come true, or may only partially come true.'”
This is a very big struggle for writers. I once had a close friend ask me to take her to a medical appointment and wait in the car for several hours until she was done so I could drive her home. While I didn’t mind helping, when I mentioned the full day away from writing, her response was, “It’s not like you’re busy, you just sit a computer all day.”
Ignorance isn’t bliss to the recipient.
Great post. Thank you for sharing.
Dee Willson
Award-winning author of A Keeper’s Truth
The work is so invisible that people can’t see when it isn’t getting done! I think that’s the number one thing that writers have to do–keep reaffirming to ourselves and others that this is real work. After all, most of us don’t actually see surgeons performing operations. We just have to take it on faith that the work gets done.
There is so much to chew on here, Bryn. As someone who also works 7 days per week and never takes a vacation, I get it! Especially after publishing two books yet writing my last without a contract, having to answer “When will this one come out?” all the time.
My husband and I scrape by because we chose to buy and rebuild the family vacation home to preserve it for future generations. For three months each summer I write and edit for clients all day while members of my extended family “vacation” around me. When I once shared how hard it can be to do this, especially with cute grandkids and pets around me, one of my sisters actually said, “What you need to do is build a little writing shack up in the woods.”
Um, no. Already spent that money. THIS cottage is my writing place, and I sit right in the heart of it, at a table where I am most comfortable, and where I can enjoy the views I paid for. I have learned to demand respect for what I’m doing.
We can’t guarantee the outcome, only the process. Thanks for a great post.
As someone who has only ever written on spec, and never written under contract, that’s exactly the thing I remind myself of: I can only do the work. I can’t control what becomes of the work. (And I’ve written plenty of books that never sold.) It’s incredibly hard to work in the midst of vacationers, but good on you for standing your ground & claiming your work space!
The reason I finished my debut novel, The Reluctant Fortune-Teller, is that I created a non-negotiable schedule and treated my writing like the job that it is. This was what I did not (felt I could not) do in the 90’s when I was raising my kids.
If you (especially women) don’t claim your time, no one will give it to you.
Now, my day job is psychotherapist, so I do have the benefit of being able to create my own schedule, and that has been very helpful.
I would say, if you’re at a point of choosing a career that will go well with writing, choose self-employment if possible, so that you can adjust your schedule as needed to feed your writing.
I’m impressed by those who can manage self-employment AND the self-employment of writing. I could never juggle both. Having a fixed job with a steady income & benefits kept me afloat when the writing was pure chaos. Setting a schedule is a big help in establishing the time value of unpaid writing work. That’s especially true for women and other marginalized writers. We’re expected to make sacrifices for everyone else.
Wow. Awesome post, which will make me break away from time sucks that I don’t need. Your message is clear and in my life there is room for improvement. Congrats on your message and your tenacity.
Good luck shutting down whatever is sucking up your writing time. It’s hard but so important.
Congratulations seems too small a word, Bryn. Fireworks and rockets, maybe? What a wonderful post for those of us in the trenches, fielding that one question asked in so many ways; are you still writing that novel??? I’ve finally gotten past the need to answer or explain or tell people what you give up to do this work, with no guarantee of reward at the end. You reminded me today that writers are the cartographers of their times, mapping out unexplored terrain, and that they (we) do it because it’s in our blood. So thank you for this post, and my hat is off and sweeping the ground to all the rest of you intrepid ones out there mapping your heartbeats on the page.
I will tell you one of my key secrets to avoiding murdering people for asking “So what about that novel you were writing?” I didn’t tell anyone who didn’t need to know. It made my life more constricted, because I kept more people out to avoid discussing it, but it also meant that fewer people felt they had the right to question me. Then I only had to establish my right to write with those in my inner circle. The flipside was that when my third novel came out to quite a bit of fanfare, I had to basically “come out” to a lot of people who didn’t know I was a writer.
So right, Bryn. Telling co-workers and family that you are a writer only invites incomprehension, curiosity, envy and ill wishes.
“How’s that novel coming? Published yet?” they ask with a barely disguised sneer. As if publishing is the only justification.
After 20 books, I am ramping up to new and ambitious level. I am taking my time, and so I protect myself. I don’t lie about it but I don’t say much about it, either.
Fact is, I’m stretching my writing and every hour at the keyboard is already a win.
I often feel like I’m getting better quality writing when I don’t talk about it. As though what I produce isn’t watered down by sharing it prematurely.
I like it!
Wow, thank you for capturing the stigma and pain of writers! I am going to share this and save it because I’ll need to share it again and again.
Very inspiring – congratulations, and happy writing!
This is so inspiring! Recently, I left one job and went back to my old job. Why? Because I will have time to write at my old job. Of course, I haven’t told many people this….a) that I’m writing while working and b) that I’m trying to write a book. I don’t tell people because people don’t understand the monumental work that goes into writing, and I also don’t want to profess to be working toward something only to have people say, “See? I told you she couldn’t do it.”
You ask, “what are some of the things you do to claim your time and affirm the value of your unpaid work?”
The way I claim my time is to schedule time in my day/week/month that is solely for the purpose of sitting down and writing. The writing can be in terms of learning more about how to write, how to structure a novel, how to create a great character and other things relating to writing. When people ask if I’m available for x-y-z, I will tell them no if the time frame is anywhere near my writing. I have to be selfish!
I always loved those jobs where I had time to write, and for many years, my secretarial job provided that. Then I accidentally got promoted to a job that required a lot more of my time and energy.
Many congratulations on your decision – and all the planning it must have taken. But it sounds as if you’re already well started on your dream, which is more than most people have.
Just moved myself into a retirement community in California – with pools and gyms and dinner – so that all the things I had to do before are gone, and writing will be my only job once I’m unpacked and the connections to DMV and new doctors are all arranged.
It takes serious time to restart a life, but it’s for the rest of our lives, so it was worth it to get away from humidity and snow.
Now, as soon as I recover from the computer crash of 7/3/2018 (Mac guru coming Thursday morning), and have all my working programs and files, I’m ready.
Preliminaries have been accomplished (rereading the WIP), and I would be started already if it weren’t for the crash/forced upgrade. But I’m in it for the long run.
It does take time. As I mentioned, I’ve been working on making this dream come true for 20 years. I hope you get settled in soon.
As one of your uber-fans, I have no worries about your future earnings. In fact, I look forward to reading when you have one of your books optioned for a film (I’ve mentioned it to people but I don’t know anyone with that much financial power… but maybe one of them will mention you to someone who does).
You are, quite literally, my favorite writer and I eagerly look forward to your next book and ongoing mega success for you!!
I’m so excited about the next book. It’s one of those projects that creep up on me, where I don’t know how I feel about it until it’s done, but now I love it.
Love this. I made the choice long ago to pay the light bill and provide for my kids with a job that I know is not what I am designed to do. Like you, I am a secretary with a secret life because few people at my work even know I write. In the meanwhile I listen, I study and I write. Soon and very soon I will leave behind the paying job and venture forth into what I’ve waited all these years to do. Thank you for this inspiration.
Secret Secretary Powers! Good luck to you on trading in one job for another. Nobody at work knew I was a writer, but I realized that in about a week I was going to be in all the local papers, on the radio, on several TV segments, and that inevitably people would know my secret, so I just got up at a meeting & blurted it out. Strangely liberating.
Bravo Bryn! I am delighted you are taking this next step and devoting all your time to writing. I loved All the Ugly and Wonderful Things and wrote a splendid review! I am looking forward to your next release. As a fellow creator, I spent all my adult life working in fashion as a costume designer. When I retired 6 years ago I wrote my first novel and published in 2015. I’m currently finishing the first draft of my second novel. The result is not financially sustainable, but I find it to be the happiest and most rewarding creative endeavor of my life.