Quitting the Day Job Ain't No Picnic

I quit the day job - or rather - it quit me many years before I was published. Start up-itis and endless rounds of layoffs. I got axed somewhere near the end. The DH and I had read an analysis somewhere that said something like "In a dual income family, the lower of the two incomes is effectively reduced by at least half." The reasoning went along the lines of - you pay for childcare, increased costs for eating out (because neither spouse has the energy to plan and cook meals), outsourcing costs (house cleaning, yard work, dry cleaning, etc). There was also the possibility that the second income bumped you into a hirer tax bracket so you paid more there, too. And then, there was the loss of leisure time. In a dual income family, free time (the hours you're not at work) is spent doing endless chores and running errands.

We realized the analysis had us pegged. So we made a deal. I'd stay home and manage the household. He'd work a job which provided a paycheck and medical benefits.

It's worked out pretty well, but quitting the day job ain't no picnic. House managing is endless work. It's repetitive and, frankly, boring. It can be enormously satisfying, however, being able to care for your family yourself. And yes. The chores and errands and crises can pile up just like the crap in the photo above - and you're usually on your own in dealing with them. One of the biggest problems I have is that issues, chores and assorted emergencies expand to fill the available time - most notably - the time wherein I'd normally be writing.

The trick is to realize there is no leaving your day job. You merely trade one for another. In my case, I went from database administration to managing every aspect of a household. I have to schedule it and I have to schedule writing. If I don't, neither gets done. Sure, people call asking me to do x or y or z, because I'm not working. But I am. It's yet another challenge for the self-employed - if I don't respect the fact that I'm working, no one else will, either.

Did my wordcount soar when I went to working from home? Nope. I suspect each of us really has a daily upper wordcount limit. Our story generation engines only work so far ahead...and one can only stave off tendonitis for so long.

Oh. Just to be fair, the DH and I did trade off. He stayed home and I went back to work. Lasted for 18 months. He hated it. If you're an extrovert who generates energy by interacting with other people, I'd urge you to hesitate before you quit your day job. You may find a bunch of your mental stimulation comes from working with people who challenge you (in a good way, usually). 

Since I seemed a better personality fit for the work from home model, we switched back. Though, one of the adult toy shops up the road is hiring. I admit it's tempting. Just for a change and a little mental - er - stimulation.

Don't Quit Your Day Job

by Allison Pang

I always find it greatly amusing when people at work find out I'm published. There's the usual questions about how many books I've sold and how I find the time to do it and how did I manage to do it...and then the big one.

"So when are you quitting?"

It's always asked in complete seriousness. And why wouldn't it be? The average person who isn't a heavy reader really only knows the big names - Roberts, King, Meyer, Rowling, etc. The mega-stars of the author world who get massive royalties and movie deals and tie-ins and dancing pool boys.

The realities of the mid-list are much less glamorous, I'm afraid. (Though there is always hope.)

I've heard a number of horror stories over the last several years of enthusiastic young writers who just sold their first book, only to eagerly claim they immediately quit their job so they could write full time...without doing any of the research on how the money got to them. (Not to rehash the math of earlier posts, but...yeah. Those advances usually get chopped and sent out in tiny bits here and there, and your agent will take their cut...and then, that's what you've got.)

It probably goes without saying that before you make any sort of major life or career change, one really should weigh out all the pros and cons. It's not much fun to burn bridges...or to have to eat crow to beg for one's job back a few months later.

But the earlier posts of this week from my fellow word-whores has laid it out pretty accurately. The romanticism of starving artists aside, I *like* having food on my table. But more to the point, I like not having to worry.

Would I like to be able to support myself and my family on my writing alone? Absolutely! I'd love to be a full time writer too - but as Jeffe pointed out, sometimes having all that time equals a lot of wasted chances. I know me well enough to realize I'd probably waste a lot of said writing time farting around on the internet. Or cleaning. Or something equally procrastinatory.  There's an upside to having a limited amount of time to create, if only because you're stuck making the most of it.

Or to put it another way - if my daily goal is 1000 words or 1500 words or whatever, I'd feel a lot better about myself if I managed it in the 2 hours I have. If it took me all day to write that, every day? I'd feel as though I were missing a lot of my life.

Personally, I think Tuck has it pretty solid - he's got a day job that he loves and a writing job that he loves, and if you can swing that, then life is golden.

I'm not quite that lucky, but I did manage to snag a job that pays pretty well, gives me benefits and also allows me flexibility - I can work from home if I need to on some days, I can leave early to get kids, I can come in a little late. And no one cares, as long as the work gets done. (If you have small children, you know how valuable this is - the best laid plans can go so horribly awry with a fever, and having a work culture that is happy to oblige is a godsend.)

Then too, for many artistic types, you're really only as good as your next gig. You might be able to ride that little bit of fame for a while if it gets you a nice big advance, but unless it's something that sets you up for life, chances are you're going to have to keep plugging away at a new project anyway.

So that's what most of us do. We work and write and wait for the big moment to happen. If it happens. In the meantime, we dream of pool boys.

WHEN TO TAKE THE LEAP?

This week's topics are about day jobs and how they relate to writing. I am in a bit of a different situation than most because my day job is owning a tattoo shop. I work when I want and get paid well. If I am at the shop and not actually tattooing then I can use that time to write. The majority of all the writing I do is done at the shop. I am not quitting anytime soon. When I do retire from tattooing I will still be able to run and own the shop with no problem. So I will always have a day job, no matter how successful my writing becomes.

However, I know a LOT of writers, both published and prepublished. They almost all have day jobs. I know NYT Bestsellers who still work the day job. Mostly for the additional benefits that come with it. So when should you quit and write full time? When you can afford to.

 It's a simple answer that is complex as hell and Jeffe did a great job yesterday covering a lot of the mechanics of it. But to write full time you are going to need either health insurance, which is astronomical, or no family to need insurance. If you are young and single then you can be a full time writer living on someone's couch. But have a kid, or even just a spouse and suddenly you need to look at benefits. Or you spouse has to hold the normal job to provide the bennies. It's math and economics.

The majority of us will always work a day job.

 Writing is wonderful, but the pie is getting smaller and the mouths that want a piece more numerous. Most of us have commitments (houses, spouses, kids with stomachs, etc) and those commitments are next to impossible to meet on the pay schedule writing gives you. So if you are still working and writing afterwards, join the club.

 Don't feel bad about it.

 Dream the dream but keep on making words. Don't get discouraged in anyway if you can't stop working the day job. It doesn't mean you are less successful than anyone else. You make your life work for you.

And now to provide some visual stimulation here some stuff I did at my day job. :)