In the past, I have written about having a day job while also pursuing writing. As I have mentioned, there are both pros and cons to having that day job. On the plus side, you may get writing ideas from your workplace. On the other hand, your day job may cause you to be so exhausted at the end of the day that you don’t have the time or energy to get to your writing.
Though I’m sure we have all experienced the ups and the downs of this particular situation, I think we’re all forgetting something that can be placed in the “pros” column. In a recent post on Chuck Wendig’s blog, Terrible Minds, author Tom Pollock wrote guest post all about Writing Around a Day Job. Pollock offers some really great pointers for writing when most of your day is occupied by something that brings home your bacon. One of the things that he does is entreat those of us who have a day job to just enjoy writing!
Pollock writes, “Frankly, everybody who writes, day job or not, ought to be having fun with it, otherwise why bother? But this is one of those areas where keeping the civilian occupation can be a positive boon. If you aren’t looking for this book to pay your gas bill, it frees you up to write whatever the hell turns you on.”
He’s right! No matter what your situation, if you’ve chosen to include writing in your life, you should be enjoying it! If you’re not enjoying it, you should stop right now, or at least evaluate the project that you’re working on to see why you’re not enjoying it. Not everything can be fun, and there will certainly be un-fun parts of writing, but you should enjoy at least some parts of the process.
But for those of us who have something else going on in our lives that supplies us with money we need to live, writing should be even more fun. Sure, it might be nice to have writing be our main activity on a day-to-day basis, but that might introduce unwanted stress and pressure into the equation. For now, just enjoy the writing that you do, whenever you get the chance to do it.
– Jet Fuel Blog Editor, Mary Egan
