Lynsey May argues that the dreaded day job can actually help you to become a better writer – as well as helping to pay the rent…
Once I assumed that while writing might not make me rich, it would certainly comfortably pay the bills. While this may have come true, it’s taken a few compromises.
Unless you’re lucky enough to top the bestseller lists or snaffle one of the big literary prizes, the chances are your yearly income from writing fiction or plays will be substantially less than the one you’d earn in any café or supermarket - hence the need for the oft-slighted “day job”.
For some young and idealistic writers (i.e. mini-me) the idea of having to fit writing around nine-five is a dismal one, but a day job can actually improve your writing as well as your finances.
Nick Holdstock, author of The Tree That Bleeds, one time hospital incinerator and long time bookseller, has always found inspiration in his work. He said his best jobs have introduced him to people he wouldn’t have otherwise met, adding: “Once you’ve heard plenty of other people's life stories, and seen the boredom that your own inspires, you can get on with the real work of making things up.”
If you’re looking for more word-centric employment, you could always diversify into writing for business, giving workshops or even tutoring. Find a job that complements your process, and you could be cashing in in more ways than one.
Flash fiction master Nik Perring found a way to make his way with words work for him by applying his skills to everything from editing to competition judging. After publishing several books, including the short but undeniably sweet Not So Perfect, he decided to set up his own short story-specific editing company.
I asked Nik if there was a point where he thought he could safely go ahead and put all of his eggs in the writing basket. “I guess that happened a little while after my first book came out, way back in 2006,” he replied, “when I realised that I could do all those other things as well as write (and do them quite well!)”
For poet Ryan Van Winkle, his dream job manifested itself as Reader in Residence for the Scottish Poetry Library. The post came at a fortuitous time for Ryan, who’d been considering giving up trying to publish.
“I was frustrated,” he told me. “More with trying to break into magazines and get a book published than with the idea of writing as a job.” He’s since won the Crashaw Prize for his poetry collection Tomorrow, We Will Live Here.
When I started a full-time copywriting job, I thought I’d killed my writing career before it had begun. But once I finally settled into the job, I found there was still time for writing in the morning, at lunch and on weekends, and the fact my touch-typing skills improved tenfold has also proven itself a bit of a bonus.
By deciding what your writing most needs – time, inspiration, technical prowess – you could find it’s perfectly possible to find a career that does more than just finance it.
Find out more about Lynsey’s work at www.lynseymay.com.
Image: struggle4cleancapture1.png by natalia & gabriel available under a 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license.