On The Dilettante's blog I read the article "For God's Sake, Don't Become A Writer".
I don't agree with everything the blogger says about being a writer, but I certainly agree with "don't quit your day job" to become a writer. Not unless someone else is supporting the household or you have enough money in the bank to live on.
By all means, write if the fire to write boils in your veins.
By all means if you reach Stephen King's, Nora Robert's or the writer of New Moon's level and your income is sufficient on a regular basis, quit the day job and write full time.
However, if you're just starting or even if you've just received your first book contract, don't quit your day job yet. Some books sell well. Others don't. A lot of books may sell decently when they first come out but not forever. Unless you have books published on a regular basis, the income probably won't be sufficient to live on for long.
Of course there's always an exception and hopefully you'll be the one.
I have children at home to support and I crave security. As much as I would love to quit the day job and write full time, I won't be doing it yet. Several people who left comments on The Dilettante's blog agree with me. Several published authors I know keep their day jobs.
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You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)
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6 comments:
I'm with you...I crave security. I don't see me quitting my day job anytime soon.
I can't quit my day job either...then I'd have to find some means of supporting myself:)
Day job=Wife/mommy.
Sorry; my sense of humor kicked in.
Actually, when I did work outside the home, I was constantly sleep-deprived and cranky because I had no time to write.
I agree with this 100%. I doubt I'll ever quit my day-job...well, until it's retirement time! But I plan to spit as many more books as I can.
I am sleep-deprived and cranky. I crave more time to write. But I get even crankier when I'm worried about paying my bills, so I continue working. However, if my husband weren't so insistent that I work, too, I might have quit the day job long ago to write full time. Then again, I always wanted to be like Melanie Griffith in "Working Girl" and be a bigshot in the business world. :) That's my other dream, so I'm sort of living that. I'm not exactly a "big shot" but I get to sit in on some important meetings and do a lot of neat things and go out for lunch with work friends a lot (Chinese buffet today - yum) so I enjoy the day job for the most part.
What I think my ideal situation would be is to only work at the day job 3 or at most 4 days a week so I have more time to write and sleep, but not quit it altogether. That's if I felt financially secure enough to cut back hours - not that it's possible in my present position.
Your book sounds fascinating.
And unfortunately very sage advice about not quitting day jobs. Darn it!:)
I hear ya. But there are also those who say by treating writing/blogging, etc. as a full time job, only then will it become successful. That is a scary idea to wrap my brain around. I think I need a sugar daddy to help with the transition ;0)
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