HOW TO SUPPORT YOURSELF AS A WRITER
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What drove me to quit my career to become a writer:
My grandmother died.
I sat at her bedside, remembering both my grandmother’s lives and all the choices that they wanted to make that weren't available to them.
My father's mother desperately wanted to study physics. She was certainly smart enough.
In high school she sat down in the classroom and the teacher looked up at his new student.
“I don't teach girls. Get out.”
And she had to leave. She spent her whole life reasonably angry about not having access to the experiences that she wanted. This was just one example.
I realized that if I wanted to be a writer, but didn’t risk becoming one, I wasn't honoring the options available to me.
I wasn’t honoring what my grandmothers missed based on when they were born.
My grandmother, also an artist long after being rejected in the physics classroom
I decided I was just going to become a writer (as if I knew what that meant)
There were a number of issues I had to address.
At 25, I knew I needed to make income and deal with debt.
I had to find a job and clarify how much control of my time I was going to have.
Having studied psychology, I was concerned about the stress of potentially working long hours before finally being able to write.
The issue with working as a psychotherapist was that the job was emotionally demanding enough that I had no energy left to write.
How to make money without giving away all my energy?
Let's just get into the money, shall we?
I've tried pretty much every day job that's available and I think it boils down to:
What fits
What your priorities are for your circumstances
I didn't want to make book sales my primary income
That was never my goal. I didn't want to be independently publishing a book a month and building up a library of income generating writing.
I knew it wouldn't work for me to come up with a new idea and churn it out that quickly. I wanted to take time and linger with books and go really deep with them.
Let’s look at everything I tried.
All the day jobs I’ve had since 25:
Knitting shop
Bookshop
Marketing manager/ director for several companies
Project Manager
Editor
Writing Team Manager
Proofreader at an Ad Agency
Exec Assistant
Teacher (of knitting, English as a second language, and writing)
All of these jobs involved me working for someone else, as a consultant or employee.
For a long time, I believed working for others was the only way to make my life work.
My first business died a very dramatic death in 2008.
I had a small client list. I didn't have a podcast. It wasn't really enough to cover everything. And when the clients went away, all of my savings went away too.
For the next ten years, I felt nothing but terror at the thought of being the one in charge. Of not having any sort of company or support outside of myself to rely on.
Self-employment or Employee: which is right for you as a writer?
Questions to ask:
How much money do you need to make?
What is your risk tolerance?
What’s the priority: money or time?
A few guidelines here:
Be honest with yourself about how much money you need to feel safe and comfortable. If part of nurturing yourself creatively is eating out regularly, budget for it.
You won’t thrive as a writer if you box yourself into a stifling life.
In addition, there’s no right answer here. Many people thrive in a day job and learn a lot from that work to fuel their writing, and feel more creative when the stress of earning money from self-employment is lifted.
Others are the opposite.
And to make things even more complicated, this can change through your life.
When I was in my 30s, after I lost my business, the idea of starting another one was too much and I needed time as an employee.
Now, in my 40s, I am thriving working for myself developing courses and working with clients.
Be honest with yourself and you’ll build the writing life that is best suited for you.
In the meantime, make an honest list of your expenses and what you need to warn to feel safe and start brainstorming what work could bring that in.
*A great resource is Bari Tessler’s material on The Art of Money. Both the book and workbook are wonderful companions to this part of the process.
We’ll continue this conversation in the next post.
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