Recently Chip Cheek, a writer and the administration coordinator at Grub Street in Boston, quit his job—even though he loved it. He explains why in an essay on Grub Street’s blog:
I have always had a full-time job, even while I was getting my MFA. It has seemed the prudent thing to do: keep a steady, reasonably well-paid job, so you can dedicate all your worrying to writing. It’s a good idea; Flaubert said something similar, although Flaubert didn’t have to worry about actually having a job. Also he took forever to write his books.
Over time, in this multitasking, productivity-obsessed day and age, as I have kept on writing and holding down full-time jobs, a couple of things have become clear to me. One is that spending a couple of hours here and there with my writing, wherever I can find them — even on the rare weeks when I can find them every day — is not even close to adequate. I need four or five hours, eight when I’m really cooking. (One of the best days of my writing life was when I wrote for seventeen hours straight.)
The second thing, which everyone knows, is that becoming a writer is not just a career but a whole way of living and thinking and communicating — a way of being — and at a certain point in your life, anything that competes with it or is incompatible with it is unacceptable.
I’ve quit my day job for writing not once but twice. Right after college, I started a job in textbook publishing in September, and by October, I was already plotting my escape for graduate school. I quit the desk job almost exactly a year to the day after I started and made my living as a freelance proofreader until I started school (and for a while thereafter). After grad school, I got a job as an “editor” at a startup that shall remain nameless—but unfortunately, most of my “editing” involved tinkering with PowerPoint slides. I quit after four months and spent the next three months writing the first draft of my novel—and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
On the other hand,on the blog “Guide to Literary Agents,” guest blogger Alexis Grant offers some compelling reasons to keep a day job. Here’s the first:
1. A job helps you generate ideas. Having a day job gives you the opportunity to get out and about, talk with smart people and learn new things. You can do all of that without a day job, of course – but we often don’t make it a priority. The daily interactions I have through my job often lead to ideas for ebooks and blog posts and freelance pieces. Without that stimulation, I wouldn’t be the same writer.
Have you ever quit your day job to write? Could you ever see yourself doing it?
I identify with the “job generates ideas” side of things. I worked in risk management at an insurance company for a period after college and story ideas during that period centered around worst case scenarios involving heavy machinery, or bottling factory mishaps. But I also agree that the day job sometimes provides a convenient ‘out’ or excuse for not writing … one is justifiably tired after a draining day at the office.
Practicalities aside, this is always a tempting option for me, but I often find that I’m most productive when I have other obligations pressing against my writing time. Michael Klein has a nice essay about this in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers, though it’s not available online: http://www.pw.org/content/afterhours_author_the_working_writers_advantage_0
I liked his point that really, really writing takes a lot of hours a day. It isn’t a nine-to-five, but it isn’t a lunchbreak, either.
Also. It took me some years, after I quit my job, and started travelling / writing, to convince myself that my life was still equally worthwhile. I was not a lifelong would-be writer, though–it just burst on me once I decided I would leave London. Until then I had assumed I would be rich and secure. I had to read a lot of Harold Bloom to build a new identity.
Secondly, I think there’s a difference between moving to part time work and moving to no work at all. I don’t really recommend the latter. In 2008, I moved to Syria, and I didn’t have any work aside from writing. I just wrote every day from morning to 2-3pm. And almost every day, from 4pm to 6pm, I became quite depressed. I find that some link to the rest of the working, striving world is as crucial as having the time to write.
My day job has always been a matter of juggling. Motherhood, running the household (you have no idea), managing another family property, freelance editing (can make way more money there than in any office job), self marketing, oh, yes, and fiction writing. I think being a mother uniquely enables you to work in the middle of distraction, and I agree with Daniel that total isolation is nothing but depressing.
But I have to fight for fiction writing time. Sometimes I wish I had a day job just so my attention isn’t so splintered all the time. Good discussion!