When the hell are you able to write if you work every damn day

written by Alexandra Naughton January 21, 2015

I wanted to pose a question to my peers and I thought it was a good question to ask, like I could really get some insight asking this question, but then I forgot the question.

If I wait a day or maybe even an hour or just be patient and think about something else like watching an episode of Psych in my head or singing a Diana Ross song in my head, it will usually come back. If it’s a good enough idea it will come back. If you forget it, it will come.

It took three hours? But I remembered the question I thought I had forgotten.

I like talking about writing process. I feel like I am always talking about writing process even if I am not, but especially with my writer friends. I feel like talking about writing process is all I ever talk about because I can talk about other things while making it seem like I’m talking about writing process or talk about writing process while making it seem like I’m talking about other things. I plagiarize my own poems for blog posts.

I like talking about writing process because I am always looking for spare time to write. I try to remember things in my head, like repeat them over and over like a chant or a license plate number after someone hit you while riding your bike, until I think it’s safe to break out my notebook. Writing at work is a challenge for me. I’m constantly being monitored, so I don’t do it. I just chant to remember. Weeknights I’m usually too tired to do much writing, like I’m so zonked from being at work 9 hours all I want to do is eat something and pass out with my cat. I try to use my lunch break to write, and I covet my weekends. I like being social, but I resent having to leave my bed and laptop because all I really wanna do is finish the things I’ve been working on.

How the hell do other people write? When the fuck do you find time to write. How did you finish all that shit? Don’t you people ever work? Does someone else pay your bills? Or maybe you’re just hella better at time management?

So I asked…

HOW MANY OF YOU WORK DAY JOBS? How many hours? What do you do to pay bills?

AND

How do you find time to write?

Thinking of that infographic I saw recently of how famous writers divide their time, where only two of them had day jobs (Kafka, Vonnegut).

Michael J Seidlinger and 5 others like this.

Sam Slaughter I work as a copywriter for a health/wellness company, 9-6, M-F. I get up every morning to attempt some sort of creative ME work–reading/writing/reviews/whatever before I leave for work, when my house is quiet. I also write/read during my lunch time because it helps my brain reorient itself.

(I’m actually working on a post for DearEnglishMajor about this as we speak..I can send it along when it gets pubbed.)

January 14 at 1:44pm · Edited · Unlike · 2
David S. Atkinson Whole wheat

January 14 at 1:43pm · Unlike · 4
David S. Atkinson And I do work a day job. Patent attorney. 35-50 hours most weeks. Time to write isn’t hard to find given that I don’t do a whole lot other than write and read when not working

January 14 at 1:45pm · Unlike · 3
Eddy Rathke My job isn’t really a day job, in that I don’t go somewhere to do work. I’m self-employed and have been for a little over a year, so my time is kind of scattered. I work between 30 and probably 80 hours a week, depending.

In my experience, there’s always time to write. The only thing that typically stops me is laziness, or knowing that I won’t have ten hours to write, so I end up doing nothing. Because I write like a monster, vomiting a novel all at once, writing ten hours a day until it’s finished, which is sort of the dumbest way to do anything.But, yeah, I write often, though not as often as I’d like, but that’s mostly due to poor time management than it is to my job or responsibilities stopping me. January 14 at 1:46pm · Unlike · 5
Jeremy Hight writing, eng comp and at times art and computer science professor…..

January 14 at 1:57pm · Unlike · 3
Jeremy Hight so basically poor as a church mouse as grandma used to say

January 14 at 1:57pm · Unlike · 2
Jeremy Hight been trying to see open hours in a single day to be a kind of micro weekend to find time to write …it helps a bit

January 14 at 1:58pm · Unlike · 1
Saehee Cho For my day job,I work as Director of Wholesale for Clare V. As for how I find time to write—that’s a constant negotiation. I think it’s important to set up habits but build in some flexibility in there. I prefer to write in the mornings in 2 hour blocks but I don’t think it’s useful to beat myself up about it if I can’t manage this on a daily basis. Also, taking weekend road trips are excellent for mini writing retreats.

January 14 at 2:07pm · Edited · Unlike · 3
Henry Hoke My answer stands

January 14 at 2:12pm · Unlike · 3
Byron Campbell I do a couple-few independent contractor/freelance work-from-home jobs doing proofreading, copyediting and editing, though I’d much rather be working steady hours (I really thrive on a schedule). I don’t really find time for writing, much, outside of Entropy. But that’s not a time issue so much as it is that writing is hard on the brain.

January 14 at 2:13pm · Unlike · 4
Kari Larsen I am a Community Engagement Specialist at a regional news media company (PennLive.com / The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, PA), which is like customer service for the news: I manage our social media presence, moderate comments, and coordinate events. I also read subs for Black Balloon (for love, not for money), transcribe interviews for the AV Club (absolutely for the money), and have some other regular freelance responsibilities that supplements my full-time income by roughly $5,000 a year. This is the first time I’ve ever made money like this (it’s not much! But it’s so much more than I used to make!), but since I also do enjoy my day job — and so don’t commit much corporate mischief (not like I used to — those were the days) — I don’t have the time to write like I’d like to anymore, so my goal for the first half of the year is to save up, whittle my freelance work down, and rededicate myself to writing fiction. When I am not working constantly, I find it easy to sink mornings and weekends on writing, and as long as I am making a living, I’d rather be doing that than enabling my own irresponsible spending habits.

January 14 at 2:30pm · Like · 3
Alex Kalamaroff This is super interesting. Thanks for posing the question,Alexandra Naughton.

January 14 at 2:32pm · Unlike · 2
Michael J Seidlinger Production at a scholarly press. 830-430. I work CCM/writing/EL as a “second shift” or a second job from 530 to midnight every day.

January 14 at 2:35pm · Unlike · 4
Michael J Seidlinger I don’t sleep much.

January 14 at 2:35pm · Unlike · 3
Alex Kalamaroff I work for Boston Public Schools doing administrative work at a large comprehensive high school. It’s M-F and I keep school hours, so I work from 7 AM to 2:30 or 3 PM most days, which means I can get home, nap, and then have the evening to myself — to write and read and do creative work. Napping is key to this daily division of work vs. creative life. Sometimes work is exhausting and sometimes there are difficult situations where there are not good solutions, or not any solutions at all. It’s this mental aspect that I find most challenging to overcome, to try and clear my mind of the struggles of the day and then engage in creative work. Because of this, I have really tried this year to create a firm boundary between work life and my creative life, which I think is important. Anyway, my recommendations are #1. Napping / #2. Make a concerted effort to create unburdened time and open mental space to allow the creativity to flourish.

January 14 at 2:35pm · Unlike · 2
Alexander J. Allison work in the city of london – contracted hours are 9-6 but it is 8.30-7 + some weekends. reading is a treat and writing needs space created for it.

January 14 at 2:36pm · Unlike · 2
Alex Kalamaroff I’m also a coffee shop aficionado. And so I find it helpful after a long day to go to a coffee shop with the sole purpose of doing creative work to be very beneficial.

January 14 at 2:42pm · Unlike · 1
Rachel Urbano i’m a student. will work after college, or go to grad school.

January 14 at 4:47pm · Unlike · 1
Pansy Petunia I work ~35 hours a week (5 days a week) at my day job in a market bakery. I write whenever it strikes me to write, which is not a ton, but enough. It helps that my shifts don’t start til 1pm, so I have mornings to do shit plus a couple hours when I get home. I do not like the 5 day work week, though I might not mind it if I had a job I loved, which I’ve never had.

January 14 at 5:21pm · Unlike · 1
Kristen Stone Love this question! I work 10-3ish (about 30 hours a week) leading support groups and violence prevention classes for a domestic violence center. Writing happens in the morning between taking the kid to school and going to work. Not as much as I would like but I work to carve out the time.

January 14 at 5:54pm · Like
Keith McCleary Yeesh, now I feel like I have it easy. I teach three classes at UCSD, but it’s really hard to say what my hours are. Some weeks it’s just Mon-Wed, some weeks I work through the weekend if there’s grading. Lately writing just seems to happen in the cracks, unless there’s a deadline. However, the most writing I’ve ever done in my life was the last time I had a 9-to-5, before I went back to grad school. And back then, I did all my writing on the clock.

January 14 at 7:31pm · Like · 1
Janice Lee I do too many things and never have enough time yet still always find time. I’m always teaching some various course load. At the moment I’m teaching creative writing/video games at CalArts and also web development to disenfranchised women at a nonprofit. I run POTG Design, my web design company, plus various editorial things – some paid/ mostly unpaid.

January 14 at 9:54pm · Like · 1
Janice Lee And don’t ask about the hours. Because I tried doing the math and it seems to add up to more hours then there are in a day somehow so dunno what’s going on.

January 14 at 10:10pm · Like · 1
Adrienne Crezo Managing editor at a print mag, 9-5 M-F. Also full-time freelance editing, which means anywhere between two and five novels per month, depending on my schedule and those novels’ states of disrepair. In the morning it’s all about getting myself and my daughter ready and fed and out the door, so most of my writing actually happens in a Gmail draft from my phone during small breaks in the day–when I can find them–and very, very late at night because after work it’s dinner/homework/family and paid editing. I sleep, I don’t know, maybe five hours a night. It’s not much. I also read at least one book per week outside of whatever I’m editing; I find that helps me keep my cool, but it also helps me keep my standards up. You can’t write if you can’t read, so I put reading first if it has to be one or the other.

January 14 at 10:27pm · Like
Barrett Warner I couldn’t teach a mouse to eat cheese. Since the mid Eighties my grind has been horses–foaling mares and rubbing on and rehabbing injured ones. Physical exhaustion is an important friend to me since it levels out my cackling steroidal inner Katherine Hepburn. I write the way cats take naps but my dream is to one day have one of those brief residencies I always try for but haven’t landed.

January 14 at 10:42pm · Like
Emily Stern I I work full time as a curriculum specialist and an English and creative writing prof at a community college, and I also teach three adjunct classes between two other four-year art schools. I work, on average, 11 hour days Mon-Friday, not counting grading. I usually write in spurts. In theory, when I’m working on something, I plan to finish my grading asap and then ignore all grading for a few days, and stay up most of those nights until I have a working draft of something. Then I write whenever I have a break at work. OR, if I’m realllly inspired, I go to the cheapest motel I can find and stay up for couple days. Luckily, and surprisingly, coffee still works. And, I write during school breaks, though I work year-round, so my breaks are short. Ugh. My writing life looks a little scary now that I’ve articulated it. But it works. Somehow the writing and teaching feed and relieve each other.

January 14 at 11:25pm · Like
Nicholas Grider Day job is under the table work (often menial) because I’m on Social Security, other day job is I’m a full-time pre-med certification college student, and I am all about those loan surpluses. I’m full-time writing and making paintings now because a loan glitch is preventing me from Spring 2015 courses.

January 16 at 10:27am · Like · 1

alexandra naughton writing

Alexandra Naughton

Alexandra Naughton is the founder and editor of Be About It zine/press. She wrote American Mary, which was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in March, 2016. You can find some links to her work on her tumblr .

Wandering the Blue Decay

Alex Kalamaroff

Thanks so much for this discussion and exploration, Alexandra.

When the hell are you able to write if you work every damn day

Wandering the Blue Decay

I WANT MY MTV — Amelia Gray

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