Don’t quit your day job…
When most people hear this sentence, they hear “you’ll never get this” or “don’t bother” or “no one can be a working writer.” But I want us to think differently about this for a second.
Let’s just talk to the Intellection authors only (the ones who like to think, and who need to think deeply in order to work well). The stakes of trying to make writing pay all the bills too quickly can often freeze dominant Intellection or Strategic, because the thought of not making money makes the fear kick up. And fear is the enemy of creativity.
That’s just one specific example, though. There are all kinds of reasons why not-quitting-the-day-job is a good idea, including the fact that it allows you the freedom to find your voice as a writer, and the freedom to do the Research and Development phase (phase one of any business) correctly.
Rick Rubin did an interview where he talked about this, saying something to the effect of, “take care of yourself and your needs so you can take care of your creativity.” But we often don’t take seriously the stress that using-writing-to-pay-the-bills can put on our creativity.
I’m not saying don’t enjoy being a full-time writer if you are one. Especially if it’s going well. Enjoy it. And also, for those of us who are still in the research and development phase, taking our needs seriously and our sustainability seriously is *part* (an important part) of taking our creativity seriously.
Of course, Rubin (and thinkers like Elizabeth Gilbert) go on to say that making writing pay the bills can be dangerous… and for some brains, it is. Being forced to write something you don’t want to write because you need a paycheck can be stressful for some of us, and no amount of success is going to make that better. So if you’re in that space, you’re not alone.
Also, I don’t think that there’s anything magical about having a day job. (Other than the freedom it can provide you to write whatever you want, or to be in the learning curves.)
What I do think is magical… being fully present in your moment in the timeline. When you take the fullest advantage of all the learning and all the progress you can make from every moment in your career, that’s the magic.
The timeline is bigger than the moment we are in currently.
It’s not to say “don’t be frustrated” or “don’t be in pain.” It’s to say, “take full advantage of the ability to be in the research and development phase.” It’s to say, meet your own needs, take care of your own house, make sure your body/mind/system is secure so you can get to the important work you’re going to do in this industry. Or in the world.
Everything that has a beginning has an end.
I don’t know if I’ll post this or not because talking about these things often brings out a lot of feelings in writers, and it should. We should feel all the way through those feelings cycles, and sometimes, yelling at me or rolling your eyes at me is the point of frustration you need to enter the emotion cycle and then get to the action point.
But I’m speaking from the inside, not the outside. I also have a “day job.” Even with my nonfiction book releases and fiction pen names, I don’t make a full-time living as an author anymore. I haven’t released a fiction book in two years, and I haven’t released a nonfiction book in a year. Book sales are not paying all my bills right now. So I’m in the R&D phase again, as well. Do I want to write full-time again? Of course. But I’m also going to take the fullest advantage of the R&D phase I possibly can. I’m loving writing right now, specifically because I don’t have to worry about whether or not it’s paying my bills. Do I have to quit writing in fifteen minutes to go to work? Yes. But I’ll come back to it.
We have to be willing to do what we need to do, and willing to go on the journey and exist inside the struggle. And care for ourselves in the meantime. “Don’t quit the day job” is a reminder to take care of ourselves in the moment and see to our needs, and then hunker down for the learning curve (because I love me a good learning curve).
You may think, “I know all this, Becca.” Right. But your body doesn’t. The stress of “if it doesn’t happen now, it won’t happen” or the stress of “I’ve been doing this for so long and it’s not working,” is inhabiting us. All I’m asking is for us to imagine that there’s more timeline in front of us.
This is why my focus has been on sustainability. Just the reminders that we’re in this for our lifetime. Many of us dip back and forth between being full-time authors and not. Many of us dip back and forth between extreme levels of sales and medium. Any upswing can come in the future.
You don’t know what moment in the timeline you’re in. (I know, I know. It feels patronizing to some of us, when I say that, and you may be very right to feel that way, and I apologize. I do not mean to be patronizing. I mean to remind us, there’s more timeline ahead of us.)
Love you all. I’m off to work. But. Later, there will be writing…
– Becca
