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.

HUGE Thanks to Everyone Who’s Pre-Ordered MFA Thesis Novel So Far!!!!!!!!!11

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Update: The Special Limited Pre-Order for MFA Thesis Novel is over, but you can still order a signed copy and get a free bookmark! See my webstore for updated info.

Last week I posted to this blog about the Special Limited MFA Thesis Novel Signed Pre-Order and sent out a few social media posts.  To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect: if the pre-order went well, I’d be happy, but if it didn’t, I resolved not to be disappointed or angry.  As a way of not building up my hopes too much, I told myself that maybe people wanted to buy the novel somewhere else, or maybe they’d wait until it actually came out.

It’s always a nerve-wracking experience putting a part of yourself out there and risking failure.  In my darker moments, I worried no one would be interested, or that people would be willing to Like a post but not actually order the book.  Worst of all was the fear that I’d come across as some sort of pestering MLM Ponzi-scheme jerk making money off of the people in his social network, like those people who get sucked into nutrition supplement scams.

As it turns out, I shouldn’t have worried. Continue reading »

Special MFA Thesis Novel Signed Pre-Order With Bookmark and Sticker!!!!

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Update: The Special Limited Pre-Order for MFA Thesis Novel is over, but you can still order a signed copy and get a free bookmark! See my webstore for updated info.

Many of you have been asking about the best way to get a signed copy of MFA Thesis Novel when it comes out on April 19th.  Others have been asking how to buy the novel in the way that gives me the largest amount of royalties.

Whelp, you can kill two birds with one stone during the Special Limited MFA Thesis Novel Pre-Order Period!

Order a copy of the novel through my webstore by clicking here, and not only will I sign it and write you a cool personalized message (if you want one), but you’ll also get some super-cool FREE swag, including…

  • A limited edition MFA Thesis Novel bookmark designed by Jessica Bell!
  • A 3″x2″ You Don’t Pay Me to Care sticker inspired by the But I Also Have a Day Job blog!
  • The satisfaction of knowing that more of your money went toward supporting me as a small-press indie writer and not toward Jeff Bezos sending billionaires into space! (Technically not swag, but still important!) Continue reading »

How MFA Thesis Novel Went From Word File to Actual Published Book

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Most people never consider how books get made.  We have that idealized image of the grizzled writer sitting at a typewriter then delivering a hearty stack of clean pages to the publisher, who waves a magic wand and PRESTO, out pops a cleanly printed book with cover and crisp inside pages.

Nowadays, that fantasy involves a Word file and email instead of a typewriter, but the disconnect between writing and bookmaking still seems to be there for a lot of writers.  Truth be told, I had no idea how much work and how many steps go into publishing a book, which is why it was cool to learn the process when my own novel got made into an actual hard-copy book (Spoiler: I’ll show pics at the end!).

Here’s a rundown of how that process went, how much work it took from me and the others at Vine Leaves Press, and where the novel stands now. Continue reading »

Reverse Culture Shock and Thoughts on Being Back in the US

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In case you didn’t know, reverse culture shock is definitely a thing.

I’ve been back in New Hampshire for just over a week after being delayed by a winter storm that swept through the Northeast the day of my flight.  Fortunately the good folks at Japan Airlines cancelled the flight two days in advance and put me on a new one leaving two days later, so I had plenty of time to assemble a backup plan.

Even more fortunate was that when I promptly emailed my contact at my company to let them know what happened, they let me stay in my company-leased apartment rent-free (!) for an extra two days.  (Moral of the story: Stay on good terms with the people in your company who can help you!)
Continue reading »

Writing and Candy Wrapper Fashion: An Interview with Timothy Schaffert

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Timothy Schaffert is the author of six novels: The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters (2002), The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God (2005), Devils in the Sugar Shop (2007), The Coffins of Little Hope (2012), The Swan Gondola (2014), and most recently, The Perfume Thief (2021), in addition to being a professor of creative writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  He’s also an illustrator whose candy wrapper fashion series (selections from which appear throughout this interview) appears regularly on his Instagram and Twitter.

I first met Timothy in 2014 when I took his graduate-level fiction workshop at UNL and attended the Omaha Lit Fest, which he founded in 2005, and directed until 2015.  More recently, his candy wrapper fashion drawings caught my attention, so we sat down over Zoom to talk about MFA fiction workshops, finding the time to write, and how exactly he gets those candy wrappers to stick to the page.

[Cover photo: Candy Wrapper Fashion #356: The Ladies of Beverly Hills 90210] Continue reading »

Last Post From Japan…

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I’ve lived in Japan for the last three and a half years.  And now it’s time to go home.

In a way it feels like I’ve already uprooted since I left Toyama back in August, along with the apartment, Day Job, and social circles I’d been cultivating for the previous three years.  My current stopover in Yokohama has felt like just that—a stopover to get some work experience, live in a big city, and enjoy Japan a little longer.

Don’t get me wrong—Yokohama life is great.  I have a decent apartment in a cool neighborhood, and I enjoy my job teaching English at Kanagawa University a lot, even if it can get pretty busy.  Being down in a more populated part of Japan has also helped me reconnect with people, as well as opened a few doors—last week I 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 »

The Stable Life vs. The Creative Life

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In my English courses with Japanese students we discuss a variety of topics.  A few weeks ago I posed them a question I was genuinely curious about: What is your Dream Job?

Part of why I like teaching abroad is that it gives me an insight into another culture and how Japanese people think, which in turn helps me understand my own culture.  I had no idea what kind of dream job a bunch of twenty-year-old Japanese English majors might have.  Teacher?  Hotel clerk?  Translator?  Lawyer?  Generic office worker with an important-sounding job title?

The notion of knowing your dream job is interesting to me because it implies that you have some passion for something you really want to do.  My dream job, of course, is being a full-time novelist, though when I was twenty I don’t think I really understood that yet.  Maybe when you were twenty years old you had a job you wanted to do more than any other, or maybe now you still have a job you’re aspiring to—don’t give up yet!

Anyway, I posed the dream job question several times Continue reading »

Here’s What I Got Done in 2021

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It’s been a long year, but it’s finally almost over….

That’s been my mindset for a while, since I’ve realized that I’m suffering from some pretty serious burnout due to taking on too much.  Thankfully, though, the year’s almost over, I’ve got a 2-week (!) break coming up for Christmas and New Years, and January on the Japanese university circuit is set to be pretty chill.  That means I’m almost out of the woods at last (hurray!!!!).

As such, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I did and didn’t accomplish in 2021, how things look differently now than they did last year, and where I’m set to go in 2022.  And there’s no better way to do that than with a year-end summary, both for those who may have missed my news, and as a personal reminder that things aren’t all doom and gloom ;-)

So without further ado, here’s what I got done in 2021: Continue reading »

I Told People At My Day Job That I’m a Writer and They’re Totally Cool With It

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One thing I’ve struggled with since the days when I first started working was how to present myself and my goals while at a Day Job.  Should I pretend that I was totally interested in whatever work the company was paying me to do so I could take care of my bills, or should I be honest with my boss and coworkers that my real passion lay with writing and a career where I could do something creative?

Fortunately, in the days when I stocked grocery store shelves or cleaned preschool classrooms as a college student, this wasn’t a problem because everyone realized I was just doing these jobs for spare cash.  They knew I was in college, that I was only doing the job part-time, and that I was majoring in an area that had nothing to do with grocery stores or janitorial work, so we were all on the same page.

The problem was, though, that after college when I went out into the world, I wasn’t sure which direction I wanted to move in, but needed Day Jobs to help me to pay my bills while I figured that out.  And while I was working those jobs, people tended to regard me with suspicion, derision, or just plain view me as incompetent Continue reading »

Cover Reveal for MFA Thesis Novel!

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MFA Thesis Novel cover Ian M Rogers

*Drum roll please*

The cover for my upcoming MFA Thesis Novel is finally ready!  Many thanks to Vine Leaves publisher Jessica Bell for the awesome design, and for her willingness to go back and forth with me about some key elements. (Behind the Scenes Look at How the Sausage Gets Made: one of them was the meaning of the Korean word on the neck tattoo!)  If you want to check out more of Jessica’s awesome cover designs, you can find them all on the press’s book page. Continue reading »

November 2021 Novel Update: Or Not…

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Warning: Vaguely self-pitying ramble ahead, though I end on some pretty kick-ass news.

It has not been a good few weeks for working on my secret new novel project—at all.  In fact, November was absolutely my slowest writing month since I got back to Japan in September full of energy and productivity.  So what happened?

Well, on one level, preparing MFA Thesis Novel for publication happened.  November is the big month for manuscript prep, and I’ve been going back and forth with Vine Leaves publishers Jessica Bell and Amie McCracken, answering proofreading questions, sending materials like back cover copy and Acknowledgements, and even updating some images that appear in the text. MFA Thesis Novel is complex and has a lot of special formatting in it Continue reading »