How to Quit Your Day Job - Or Knowing When Not To

It's the Holy Grail for most writers, the brass ring, the sign that you've Made It. It's absolutely one of my personal success goals.

Quitting the Day Job.

The phrase has been around for a long time, usually tossed off when an aspiring musician plays or sings, and the listeners shake their heads, saying "don't quit your day job." Yeah, it's an insult. It means you're not good enough to risk trying to make a living by the art. Or the acting. Or the athletic performance.

It's a truism of our culture that, if you aspire to these callings, you almost always have to take a more pedestrian job, until you build up enough of a reputation - and possibly craft - to make a real income. There's also the ever-present role of serendipity: waiting for that big break.

Quite a few writers I know first aspired to it partly so they could work from home, often to be there with the kids. The joke is often on them, since in several cases, the kids were grown and gone before the writer really hit success.

I am lucky to have a great day job - one that allows me to work from home anyway, so that motivation is gone. They also pay me well, far more than I make from writing so far. I work with really smart, interesting and interested people, doing something I believe is important and serves other people. (I often get asked, so if you're interested, I work mainly on keeping drinking water clean.)

And yet, I would quit my day job in an instant, if the money balance shifted.

Why? Because the writing is the thing I really want to focus on.

So, how do you know when it's time to quit the day job? Not on that first book sale, almost certainly. Unless you have a trust fund or a spouse with excellent income.

The decision boils down to three things: finances, self-discipline and emotional balance.

Finances

This seems like a no-brainer, but it's the part most people don't fully think through. It's not enough to have a big advance. Even if you're lucky enough to get a $30K advance - which is *really* good these days for newbies - you have to figure on that money trickling in over likely three years. Don't plan on earning out before a couple of years, either. Can you live on $10K/year? (Hint: the poverty level for a one-person household in 2012 in the contiguous US is $11,170.)

You also have to know if you can replicate your success. Publishers have no obligation to keep you employed. Can you sell more books? Consistently enough to keep your income reasonably steady? Often this only comes about for writers once they have a substantial backlist - a number of books that, combined, generate overall reliable sales.

Finally, if you're figuring that your book sales need to be equivalent to your day job income, remember to factor in the value of benefits. The day job might provide health insurance, dental benefits and retirement benefits that you would have to handle on your own. My company provides, by way of showing us just how well they treat us, a "translation" of our salaries with the value of benefits added in. I found it very helpful of them to show me the true cost of my emancipation.

Self-Discipline

I struggled with the right description for this and I'm still not convinced it's the best one. A couple of weeks ago, I did a post on my personal blog titled "Why the Last Thing You Need Is More Time to Write." The thing is, not many of us are really equipped to have hours and hours of writing time. I'm lucky that I've worked from home for years and have a pretty disciplined routine for it. Conversely, I've had people work for me for the day job from home, who utterly and completely fell apart. One guy, who'd been in the military, would get online so he appeared to be there, then would nap, run errands, do favors for friends. Without a schedule and someone telling him what to do, he was lost. And he lost the job.

Working from home sounds fun to people. They talk wistfully of no commutes, wearing pajamas all day, setting their own schedules. And then find that they missing getting out of the house and that they have to get dressed and establish an external schedule, so as not to wile the time away.

Which leads me to...

Emotional Balance

Being a full-time writer doesn't mean that every day is Caturday. It can be lonely and stressful. You get very little external feedback, other than reviews and sales, much of it long after you did the work. No one gives you a raise or a bonus or even gives you a performance review. Worse, your family and friends will likely have no idea what your days are about, other than that you're at home and thus available. Your spouse and children may snarkily suggest that staring into space doesn't count as writing. You might start to feel that way, too.

You might start to feel a little crazy.

I think this is a very real danger for writers. It's easy to lose that grounding in the real world, to lose perspective. Like with George W. Bush not knowing what a grocery store scanner was, insulation from the larger world can lead to an unhealthy isolation. And, by the way, those family and friends don't count, because you don't have to interact with them professionally and they don't see you in any kind of objective way.

So, it's something to think about. Things to plan for. Given all that, would I still quit my day job?

In a heartbeat.

What Don't You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

Remember that imagination-provoking question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Remember when that question turned into, "In what are you going to major?"

Remember when the first time reality slapped you in the face and told you you couldn't be doctor-spy-starlet because you'd flunked science, didn't know seven languages, and couldn't remember your lunch much less your lines?

~sob~

Once I'd endured that rather unfortunate dream-crushing meeting with reality, I was bereft, adrift, and well...clueless. What to do with my life? How would I earn a living? Who would give me a penthouse office in Geneva?

 What? A girl can dream.

Without any notion of what "realistic" and "practical" job I could acquire, I determined to figure it out by process of elimination. I've made grand strides in discovering what I don't want to be by taking a turn through the following industries:

Retail, Banking, Oil, Recruiting, Oil, Media 

Technically, I'm not done playing with Media. I just prefer to be on the "talent" side of the industry.

Photo: http://www.motifake.com/aim-high-goals-demotivational-posters-151829.html

SING A LITTLE BIT OF THESE WORKIN MAN BLUES

I love being a writer. I truly do. Everything about it, even the tedious things (a million emails I'm looking at you.). I also love my day job which is owning and operating the best damn tattoo shop in the world. But I have worked a ton of jobs that weren't so great. I've been a bouncer, a collection agent for Citibank, a youth pastor, a cook, a sunroom builder, a comic book shop jockey, and many, many more. I've been working since 2 weeks before my 15th birthday. I'm not complainin', just sayin'. I have worked all my life. Today you get the story of the first job I ever walked out on. I was 16, driving, and in need of a job so that I could put gas in said car so that I could keep on driving. So like most teens I hit the mall looking for a job. Low and behold I snagged a job at the Manchu Wok in the food court. They needed a dishwasher and I needed a paycheck so the two of us met in the middle and I was hired. It was a terrible job. I was the dishwasher, which is fine. I have gone on to wash many a dish in my life at all kinds of restaurants. It's hard work, but it's simple and because washing dishes kinda sucks it usually pays alright. Well, this job was really weird. First of all, I was the only non-Asian person working there and other than being shown where the sink was by the lady who was in charge NO ONE WOULD TALK TO ME. None. Not a person. Not the lady in charge, not the food runner, not the cook, oh hell no not the cook. Ever meet someone and know immediately that they do not like you? That was the case with me and the cook. He was smiling when he was talking to the food runner, then the lady in charge tells him I will be the new dishwasher (I am assuming. It was not in english.)and it looked like he had an attack of stomach flu. His face twisted into the deepest scowl I have ever seen. In a split second he switched completely. I wasn't concerned. I wasn't there to make friends with the cook. I was there to make money. I figured I would work hard and he would come around. Oh no. I took my station, washing the stack of pans already there. It was a deep three bay sink. One sink with hot soapy water. One sink with a disinfectant rinse, one sink with hot rinse water. The Manchu Wok was a food court chinese resturant where they keep the dishes of the day in hotpans out front. as the pans get low, the cook would make a fresh batch of whatever the item was then I would wash the wok and put it in the stack of clean woks for his use. The food runner would bring over the empty pans and stack them up on the counter beside the sink as he filled the new items. The first refill of something, egg rolls, sesame chicken, whatever, goes out. The cook is done with the wok. He screams something at me that sounds like a pterodactyl attacking a baby pig and hurls the hot wok at me and the sink. CLANG! He doesn't hit me, it hits the sink full of hot soapy water, splashing it and oil residue up on the rubber apron I am wearing. It's not enough to flip out on this old Asian man (seriously, he looked to be about 70), it's just enough to annoy the hell out of me. This happens over and over all night for all three hours I was working. Finally the shift was over. The lady came back and pointed at two bags of trash. "Take those out." I picked them up and took them out the back hallway to the dumpster. I kept on walking to my car. I didn't go back for my check. I went and found another job the next day. Worst job ever. And to commemorate it, here's some Merle Haggard for you.

Jobs I've Worked: Guess the Lie!

No, I've never worked in a bookstore, surprisingly enough. It would have been a natural fit, but somehow the circumstances never aligned to allow it to happen.

I think that's the way most jobs occur, even careers - you fall into the opportunity. Writing is one of the few careers not like that, I think. Maybe because it takes so much persistence and effort, but no one just offers you a job writing novels.

And yes, most of the jobs I've held were offered to me. My favorite way to do things. I've held all sorts of jobs through the years, as most of us have. So I think we should play the Three Truths and a Lie game (only this is 13 truths). Below is a list of all the jobs I've worked. One is not true. A random commenter who guesses correctly which one is a lie gets a copy of Rogue's Pawn (either pdf or epub).

Ooh! My first Rogue's Pawn giveaway!

1. Babysitter
2. Runner for a law firm
3. Unaccompanied Minor Runner for United Airlines
4. Movie theater concessions girl
5. Apple picker
6. Cocktail waitress
7. Restaurant hostess
8. Lake water sampler
9. Lab technician
10. Teacher
11. Editor for a chemical/petroleum group
12. Environmental consultant
13. Newsletter editor
14. Dishwasher

Okay, let's hear those guesses!

THAT THING THAT I DO

I have a terrific day job. Really, it's one of the most awesome day jobs in the world.
I get to work here:


This is my tattoo shop. Family Tradition Tattoo in Marietta, Ga. I've been tattooing now for over 15 years. I love it. I opened my own shop about 3 years ago and it is exactly what I wanted. A quiet place where grown ups come to get nice tattoos. No crowds of 'hanger out-ers' to wade through, usually we have blues or country or pop playing on the stereo, and we stay drama free. I have great artists who work there with me and I like them both as people, so work is a pleasure.


And I get to do stuff like this to people....and they PAY me for it!





Now in my day job I do run into a LOT of people. You will see some of these people show up in my books. No I never tattooed a Were-spider, but I did tattoo a lady that reminds me of Charlotte. In my day job I also get to meet people who are experts in weird stuff that I wind up using in my books. I have tattooed on police officers, undercover officers, military folks, firemen, and "contract security specialists" (read that last one as mercenaries). Yes some folks are full of BS, but not all.

And I learned the patience it takes to write a book. Sitting there slogging through the fifth hour of someone's seven hour tribal sleeve where I am just packing black, endlessly making little tiny circles with my machine and staying on task was where I learned to sit down for 4 hours to get out a few thousand words on an 80,000 word manuscript.

I am thoroughly enjoying both of my jobs now. See?