The Day Job Blog

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Are you hard at work on projects that bring you tremendous fulfillment but don’t exactly pay in folding money? Do you face the ever-harrowing struggle of balancing creative work with life’s other responsibilities? Is the job where you spend a substantial portion of your time not what really drives you, even though you do it anyway?

Then you’ve come to the right place. We all gotta keep the bills paid.

Sometimes I Have Adventures in Japan, Series 11

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…except not so much right now in these times of Coronavirus precaution.  Since my last update on Coronavirus in Japan, the number of COVID-19 cases hasn’t exploded like it has in a lot of other countries, and as of this writing, around 1,800 cases have been confirmed here.  That’s far less than in the U.S. and a lot of other countries that have been hardest hit.  The exact reasons for this are still unclear as this article explains, and most COVID-19 cases are still concentrated in a few areas (Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and the northern island of Hokkaido, with Tokyo being the epicenter for new cases in the past week).

My prefecture of Toyama still doesn’t have any confirmed cases, and out here the stores are all still in business and the schools have reopened.  As such, it’s been kind of surreal to read the news from back home and worldwide, and to read how people are reacting to the pandemic and the requests to stay home.  Stay smart, and stay safe, everybody. Continue reading »

Three-Quarters of the Way There: An Interview with Andrew Marshall

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Andrew Marshall works as a photographer, painter, videographer, writer, and podcaster, the combination of which make up his entire income.  Much of his work focuses on outdoor exploration: his writing’s been featured in Upventur and Backpacking Light (for whom he also produces a podcast), and he’s photographed landscapes from Scotland  to Yosemite Valley.  I called him via Skype to talk about self-employment, balancing promotion with creativity, and what it’s like to leave your Day Job.

 

I. I’ve Sought Out More Hands-On Work

 

But I Also Have a Day Job: So, going back a ways, why did you choose art school?

Andrew Marshall: I wanted to make movies.  I was a film major at SCAD [Savannah College of Art and Design] and I had wanted to be a filmmaker since I saw Jurassic Park when that came out in 1994.  It took a while, but I think what I eventually realized is that I wanted a job that was exciting, and I wanted a job that would take me around the world and that felt like an adventure, and filmmaking was a way to do that. Continue reading »

Don’t Try to Hide Your Economic Privilege

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I’ve been thinking a lot about this article in The Guardian I read a few days ago, where novelist Lynn Steger Strong talks about the financial difficulties of making it as a writer.  We all know that paying your bills through any kind of creative work is a daunting challenge, but Strong’s article shines some light on whether we talk about our financial situations honestly, or with a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Quick note—this post will probably make a lot more sense if you read Strong’s article first.  If you’re in a hurry or otherwise don’t want to, though, no sweat—you should still be able to get something out of this post! Continue reading »

Once in a While I Get Really Depressed, and That’s OK

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I went through a pretty rough patch a few weeks ago—like, stay in bed until four o’clock on a Sunday rough, stomach’s so upset you can’t finish your lunch rough, harboring doubts about your entire life’s direction rough.  The worst of this miserable cesspool overcame me for two and a half days (about 54 hours by my count), but its effects lingered for the next two weeks as smaller problems that wouldn’t normally bother me started hitting me hard—and that was all kinds of not fun.

I’d rather not share the specifics of what set off this depressive episode, though in retrospect I’ve realized that it was caused by a lot of different factors, including Day Job problems, personal issues, Coronavirus risks, the fact that it’s fucking cold and murky during the Toyama winter, and Continue reading »

Coronavirus Update: What’s Going On in Japan?

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Over the past few days I’ve gotten a barrage of texts and calls from friends and family back in the States who’ve heard the Coronavirus news from Japan and wanted to reach out.  I’m grateful that so many of you have expressed concern, and thought a blog post might be a better (i.e., time-saving) way to keep you updated on what’s going on with COVID-19 in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Last Thursday night, Japan time, Prime Minister Abe announced his request that all Japanese elementary, junior high, and high schools close for the next month to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.  The move came at a time when about 200 cases of the virus have been found throughout Japan (excluding the passengers of the cruise ship docked in Yokohama).  Around 50 of these cases have been in the northern island of Hokkaido, Continue reading »

Quick Reminder: I Want to Keep Pushing Myself to Be Better

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It depresses me to think that one day I might look at my life, brush some imaginary dust off my hands, heave an enormous sigh, and announce, “Whelp, this is all there is!  There’s nowhere else I can go, so I might as well keep things exactly the way they are!”

It depresses me even more to think that this could happen while I’m still in my thirties.

I hate the idea of slowing down, smothering your self-development, and ceasing to take on new challenges.  I also hate the idea of complacently, Continue reading »

2020 Update: How Often Do I Check My Email?

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Back in the early days of this blog I wrote about my problems checking email too often during the day.  At the time, too much email checking was leading to all kinds of distractions while I dealt with the little replies and messages coming at me from all directions.  To solve this problem I set a strict limit: I’d check my email two, maybe three times a day, at set times of the day, and absolutely no more.

This worked pretty well for a while until I got a new office Day Job that left me with all kinds of slow time during the day…so I started pulling out my phone and checking email during work lulls hoping for some stimulation.  As you might expect, this led me to be more scatterbrained, less productive, and ultimately more tired during the day—which you can read all about in my second e-mail checking update.

The downfalls of too much email checking are numerous, Continue reading »

Sometimes I Have Adventures in Japan – Series 10

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A lot of towns in Japan have mascots (my town’s are a pair of anthropomorphic firefly squid), and the police force in Toyama prefecture has one too.  Tateyama-kun is a literal mountain in a police uniform, so named after the area’s most sacred and important peak.

It’s been a little while since my last Japan Adventures post, and if you’re just joining in, I occasionally share random assortments of pics I take in Japan.  Most of them are from weekend excursions and longer vacations, but this month I’m featuring odd signage and items I’ve stumbled across on Japanese streets and store shelves.  Enjoy! Continue reading »

Sometimes I Procrastinate by Doing Something Productive

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I’ve been really busy for the last, I don’t know, seven or so years, and I’ve been trying to pin down why.  I’ve identified a few different factors that lead to my constant scrambling, which, in no particular order, are…

  1. Wasting time on social media/texting/phone checking when I should be getting shit done
  2. Taking on too many projects
  3. Keeping my schedule intentionally full so I can harness the extra energy that comes from being productive

Number 1 is clearly terrible and I’m actively trying to eradicate any lingering control that social media and my phone have over my time, while Number 2 is a mixed blessing, since more projects = more opportunities.  Number 3, though, can be pretty beneficial, since I feel better and more productive when I’m busy instead of bored. Continue reading »

Working on New Stuff Always Gets Me Excited: Miranda Reeder of Minyan/Harlevin Visual Novels

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Miranda Reeder writes and draws visual novels (kind of like graphic novels, except you play them on the computer) under the name Minyan and the label Harlevin, where she has over 1,400 followers on Itch.io.  Her VNs include Arena Circus, The Pretenders Guild, Mnemonic Devices, and Lilith Hall, and her current project with Fablesoft Studios, Twisted: A Dark Fairytale, raised over $2,300 on Kickstarter in October 2019.

I first met Miranda in Toyama, Japan, where she spent three years in the JET program teaching English.  After leaving Japan she returned to Ohio to pursue a master’s in Japanese translation at Kent State University, and over winter break we talked via Skype about staying motivated, balancing creativity with Day Job work, and sharing her passion with her family. Continue reading »

How Concert Merch Tables Taught Me About Self-Promotion

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I was sixteen when I went to my first concert.  It was a four-person jam band called Uncle Sammy whose two albums I’d been listening to nonstop on CD, and I jumped at the chance to see them live.  The show was at Milly’s bar in Manchester, New Hampshire, and my friend had to email the owner asking special permission to get in because we weren’t 21 yet.  We had to make a bunch of promises not to drink, but we did get some good nachos.

Uncle Sammy was a local band out of Massachusetts who played at bars and smaller shows around New England and at the time had put out two live albums on indie labels.  To us, though, they may as well have been a huge platinum-selling group. Continue reading »

Why Don’t You Just Self-Publish Your Novels????

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You have no idea how often I get asked this.

The question usually comes up when I’m talking about my writing, how I’ve written two novels already, how I tried for kind of a long time to get my first one published without any luck, queried a bunch of agents about my second one, and am now more actively looking at small presses as a better outlet (entry to come about this one, promise!).

Unfortunately, explaining all this makes it seem like I’m facing a long, hopeless struggle rife with setbacks and failure from which I’ll never emerge victorious.  At this point, the person I’m talking to will respond (or, more likely, interrupt) with a well-meaning question/suggestion that seems like the perfect solution to my problem:

“Have you thought about self-publishing?”

The short answer is Yes, But Not Right Now.  The long answer is more complicated… Continue reading »