Why thank you, in-flight magazine: here is proof, just in time for the holidays (and relatives' questions), that even if you have financial trouble, you may still be quite successful.*
Remember how, months ago, I took that survey about how you supported your writing lifestyles? A large percentage wrote in to say that help from family/a spouse is essential.
But, now that it's the holidays and prying questions are more likely than ever--how do you convince your relatives/significant others that it's a legitimate way to make a living (or try to)?
Really. I'm curious. I know there must be technique. Given that it can take well over a year (or more!) to write a novel and seek an agent, what do you do in the meantime? Do you give deadlines (make this much in advance/royalties by this date)? Set goals? Budget? Agree that you'll clip coupons while thinking of the perfect line of dialog? Please use the comments section to share ideas.
Well. I am needed in the kitchen. I'm making tiny rice krispie sushis. Recipe to follow, if you like. They require dark chocolate, rice krispies, patience, and a package of those Dots candies.
Hope this finds you well.
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* Yes, this also mean that, even if you're successful, you may still have trouble--but let's keep it upbeat, people! Eggnog and candy canes!
17 comments:
What do I do in the meantime? Probably the same thing I will do after I've sold a book or two or three or six: I work an additional job that pays the bills and enables me to live the lifestyle I want to live.
If my friends and family were teling me that I was wasting my time, I'd tell them to mind their own business. If they're pointing out that I'm taking advantage of other people because I have unrealistic expectations of how much writing fiction will pay, I'd step back and re-evaluate. No one else should be financing MY dream.
In the meantime to survive... I work. But that's OK, I'm one of those fortunate people that loves their job. I'll keep doing it even if I have the luck to live off my own creativity one day. I'm doubly blessed in that I'm a YA librarian so being good at my job also means doing trend research, reading competing titles, and being on top of the market, which all benefits my dream of being a writer as well. Couldn't be better situated!
I work about 60 hours a week as a paramedic because I'm the primary source of income for my family. I also work for free as a freelance journalist for a small newspaper in order to build my writing credits while writing, rewriting, and querying. Also I have a blog.
Not complaining: I love being a writer and I'm grateful I have a decent-paying job when so many others don't have anything at all.
Oh, I also used to sleep sometimes, but something had to give. :)
Is that $15 adjusted for inflation? Fifteen bucks would actually be a much more decent chunk of change in 1845 or whenever.
I work {more than} full time in event planning/catering-- totally unrelated to writing, which makes me pine for writing time when I am at work. I'll admit that I found it hard for a long time (years-long time) to make any true headway on my novel, and then two very important things changed: first, I joined a writer's community and found a reading partner who gave me deadlines, and second (and most effective) WE SOLD OUR TELEVISION. It is amazing how much time you have at night and on the weekends when there aren't a zillion shows to watch. Everyone always asks me "So what do you do in your free time?" and now I can say "I write novels." Ha!
I have two unpaid jobs: mother and writer. The first earns my keep ;) Both roles are rewarding, frustrating, and promote equal measures self-doubt and self-confidence. I used to write during my corporate lunch breaks. Now that I'm home, I have to REALLY want to make the time. But I'm lucky: after my spouse read the first draft of my first novel, he started working a lot of overtime to support my addiction.
Just for everyone's interest: $15 in 1845 equates to less than $500 today.
My wife and I are both writers, and recently we edited environmental newsletters by day, and tried writing our YA novels by rising early or working late.
We mostly do without, and don't mind leading a life that is easier on the planet. But four weeks ago, we were both terminated — with no warning — when the company moved editorial to a developing world nation. So we've had to scramble like crazy to keep from losing everything.
So we're taking a variety of dead end jobs, and hoping to follow in the footsteps of bigblackcat97 and find work in a library (or something more fulfilling than what we're doing now).
What's interesting is that I used to do fairly well writing for respected magazines, but a long illness took me out of circulation, and I've been largely unable to sell ideas or stories to publications that used to take EVERYthing I sent their way.
No need to start a pity party. I just finished my middle-reader adventure with plans to start querying, and an aunt unexpectedly remembered us in her will, so the next few months will be much better than they looked just eight days ago. :-)
I'm college-age, so part-time jobs four days a week and taking classes five days a week is what I'm doing now, but the future is scary.
I debated getting a degree in creative writing until I realized it was less than practical. For now, I'm getting that English teaching degree.
But man, one day I really would love to live as just a writer. (Positive thinking: and one day I will!)
Great post, GK! Happy holidays!
My husband has always been supportive of my writing, especially after he read the first manuscript (and he can't understand why I need to change a single word of it - let alone cut away chunks of it - it's so frustrating to try to explain to him). I used to have a high paying job, but I quit to go back to university to support my writing (majoring in English this time), so I get student loans. But student loans have never been decent, so my husband brings in the big bucks (which aren't so big after the financial crash). Anyway, we both accepted to live a lower spending-life, even though we have three year old twins now, to make it possible for me to write (and hope that I'll be able to bring in money for my writing in the future).
I never had to convince my spouse that writing was a legitimate way to make a living. I told him it was something I wanted to do and he continues to do whatever he can to allow me to do so.
As far as money goes--I can't quit my day job yet, so money I make for writing is "extra" and most of it goes back into promotion anyway.
I work a day job. You have to be practical about this. You can't eat your art.
I work for the body and write for the soul.
LOL, now that's profound. I even impressed myself.
I'm glad that all of you have such supportive spouses!
But what advice would you offer for those who are not so lucky? What would you tell the writer still living at home with his/her parents or asking them for money? Or what about the writer who'd like to cut back his/her hours and would, therefore, also necessitate a lifestyle change--which would affect the rest of the family?
You cannot count on significant (and by that I mean enough to replace a day job) income from writing until you have money in the bank from sales earning boku interest and/or books in the marketplace that are earning royalties, etc. Even then, don't forget to plan for taxes!
I would tell those who think they are destined to be writers that they already are writers. What we all start out as NOT is people who are paid enough to live on to be writers.
To get there, you need a day job that pays you to live, a little free time (bring a notebook and write (you remember--with a pen!) on your 15 minute breaks if that's all the time you have) and a good deal of perseverance. Some luck never hurts, either. P. S.: You might not get there. Odds are not in favor of it.
Don't make a drastic lifestyle change to stay at home and write a novel unless you are writing the novel for yourself and the joy it brings you without any expectation for it to make money.
Writing income is like a hummingbird looking in through your window. If it perches there a while, it's a beautiful thing. But it can be gone in a heartbeat.
Even Beethoven, at the height of his career, I hear was afraid it could crash and burn around him at any minute.
Ah, the arts!
:)
For the moment, I'm at home with my kids... I will likely be on my way back to work once my littlest ones are in kindergarten, unless I've managed to become wildly successful in the meantime. I would love to be able to write full-time (and my husband would like to be able to sip daiquiris by a pool somewhere while I write full-time), but I have to be realistic.
Hanging out with young kids is definitely a good gig for a writer--you get to write during naptime, and you get to spend your days observing people with absolutely no social inhibitions. I swear most days I feel like Margaret Mead (which is a step up from my kids' earlier days, when I mostly felt like Jane Goodall). As a bonus, I have a set of twins so I get to study Complex Peer Relationships on a minute-to-minute basis.
As for your last question, one of my favorite quotations for creative people is from painter/art professor Irma Cavet: "You need to find a practical way to support your art habit."
I moonlight as a stay-at-home mom and let as much housework as possible slip through the cracks while the kids are at preschool, so I can spend that time writing, or procrastinating from writing by reading blogs about publishing (research!) or less-informative drivel. However, a glitch may be in my future: next year may mean a move to a more-expensive private school, in which case I will need to start making some money from my writing. The thought of it's certainly lighting a fire under my own deadline setting. Time to finish the MS and start submitting. I will also admit, I have a pretty awesome spouse, who mostly overlooks my sorry-excuse-for-a-housewife ways.
I, too, am home with my kids for the moment, and manage to get a significant amount of writing done in between diapers, naps and defcon-5 temper tantrums. But, before kids, I had to work full time and just had to cram writing in whenever I could (sometimes I wrote AT work, which was bad, but I worked in advertising, which will eat your soul like a bucket of fried chicken if you're not careful. I had to do something to keep sane).
I have a writer friend who has had three books published, and she still has to work her day job as a social worker. I hate to say it, but I think quitting or going w/out a day job to focus on writing is unrealistic. If writing is your craft, then you just have to make time for it – after work, on the weekends, on your lunch hour. And just look at working a day job as research. You’re sure to meet a wide-range of kooky people. What could be better fodder for a writer?
I guess I'm extra lucky, because writing IS my day job. I've been a freelance magazine journalist and the director of editorial content for a newspaper for about a decade, and I make more than enough by simply writing/editing at home after the kiddos are in bed.
Since I'm also a mama of three (and my kids homeschool, er, have some great tutors), so my hubby's income is still the "biggest" in our house. That being said...I *could* if need be come pretty close to being the financial support system. I think the key is to be varied in writing talents. By that, I mean, write what pays while working on what doesn't. Magazines need feature writers-- which is a large part of what I do-- but they also need shorties, a unique skill and very marketable to boot. It may not pay as much, but it does add up and jobs are easy to snag. Also, many mags have online-only content now. I make an extra $200-$300 a week just writing short content pieces for a site. $25 a pop, takes about 15 minutes each. Once you break into the non-fiction writing world, it gets easier and easier to be a writer full time.
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