Guest Post: Is Paid Work Legit and Unpaid Creative Work a Hobby?

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Ian here—Martha Engber is a writer and personal trainer whose books include Winter Light from Vine Leaves Press (2021 IPPY Gold Medal Winner in Young Adult Fiction), The Wind Thief, and Growing Great Characters From the Ground Up.  Martha and I met during the 2021 Vine Leaves Press online reading for the SMOL Small Press fair, and here she explains how her revelations during the COVID pandemic helped her balance her paid work with her largely unpaid creative work.

In December 2019 I was helping my sister babysit her new granddaughter in Houston, Texas when I received an email acceptance to publish my novel, Winter Light.

I allowed myself a full day of inner quiet to fully enjoy the achievement. At the same time, I’d already had two books published and understood that the moment I signed a contract, I’d spend the next eight months working hard to set up marketing for the book.

Once I signed the contract, the panic set in. I say panic because at the time I was working 45 high-energy hours a week as a fitness instructor and personal trainer at a corporation in Silicon Valley. Continue reading »

Guest Post: Gina Troisi on Trading Freedom, Time, and Health Insurance: Part II

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Ian here—Gina Troisi is a fellow writer, memoirist, and overall awesome person who wrote about finding security with a full-time Day Job in her BIAHADJ guest post last February. At the time she felt good about her decision, but over the last year things have changed, and I invited her back to write a follow-up to explain how. 

Gina’s journey shows us that what works for us at one time in our lives might not work in another, and that it’s always OK to make a change. Enjoy!

I took the Day Job in an office back in 2017 because I felt scattered and overwhelmed, and I thought having a conventional nine-to-five schedule might help me feel more organized and in control of my writing life. It was the first time I wouldn’t have to wonder how much money I’d make each week, and the job came with exceptional benefits that had always seemed desirable but beyond my reach: a retirement fund, paid time off, and excellent health insurance Continue reading »

Guest Post: Gina Troisi on Trading Freedom, Time, and Health Insurance

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Ian here—today’s post comes from Gina Troisi, a writer and fellow Day Jobber who also grew up in New Hampshire. The Angle of Flickering Light, her memoir about abuse, addiction, and escape, will be out this April with Vine Leaves Press, and you can check out her other awesome publications via her website.  She’s also my co-organizer for the Vine Leaves online Zoom reading on March 4th as part of the SMOL Festival, which you can check out here to see both of us read our work.

Gina was kind enough to share her thoughts on the move from part-time-freedom to a new kind of freedom through her full-time office job, so read on to see how she did it….

 

Designing Our Lives Around Art, Not the Other Way Around

Since beginning my low-residency MFA program in 2007 and getting serious about my writing, I’ve perpetually attempted to design my work life to fit around my world of crafting stories. At that point, I’d been waiting tables and bartending in restaurants for years, and while doing this work I found I could make what seemed like a large amount of money in a short amount of time. Continue reading »

Guest Reflection – 3 New Developments a Day

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So two weeks ago I posted about making good use of your time and the challenges that go along with it, which a lot of folks seemed to appreciate.  (A sign that maybe we’re all struggling with the same problems??)

One of those folks happened to be my old board-game playing cohort Darryl Parker, web designer and self-employed entrepreneur who opened up Schoodac’s coffee shop in my hometown of Warner, New Hampshire back in 2015.  He wrote some wise words down in the depths of the comments section about how he manages his time, and I found it way too thought-provoking not to share as its own post: Continue reading »

Guest Post – Life vs. Writing: A Balancing Act

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Angela D’Onofrio is a writer and artist whose series of novels takes place in the fictitious town of Aviario, Connecticut and contains elements of the fantastic (I reviewed one of her Aviario novels, In the Cards, a few weeks back). I met her through a local writer’s group, where I was struck by her dedication to promoting her projects and keeping an active role in her many, many creative communities.  Check out more of her work here, or follow her on Twitter at @AngDonofrio.

 

Hello, fellow writers with day jobs!  Ian approached me a little while ago and asked if I’d like to write a guest post for his blog.  “Sure,” I said, “but let’s do it after National Novel Writing Month, when I’ll be done writing my fingers off…”

Which brings us to the topic of this post: Life vs. Writing. For the past four years, I’ve participated in National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo: a challenge to authors to write the first 50,000 words of a novel draft in a month.  As much as I’d love to be able to tell you that I pummeled my keyboard into submission…alas, Continue reading »

Guest Post – Writing While Parenting

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Charles Hiebner has worked as a pig farmer, a long-haul truck driver, and a warehouse manager for a roofing supply company.  The two of us met in grad school where we took a few writing classes together and shared a cubicle wall as interns at the university press.  His writing projects have included a page-turning crime novel and a thesis about ecoconsciousness and colonial identity on the Great Plains—both at the same time. His next project is to set up a blog to share his work with the world…maybe sometime before his youngest leaves for college.

 

I’m a writer with a day job, one that I actually enjoy a great deal. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to earn my bread with writing, but until that time I have bills to pay. There are other parts of my life that pull me away from the writing desk, like being married. Luckily, my spouse has a day job as well, and writes, and is very patient, encouraging, and understanding of time that I request to write. So, what’s keeping me from cranking out novel after novel?

Well, there are these kids… Continue reading »

Guest Post – The Bullet Journal Saved My Lifestyle

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Jack Hill is hands-down one of the most productive people I’ve ever met and a Day Job veteran who’s worked a bigger variety of jobs than even I have. The two of us spent a lot of time in grad school trying to make sense of how the writing life worked in the 21st century.  Check out his website or follow him on Twitter @xjackhill. Continue reading »

Guest Post – Josh Bresslin: Corrections Officer/Writer

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Josh and I met through a local reading series, and I was struck by how completely he was able to change his entire life to better focus on his creative work.  He’s written one novel already and working on a second, and you can find him on Twitter @Josh_Bresslin or at his website, joshbresslin.com.

 

Six months ago, I was working a county government job as a corrections officer, making about $40,000 a year, and was three years into a 25-year retirement plan.

And I gave it all up. Continue reading »