Get a Real Job
It’s an interesting paradox. As a writer with four novels in print, one of the most common questions I get is “When are you going to quit your day job?” On the other hand, take a writer who has done just that and runs into financial trouble. One of the first questions they hear is “ Why don’t you just get a real job?”
Writing “professionally” is a ( Read more... )
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I wrote fulltime and worked fulltime for about 15 years. I'm now writing fulltime and working 2/3 time. Had I quit the day job and just focused on writing, perhaps I would have had time to write more satisfying books. But we do as we must. I had 2 children to support on my own, and the struggle for health coverage was always difficult. It's been a very hard road.
You're doing REALLY well juggling so much.
If you can obtain health care through a job, it's an important criterion. And no matter how many books you've written, the publishing industry is so awful that you really can't count on longterm sustained income ('m snickering just to write the phrase "longterm sustained income" HA!)
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Ironically, I'm watching several of my friends struggling with dips in their careers, where orders and advances have dropped through no fault of the authors. A lot of it is the economy, but it's also the nature of writing -- there are good years, and there are not-so-good years.
I do think you can make a living at it in the long run, but it's danged hard, and in most cases seems to require some branching out. (Fiction + paid blogging + nonfiction work + whatever else you can find.)
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Steven
an author who's looking for work and writing
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