Day Jobs...or our alter-ego's as I like to think of them. A necessary evil that we must endure. All right, its not that bad most of the time. The interaction is good for the writing at any rate. It would take quite a bit for me to abandon my day job. I wonder how it is for full time writers? The imagination needs stimulation from the world outside so there has to be a break from all that isolation at some point.
My day job is accounting. I know...could I have chosen anything more boring? Only, I really didn't choose. It chose me as I'm sure most of your careers found you. Necessity or fate, being at the right place at the right time, these things come together to put us on the path. In my case, I hate math. I detest numbers. But if you put it in the context of money....it just makes sense to me. I am a problem solver and that is my core skill. So managerial and accounting positions are what I excel at. Hard based reality is my life from 9-5 and then my time is my own.
I've had positions before that demanded more time and thought, even after the close of the day. This is not the situation now and I can't tell you the joy of leaving at 5:00 and really leaving....mind and body. My duties are left on the desk for the following morning. If success in writing finds me, I would consider long and hard before abandoning my day job. If a part of you enjoys it, the security and interaction might be something worth keeping.
If your true love is writing, then no matter what your day job happens to be it is the means to an end...or new beginning.
I work in a Middle School library part-time. It's fun and I love buying lots of books! I think of it like and extention of writing.
ReplyDeleteJ.J.: Awesome day job!!! I would love that! And depending on what you write, you have a total IN when your published to have the school district stock your books!
ReplyDeleteI have two districts. My husband is a principal in another one too (in NV). I'm also a member of UELMA so I have state wide (in UT)connections.
ReplyDeleteI work for a nonprofit part time and, as you said, it is the first time that when I leave work, I really get to leave! It's not managerial anymore (thank you, Lord...literally), it's just technical in nature. My last job, people called me at all hours needing things whether I was at work or not. At this job, I work for my allotted time and then leave. It is a beautiful thing. My situation is such that even if writing could be full-time for me, it would take me a while to abandon my current post because I love what I do so much.
ReplyDeleteRegina: That is exactly how I feel about my current job. The last one I had was the same as your last one..it never ended and I was never off the clock. I might never have started writing again if I hadn't left, there just wasn't time to take a breath!
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