There are lots of reasons people don’t quit their day jobs to write fiction, nonfiction or screenplays. Some of them are lucky, and have money. Some of them may have permission to live with their parents while they’re starting out. Some writers just like their jobs. Some need the security. Some need the camaraderie.
It seems like the whole reason to have a day job is so you can quit it when you become successful. But let’s say you sell a screenplay or a TV episode. The pay for those sales is probably not going you to allow you to quit your day job for a year. You’re going to need a steady income before you quit, and sometimes that takes years.
There are some very few, very lucky people who don’t need to work a day job. Consider a writer whose spouse makes plenty of money, and encourages them to stay home and write full time. There are also writers out there, who are trust fund babies, or their father is Francis Coppola or their parents can afford to set them up in an apartment.
You may have become independently wealthy starting an App, or a Dotcom business, and can afford to stay home full time to write. You may also be lucky in that your parents may be ok with you writing (and living) at home full time.
It’s also possible that you may not need to quit your day job. Quitting your job to write full time doesn’t guarantee you’ll become successful anyway. However, if you are able to devote twice as much time to your writing, your odds of being successful will probably go up.
A lot of writers find that they’re happy funding their self-published books, or low budget features with the salary from their day jobs. Some people work jobs and run businesses, find time to write plays, and get to see them run off-Broadway, or even in many countries and in different languages.
Who says you have to quit your day job anyway? Consider the following examples. William Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in the afternoons before going into work at a university power plant. Joseph Heller made good money in advertising during his day job while writing Catch-22.
For most of her writing career, Toni Morrison worked at Random House as an editor, while at the same time teaching university literature courses, and at the same time, raising her two sons as a single mother. God bless her.
Think about poets for a moment. Writers who choose poetry as a career are most likely not going to get rich. William Carlos Williams, another renowned American poet (and Pulitzer Prize winner), worked as a doctor to support himself.
Wallace Stevens, another Pulitzer Prize winning poet taught in every American poetry class, was an insurance lawyer. He loved the job and attributed the discipline it taught him to have made him a better poet. He would scribble bits of poetry at work and have the secretaries type them up.
T.S. Eliot’s poem, The Waste Land is considered one of the most important poems of the twentieth century. He spent his entire career working as a bank clerk. And he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Is writing full time really that important, then to being successful as a writer? Looking at these examples, apparently it’s not crucial. Some people enjoy the work they do in their day jobs. Some writers have quit their full time jobs only to find they miss working.
You may not want to face the blank page every morning. You may not be able to cope with the solitude of spending your days alone. People need a human connection in their lives. That’s why there are so many groups for writers on Facebook and Linkedin.
There may also be an aspect of work that keeps your career afloat. For example, if you work in the story department at a studio, most of your networking may be related to that job. If there’s something about your job that keeps you in the public eye, for example, if you’re a newscaster, or an avid adventurer, people may be buying your books because they feel connected to you.
For example, Bill O’Riley has written at least 15 books, like Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus, and everybody else. The actress and singer Hillary Duff has written three novels, Devoted, True and Elixir. Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil have written books that probably wouldn’t have sold if they weren’t famous for their TV shows.
I hope that all of you get the chance to at least be in the position to decide whether you want to write full time or not. Remember, there’s no right answer.
If you’re struggling to come up with a great idea for a screenplay, or if you’ve started one and just can’t figure out how to finish it, call for a free phone consult from a veteran screenwriter.
Image credit: Creative Commons French Waitress 2008, by Vick the Viking is licensed under CC By 2.0