Leaving the Day Job - Don't Forget the Barbed Wire

A week ago I snickered to myself about how I didn't know how to write about what it's like not having a day job because I still had a day job. 

Now I don't. 

I guess this will be a learn-as-I-go adventure. I'm not raking in the sweet, sweet book cash. Not yet. The only reason I'm not running around like my hair's on fire is because there's a fall back position. I'm privileged to have a partner who does have steady employment. Let's not talk about how close he came to a layoff three days ago while we believed my position was secure. He got word he was safe and two days later my super-safe job evaporated. God, I love recession fears in the tech world. Sigh. 

This does bring me to the easiest way to cushion the slings and arrows and uncertainty of working for yourself. Have a cushion. That cushion could be someone else's steady income that your writing income supplements. That cushion could also be that you budget and plan to build a financial safety net that buys you time. If you want a year free and clear before you have to hit the bricks for another job, you better have done the math and have the cash stowed. Add up your burn rate - the amount of money per month you need to survive. Don't forget medical insurance in those costs. Factor in an emergency or two - car, veterinary, a rush airline ticket - whatever suits your circumstance. While you are gainfully employed in something that reliably hands you cash, start saving. If you make a sale or three while you are working a day job, put part of that advance into the 'writing full time' fund. Plan your exit date from the day job. Don't burn bridges! You may need that network one day. Keep writing. Keep publishing - either via a trad house or via self publishing. The money books bring in replenishes the financial cushion. The more you bring in, the longer you can stretch out the fund to support you through dry spells. Because those happen to the best and the worst of us alike.

What's it like not working a day job, though? It's randomizing. It's a little like living in a castle or a
walled city that is constantly under siege. The moment you aren't working a day job, people come out of the woodwork wanting your time and your energy because - well - you aren't 'working' working. Without really clear, strong boundaries, you'll find your entire day vanishes into a haze of doing things that serve everyone but you. 

Plan to put up barbed wire around your writing time and space. It helps to have a door that closes, maybe locks. Create the structure around writing that makes sense to you. It is the biggest piece writers miss when thinking about leaving a day job to write full time - the structure. With a day job sucking all the air out of the room, you had to fit fiction into the cracks and corners. The limits and structure around those times likely lent a sense of urgency to your word count  because you didn't have much time. Now, without a day job, the day stretches long like a highway across the desert. It's a mirage. Without planned structure in place, you'll blink and realize you haven't written a word or thought about your story for a week. Or more. It's a hard lesson to learn to say no to people, but it is necessary. It's a lesson I still struggle to learn. Just like I'm unexpectedly having to learn how to exist again without a day job defining my time. So as much is it unsettles me, check this space. There may be further developments in the 'what's it like to leave the day job' world.

Quitting the Day Job - What's It Really Like?

THE LONG NIGHT OF THE RADIANT STAR - a midwinter holiday fantasy romance in the Heirs of Magic world - is out in the world!

       

This week at the SFF Seven, we're talking Secret Identities! As in, the work we do on the side to make ends meet, partners helping to support us, and quitting the day job.

I'm fortunate that I was able to quit the day job - 18 years of a career as an environmental consultant - about 7 years ago. It was one of those things where the day job quit me: my team was downsized, I got laid off with affection and good severance pay, and I decided to try making a go of it writing for a living and NOT getting another day job. In truth, I was more than ready for that moment. At the same time, I kept waiting to make as much money from writing as I did from the day job (including the value of benefits), which was never quite happening. If I hadn't been kicked from the nest, I might never have voluntarily left it. 

That said, it's the best thing that ever happened to me. My husband has Parkinson's Disease and is no longer able to work, so apart from a small retirement income and his social security payment, keeping us afloat is up to me. That reality has made me really hustle with my writing. Between self-publishing and traditional publishing, I'm now making what I was with the day job.

And I'm ever so much happier. Seriously, after having essentially two careers for over 20 years, it was such a relief to focus on just one. Plus, all the meetings and phone calls I have are about books and writing. It's the best life!

I don't do much work on the side. I do some author coaching and teach the occasional workshop - I'm considering doing more classes - but it's important to me for the happiness quotient. I want writing and making books to be the priority. That's what I quit the day job to have. 

Stumbling into What You Shouldn't Do

I didn’t necessarily want to be a writer. Certainly no one ever suggested it. The first person to mention it was a high school biology teacher who told me he’d haunt me if I didn’t end up a writer. I preened, but I also smiled and nodded and dismissed the comment because I'd already had The Talk. 

Writing doesn't put food on the table.

So I didn't want to be a writer. Telling myself stories was just something I did. It was a way to pass the time until I got where I really wanted to go. The Air Force Academy. I was going to fly fighter jets. Yeah, I didn’t care that women couldn’t pilot fighters in those days. It was a stupid ass rule then and it’s changed now. I was confident that if I got to the academy, I could and would change minds. I studied hard.

All the while, I told myself stories. I did that because no one knew my childhood was filled with sleepless nights. I thought it took everyone two to three hours to fall asleep every night. I didn’t question. I just filled those hours in the quiet and the dark spinning unlikely adventures in my head. Finally, one boring summer, I borrowed Mom’s typewriter and committed a few of those unlikely adventures to paper. But it was just a lark. I was going to the Air Force Academy.

Stories were my therapy; a place to dump the angst of the day. I kept writing them down. Got made fun of a few times when people would run across a page and read it. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to stop. It was too useful a tool and it was something to do until I got where I wanted to go.

When my father found a page and scoffed at the admittedly terrible writing, I got the dinner table lecture. You know the one. Writing doesn’t put food on the table. I, responsibly, I thought, refrained from asking him who wrote newspapers and magazines and TV shows and movies. Instead, I responded that I didn’t want to be a writer. I wanted to be a pilot. Dad looked disappointed. You should be an engineer, he said. To make him happy, I took technical drawing to see if I could master even the simplest part of being an engineer. No. That answer was decidedly no. I couldn’t. Back to piloting. I joined the Civil Air Patrol as a steppingstone to the Air Force Academy. I joined the Sea Scouts – padding the resume, you know.

And then, at a physical during my sophomore year in high school, my doctor had to sit me down and explain to me why I would never join the military, much less go to the Air Force Academy. It was a medical issue – genetic. Nothing to be done about it except to accept the hard facts. And honestly, if you know me, you already know the military was an epically stupid idea given my issues with authority. I soothed myself with stories, but I still wasn’t interested in being a writer. It was just a past time - something I did to make myself feel better.

I won’t lie. I flailed for a few years. What do you do when you lose the thing you thought you’d wanted? I went to college because it was something to do – not because I had anything in mind. A psychology professor tossed off a comment – Marcella processes the world through writing – that burrowed in, and the thought finally landed. Maybe I could be a writer. Maybe my silly little stories could mean something to someone besides me. What if they could?

Detours ensued. Jobs – because poverty sucks. Life. A few published books under my belt.

And here I am. Proving my dad wrong. I am putting food on the table because I’m writing. Granted. It isn’t fiction, necessarily, though that happens, too. I’m a technical writer in my day job. It’s writing. It pays well. I still tell myself stories. Sometimes, those stories mature enough to make it out into the world for other people to read, though admittedly, it takes longer now with a day job. Do I still dream of writing a great big hit and retreating to the ivory tower of writing full time? Of course. But until that day I pay bills with writing. And I tell myself silly stories. You should do that last bit for yourself, too.

 

Getting that Word Count While Traveling - How Do You Do It?

I'm delighted to announce that THE SHIFT OF THE TIDE is up for preorder!! A few others will be coming soon, but - as with many things - Amazon is fast and efficient, making us both love and loathe them. Smashwords wants me to promise to upload the final doc ten days before release and I ... just can't. Ten days is forever in my world, regrettable as that may be. But, hey! The book is coming along really well, and I'm tentatively thrilled with it.

~knocks on wood~

~tosses salt over shoulder~

~pets black cat and gives it extra treats~

Want to see a little snippet? Okay! (It's a teensy bit spoilery of THE EDGE OF THE BLADE, if you haven't read that yet. Fair Warning. Just skip down to the next *** to avoid.)


***

We reached the ship, a rope ladder thrown down for us. Marskal treaded water with apparent ease, helping me grab ahold and steadying it as I climbed. Hands reached down from above, helping me over the rail. Then Jepp had me in a fierce hug, her compact, vital body hard against me. She was laughing and cursing, rocking me from side to side, then pulled back and kissed me hard on the mouth.

A man’s big hand tugged her back. “None of that now.” Kral, fully outfitted in his shining black Dasnarian armor, though with the faceplate up, winked at me. “I have to watch her every second.”

Jepp made a face at him. “You liked the idea well enough when we invited—”

“Shut up, Jepp,” Kral cut her off pleasantly and she grinned at him, then snapped to attention, giving Marskal the Hawks’ salute.

Lieutenant!”

A dripping Marskal shook his head at her with a wry smile. “You don’t report to me any longer, remember?”

Jepp dropped her fist with an abashed grin. “Old habits, don’t you know.” She looked between us. “So that’s how you knew the signal. I recognized your sparkly blue magic globe thingy, but couldn’t figure out the rest.” She eyed Marskal. “You’re going to have to kill her now, you know.”

He returned her sally with a very serious nod. “So I’ve already informed her.”

“Just make me a Hawk already then,” I told them.

Jepp got a speculative expression and Marskal looked me up and down as if guessing my weight. “We don’t have any Tala. A shapeshifter and sorceress could come in handy.”

“She’s a terrible soldier, though,” Jepp pointed out. “Never follows orders. Might as well conscript a cat.”

“True.” Marskal rubbed his chin. “Plus she’d never make it through the initiation.”

“Guess it’s death then,” Jepp agreed cheerfully, making to draw her big bladed knife. She’d tied a scarf to the end of it, crimson ends fluttering in the breeze that matched the rest of her silk and leather outfit. With her short hair, dark skin and the exotic clothing, she looked even more a pirate now than when we found her fleeing the Dasnarians on the stolen Hákyrling.

“Not on the deck,” Kral cautioned. “You’ll stain the wood.”

***

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is Writing On The Road: How to stay on task while traveling.

And, boy howdy, is this a hard one.

I have to tell you all: when I was traveling for the day job all the time (by "all the time," I mean 1-2 weeks out of every month), it was super hard for me to maintain any kind of writing schedule or productivity. I would have solid goals and determination, planning to get up early and write before we left the hotel, to write in the evenings when we were done for the day, to write on the airplane. Most of those things never happened. Jet lag and time zone differences would nix the getting up early. Having that much-desired cocktail with clients would sabotage the evening writing plans. Plain old being tired and having my brain eaten by the day job took care of the rest.

After a while, I pretty much didn't even try. I figured day job travel meant no word count and I took it out of the equation, figuring I'd write when I was actually at home. Which pretty much worked.

But, my productivity and quality of work absolutely increased tenfold when I stopped having to travel for that project.

Those of you who travel regularly for the day job and still manage to write? I have mad respect for you.

These days, my main challenge is being at conferences. Most of the time, I figure on writing on the plane on the way to the conference. I'm in the groove still, and - if the flights - are long enough, I can often get a regular day's worth of writing in.

(Yes, your seat mate will totally read over your shoulder. I figure they get what they get.)

Once at the conference, on the first day, maybe the second, I can get in *some* words. I get up, exercise, find a latte and something to eat, then bring it back to my room. At that point, any words are good words, just to keep my fingers on the reins.

After that - and, depending on the con, sometimes for the whole time - I get nothing written and I try to be okay with that. I look on it as well refilling. Same with vacations.

We talked about that last week, taking some breaks and time between works. If I can manage it - and I'm getting better at this - I try to figure in conferences and vacations as breaks between projects. Rather than feeling frustrated or anxious about not getting my word count in, I figure those days into my schedule as non-work days. Anything I do get is gravy.

But, I realize this is a luxury on my part, something I can do because I no longer have the day job. Before I wrote full time, I absolutely could not have afforded that time.

So those of you who do write on the road - how do you do it???