This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 57: How To Survive Your Day Job.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps aspiring writers and all writers to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I’m your host, Sarah Werner. I have a weird episode for you today. By that, I mean I’m going to tell you about something that I did. And then, I’m going to tell you to do the opposite of what I did. More to come on that.

First, I have two new reviews from the iTunes store that I want to share with you. The first one is from podcast listener, Frivolous Gravity, which is really hard to say. It says, “Encouraging and insightful, five stars. This podcast is such a gem. Sarah tackles all sorts of issues relating to crafting words and writing careers. But her episodes always come back to the idea that the podcast is here to inspire and help writers sit down and write every day. I listen to it when I’m in a rut and it always delivers. Sarah’s style of writing and speaking is so positive and lovely, highly recommend.” Thank you so much, Frivolous Gravity, that just made my day. Thank you.

The second one is from podcast listener, Reluctant Author, who says, “Just what I needed, five stars. It was like Sarah could look into my situation and knew everything I needed and wanted to know about writing. During each episode, I feel like I’m sitting across the table having coffee with a friend. Sarah’s authenticity comes through in her warm, welcoming, voice and her transparency about her own writing struggles and victories. So glad to have had this as I ventured into the world of becoming an author and a blogger. Thank you, Sarah.” Thank you, Reluctant Author. I hope that listening to my show has made you a little less reluctant.

If you would like to leave me a review in iTunes, or Stitcher, or whatever else it is that you listen to this show on, I would love to hear your feedback. With iTunes in particular, it can go a long way in helping my podcast to be found. If this is something you’re interested in doing, just open up iTunes, navigate to the Write Now podcast with Sarah Werner, click the ratings and reviews tab next to the details tab on my show page, and enter your review. Also recently, iTunes Podcasts has changed its name to Apple Podcasts. And so, I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if that means that they’re going to stop using iTunes as a podcasting platform in the near/far future. I don’t know where I’m going with this other than to say that maybe in the end none of this matters. Well, that’s thoroughly depressing. Moving on.

Hey, so when I get emails from people, one of the questions that I’m asked very frequently is, “Hey Sarah, do you know of any writing groups online that I can join?” Usually, my answer is no, because I don’t, and I like to be honest. But this can no longer be my answer, because I’ve started an online writers’ group. It’s called, I Am A Writer, and it’s on Facebook. It’s free, so the only thing that you need to sign in and start talking about your writing journey is a Facebook user account. It is currently a closed group, but just go to the I Am A Writer writing group page and click join, and I will approve you, personally, to join our writing group.

It’s been a great space so far. People have been joining. I’ve been surprised at the amount of people who have joined. It’s been actually really cool. If you’ve already joined, thank you so much for becoming a key part of this group. We talk about what inspires us. We talk about some writing challenges that we’re facing. We talk about opportunities. We talk about books. It’s just been a really great place where we can ask questions, answer questions, and uplift each other. If you’re interested in being a part of that, I will have a link to it in the show notes for today’s episode. Otherwise, if you follow the Write Now podcast on Facebook, Twitter, whatever, there are links to it all over social media as well. There’s also a link to it in one of the latest additions of the Write Now podcast newsletter.

Man, I’m feeling really advertisey today. I’m sorry about that. I always say that this is a no advertisement podcast, and then I’m like do this. Sign up for all my stuff. I’m excited about this stuff, and it’s good. It’s free. It’s for you, and I want you to know it exists. Take advantage of it.

Let’s dive into today’s episode, How To Survive Your Day Job. I’m actually going to kick off this episode doing something that I should not probably do, and that is with the announcement that, as of April 14th, I left my job. Some of you may already know this. If you follow me extra closely on social media, I dropped a few hints here and there. I haven’t really talked about it with a lot of people. I want to say, first and foremost, that I loved my job. I loved the company I worked for, and I loved and adored the people that I worked with. I felt so fortunate and so lucky, after years and years of jobs that I didn’t really fit with, to have found a place where I felt I belonged and where I loved my coworkers like brothers and sisters. It was just an amazing place to be, and to grow, and to flourish, and to build my career, and to really understand who I was. So I am extremely grateful for the time that I at Click Rain.

So why did I leave? Well for several reasons. I’m going to be very, very, honest and not sugarcoat anything. So here goes. First off, I was working 80-plus hour weeks. And so, those of you listening who are lawyers, or nurses, or anything else that requires a huge time commitment as a job, you’re like, “80 hours, that’s nothing. I work 600 hours a week and I do it walking uphill both ways.” I respect your commitment, but I think I’m the kind of person that 80 hours a week was not healthy for me and not sustainable.

Now, when I say I was working 80 hours a week, I was not working 80 hours a week for Click Rain. I was working 40 hours a week for Click Rain, plus doing work for my church, plus doing this podcast, and all of the marketing that it entails, plus writing my novel, plus writing for Forbes. All of those things just added up. I would go to a coffee shop and start writing for Forbes at 5:00 or 5:30 AM. I would go to work. I would work all day. I would get off at 5:00. I would go home, have a rushed dinner and either go to meetings or work through the evening, trying to get everything else done, and go to bed at night exhausted, and frustrated, and not having spent any time really with my family.

I know I had an episode a while ago about prioritizing, and making your writing a priority, and scheduling things. I was adhering to a very tight schedule, but I was trying to cram too many things into each 24 hour day. This show is about work life writing balance, and I was just very, very, much out of balance. That’s the first reason.

Another reason that I left was simply that I felt called to do so. We’ve spoken before on this podcast about being called, being called to be a writer, being called to be a parent, having a vocation or a calling. While I loved the work I did at Click rain, and I love the people I work with, being a senior UX content strategist was not my life’s calling. I don’t really have a way to explain that, other than to just say I felt it in my heart, and I felt it in my bones. I tried to ignore it for a while. Maybe you’ve tried to do that before, too, where you know you’re supposed to be doing something and you just figure, if you ignore it, it’ll go away, and you can keep doing what you’re doing, la-la-la.

I felt this calling back in July of 2016. I started thinking about, what would happen if I followed this calling? It was scary. And so, I stopped thinking about it and tried to be happy with what I have, because attitude often makes all the difference. If you can look at what you have in your life and be grateful for it, you can be happy with what you have, and that’s so valuable. But I was being called to something else. After eight and a half or nine months, fighting that call became unbearable.

Finally, one of the reasons that I ended up leaving was one of the very reasons that attracted me to the job in the first place. I think this is one of those lessons you don’t learn until you’re in it, learning it. It’s not something anyone can tell you or prepare you for. When I moved to Click Rain from the place where I had been working before, I was excited about the prospect of doing creative stuff and getting paid for it. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I get to write advertising copy. I get to write website copy, and analytics reports, and statistical analyses of what’s happening with this campaign. Oh my gosh, this is going to be super cool.” And I loved it. I loved creating and getting paid for it. But there was a very fine distinction that I didn’t know about until, like I said, I was in it, and that is creating all day at work for someone else meant that I had expended a lot of my creative energy by the time I got home.

I’d get home every night from a very rigorous day of talking with clients, and building strategies, and doing all this cool stuff, and I’d be like, “Wow, my brain is just zapped. I do not have the emotional or mental capacity to plan out the sort of plot that my novel needs. I just don’t have the words in my brain.” Those are three reasons that I decided to transition out of my day job.

The question I get most, after explaining that is, “Oh my gosh, Sarah, what are you going to do?” Oh, I have plenty of stuff that I’m going to be doing. I am going to be focusing on this podcast. I’m going to be doing some writing of my own. I’m going to be taking a sabbatical to get some rest and healing. I’m going to work on some creative and professional projects I’ve had on the back burner for a while. I’m going to continue ghostwriting. Basically, I’m going to be doing all of the stuff I was doing before minus the steady paying job.

When I put it that way, maybe it doesn’t sound so smart. In all honesty, I did weigh this decision for nearly a year. I planned it carefully. I discussed it with my husband. We went over the finances. Here I am two weeks into “doing my own thing” or being, as the guy who owns one of my favorite coffee shops here in town likes to call it, fun employed. And I’m still learning. I’m still learning about whether it was the right thing to do.

I had a pros and cons list before I left. And now I have a new pros and cons list of things that I’ve discovered and learned after transitioning out. Pros include, I get to work on the stuff that I want to work on. There’s no more 80 hour work weeks. There’s nobody telling me what to do with my time. And I now have the time in which to take on some of the opportunities I had had to turn down while I was already bombarded with 80 hours of work to do every week.

There are downsides too. I miss the people. I had a lot of friends at work and I miss seeing them every day. I miss being a part of that team. I also miss having a steady, reliable, income that you can count on, an income that has benefits with it.

Finally, and I just realized this yesterday, I met a friend for coffee in the morning and they were like, “So how are you enjoying doing your own thing?” I was like, “You know what? This is going to be the most first world problem thing ever, but I feel like a part of me is missing, like a chunk of me has been torn out, like part of my purpose had dwindled.”

I realized that, in giving up this job, I’d been there for five and a half years, and in my job I was in a senior position, and so people would call me over and say, “Oh hey, when this site was built, why did we do this?” And, “Hey, can you show me where we keep these files?” And, “In your expert opinion, should this go here or here? Or, “Should we really be pursuing this strategy?” And so, I was in a place of authority where I could say, “Yeah, this should go here. And I’m really glad you asked about this. Let me explain the details of this client to you.” I don’t have that anymore. Part of my authority is gone. A big part of who I was has just vanished. It’s not something I expected would happen. Now in hindsight, of course it makes sense. You do something for five and a half years, five days a week, and suddenly it’s gone, whether by choice or not, you’re going to feel that loss.

Looking at these pros and cons, was it the right decision? For me, the answer is yes. I’ll bet the question that you’re wondering is, is this the right decision for you? That’s a little bit more complex. I know for a fact, because many of you have told me, that it is the dream of many writers, perhaps you included, to quit your day job and write for a living. If this is your dream, I’d be curious to know what your expectations are for it.

The reason I ask this is because often, when we talk about our dream, what we’re talking about is our fantasy. Where a dream can be realistic, a fantasy is often unrealistic. My dream might be to quit my day job and write for a living. And my fantasy would be me sitting in a coffee shop every day, sipping perfect cappuccinos while rain patterns against the window behind me, and everything smells like cupcakes and muffins, and there’s little spriggy plants everywhere filling the air with fresh oxygen. I’m just hammering away at the keys filled with energy and inspiration, and excited for all of the wonderful things I’m writing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I follow a lot of writers on Instagram. When I go through the people I follow, I’m like, “Yep, that’s my fantasy.” It’s just picture after picture of perfect cappuccino and a laptop with a lot of words written on the screen.

Fantasies are nice to have, but if you actually want to follow your dream, it’s good to be realistic. It’s good to set realistic expectations. Since you’re listening to this right now, I’m going to assume that you are a writer and you have some experience writing. Therefore, you know something. It’s a secret. Writing is hard work. Sure, it’s work that we love and that we gladly do, most of the time, but it’s hard. I think that, for a lot of people, when they say that their dream is to quit their day job and be a writer, they don’t think, “I’m going to quit my day job where I work really hard doing this to become a writer where I work really hard writing every day.” Writing can be hard and frustrating, and often it doesn’t pay very well. The good news is, if you’re okay with all of those things, then you just might be a writer.

Okay, so there are a lot of really terrible day jobs out there, day jobs that you need to actively survive, or they will drain your soul, or physically harm you, or make you hate everything. These are jobs where maybe the job itself is the problem, maybe the work is just unbearable. But maybe you don’t mind the work so much, and what’s unbearable is your toxic coworkers. Maybe what’s unbearable is the crushing loneliness you feel from having no friends at work. Maybe you’re bored. Maybe you’re frustrated. Maybe you’re angry. Maybe the environment itself is toxic, figuratively or literally speaking. Maybe you’re just sick of being told what to do. Maybe you really, really, hate meetings.

The first question to ask is, is this a job that I need to survive, or is this a job that I need to leave? This is something I cannot tell you. This is something I cannot decide for you. I am not saying quit your day job and become a writer immediately, because we’re going to talk about that in just a second. If you need money, if you need a job right now, maybe it’s time to switch jobs into something that pays similar or more and is less toxic, less frustrating, et cetera.

However, if you are struggling to survive, I have some tips for you. These are tips that I have used in past jobs, because as I’ve said, not all of the jobs that I’ve had have been amazing and wonderful. Number one, and this is something that I know a lot of you do already, read and/or write over your lunch break. It can provide a much needed oasis of sanity and production during an otherwise very frustrating day.

Number two, keep a little notebook with you at all times. This is something I did for morale as much as I did for idea keeping. And so, I had this little field notebook and I would keep it… It was small enough that it could fit in my pocket of my pants, or in my jacket pocket, or in a purse. I would just keep it with me at all times, in meetings, at my desk. Whenever I would have an idea for my story or the novel I was working on at the time, I would write it down. Keeping that notebook close with me, kept my creativity mentally close to me. It just helps me get through the day.

I was always very careful never to let anyone see me writing in it. Partially, because I didn’t want them to know that I was not 100% focused on the work in front of me, but also because I didn’t want anyone to see what I was writing, because I write speculative fiction and horror. It’s like, “Ooh, cut the body up and put it in the dumpster.” And they’d be like, “What are you writing? Do we need to call the authorities?” So, yes.

Number three, get in early or stay late. In some jobs I’ve had, I’ve had access to the office in off hours. I actually used the office environment to my advantage at that time. If I didn’t start working until 8:00, I would come in at 6:00, or 6:30, or 7:00 and get an hour or two of writing done in a quiet space. That ended up being very, very, helpful for me sometimes. Again, if you’re not a morning person like me, then sometimes you can stay after hours and utilize the quiet office then. Even just knowing that you can use the office as a place to be creative can be a little bit of a lifeline or a survival tactic.

Number four, this one might not apply to everyone. If you have the type of job where you are just expected to be at your desk, or at a certain station or something, regardless of the work that you have to do, and so if you have a workload that doesn’t necessarily fill all eight hours of your workday, use some of that time to write, or plan, or outline, or jot ideas down in your little notebook. If you are simply standing at a desk waiting for a phone to ring, use that time to your advantage. Make sure you get your tasks done first. If you have some filing to do, if you have some memos to type up, all of that good stuff, make sure you get that done, and then use your excess time to work your creative stuff.

Number five, along a similar vein, keep your brain busy. It’s really easy sometimes, if you are frustrated at a job, or bored, or upset to dwell upon that. Don’t fall into that trap. Keep a positive attitude. Keep yourself focused on the creative work you’re going to do on your lunch break, at home, over the weekend. Keep a positive mindset so that, at the end of the day, you have the energy, because you’ve been looking forward to creating the stuff, that you have the energy to go home and do it.

Finally, in utilizing any of these tactics to survive your day job, I want to put in my own two cents, which is to please be ethical. Be ethical and be smart about what you’re doing. For instance, do not write and store your novel on work equipment. Because at the end of the day, you don’t own that equipment. If you’re writing on company time, then they might claim ownership of the stuff that you wrote on company equipment on company time. Just be smart about that and be ethical.

Now, I want to flip the switch just a little bit. We’ve talked about toxic jobs, but can a job actually be good for you? There is some very compelling evidence, well anecdotal evidence, that would suggest yes. Sometimes having a day job is the best possible thing for a writer. I know I’ve mentioned Elizabeth Gilbert’s wonderful book, Big Magic, before. I’ll probably continue to do so in future episodes. For now, I want to reference a paragraph within the book. It’s on page 152 in my hard back edition, under a section called, Your Day Job. I want to just read this passage to you briefly.

Liz Gilbert says, “The whole time I was practicing to be a writer, I always had a day job. Even after I got published, I didn’t quit my day job just to be on the safe side. I held on to these other sources of income for so long, because I never wanted to burden my writing with the responsibility of paying for my life. I knew better than to ask this of my writing, because over the years I’ve watched so many other people murder their creativity by demanding that their art pay the bills. I’ve seen artists drive themselves broke and crazy because of this insistence that they are not legitimate creators unless they can exclusively live off of their creativity. And when their creativity fails them, meaning it doesn’t pay the rent, they descend into resentment, anxiety, and even bankruptcy. Worst of all, they often quit creating at all.”

I read this passage months after I decided that I was going to be leaving my job. I read this and I was like, “Oh no, I’ve made a terrible mistake.” But then I reminded myself, I haven’t. I have a plan. My writing is already bringing in money. I have projects. Things are going to be okay. As Liz Gilbert says, there are so many writers who have day jobs. Not everyone is JK Rowling, not everyone is Stephen King. In fact, they are very, very, few and far between. Wallace Stevens, for example, sold insurance for his entire life while crafting Pulitzer Prize winning poetry. The same is true of William Carlos Williams, who was a physician, who between patients went to his typewriter and would type out poems. Most writers that you talk to today probably have day jobs. They do it for a number of reasons.

As Liz Gilbert said, some of them do it to keep their creativity pure, so they don’t have to demand too much of their creativity and tire it out. It keeps the pressure off of their creativity so they can still enjoy creating. I’ve talked with other writers who actually get really good material from their day jobs, doctors, lawyers. If you think about it, if you interact with customers or coworkers on a daily basis, that’s all fodder for writing. I mean, right? How many times have you written in an annoying coworker and maybe killed them off in your novel? Not in real life, I hope. What I’m saying is maybe you don’t need to quit your day job. Maybe you are in the ideal place that you need to be right now.

I want to make sure I say this very clearly. You do not have to quit your full-time job to call yourself a writer. You do not have to write full-time to call yourself a writer. I say this to people all the time, being a writer is not like being knighted. You don’t need the queen of England to walk up to you with a sword and tap it on your shoulders in order to become a writer. You don’t need someone else to validate this for you. Very simply, if you write, you can call yourself a writer. You don’t need to be published. You don’t need to be paid. If you spend a lot of your time writing and you love doing it, then you can call yourself a writer.

Next time you’re at a networking function, or a cocktail party, or a relative’s house, and someone comes up to you and says, “What do you do?” You’re allowed to say, “I’m a writer.” You’re not lying, and it’s not illegal to say. Sure, you might get some questions like, “Oh, I thought you were a nurse,” or, “I thought you were a gardener,” or, “I thought you were a teacher,” or, “I thought you drove a firetruck,” whatever it is you also happen to do. And you can say “Yes, but I also write. Let me tell you about my novel.” Actually, okay, that was very unrealistic, because I don’t really know of any writers who are ever like, “Let me tell you about my novel.” Because when people ask me about my novel, I crumble up inside like a little dead spider. My soul just goes belly up and its legs curl in. And it’s like, “No, don’t ask about my writing.” I don’t know why my soul talks like a cartoon character, but apparently it does.

What I’m saying is you’re a writer. You don’t need to write full-time 40 hours a week and do nothing else exclusively. If you write, you’re a writer. Get business cards for yourself. You can go out to Vista Print. This is not a commercial for Vista Print, but you can go out there and get, I don’t know, 50 business cards for $10. It doesn’t have to be fancy. You don’t have to spend 10 hours designing it. It can just be your name, John Smith, with writer underneath it. Hand that out to people. Be proud of it.

I left my day job because it was the right decision for me. It was the right time in my career. I had built up enough savings, enough of what my mentor, Ron, calls a financial runway to ensure that my family would not be in danger because of my decision. It was not a snap decision. People call it taking a leap, but it was actually more of a slow crawl. People see the end decision, so they see me leaving my job. What they don’t see is the year plus of decision-making, and planning, and questioning, and worrying, and wondering that went into it. If you still feel like you really want to get away from your day job, ask yourself what you want to get away from. If it’s a toxic environment, if it’s with bad people in a bad situation, maybe it’s simply time to change jobs. If you’re working as a creative executive, maybe it’s time to work as a server in a restaurant to save up your creative energy for your novel.

If you’re like me, and it really is time to step away from full-time employment, be realistic with yourself and know that what you’re getting away from is not hard work, because writing is hard work. You’re not getting away from frustration because writing is frustrating. Leaving your full-time job to become a writer does not mean that your life will turn into a simulation of the Instagram feed on my phone, because it won’t. Take a careful look around you at your situation. Fix what you’re not happy with. Be honest with yourself, and honest with your family, and those who depend on you. Remember, you are a writer.

Every time a new episode of the Write Now podcast comes out, I have a lot of people to thank. First and foremost, I would like to thank my Patreon supporters, especially now that I am no longer employed. Patreon is a secure third party donation platform that lets people like you help keep podcasts like this one afloat with donations. And so, it comes out as a per podcast donation of $1 per episode, $2 per episode, whatever you have available to you. I never charge patrons for more than four episodes a month. If you pledge $1 per episode, the most you will ever see is a $4 charge for the month. If the show’s worth it to you, please do consider becoming a patron on Patreon. You can go to sarahwerner.com. That’s S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. That will redirect you to my Patreon page. Alternately, you can just go to the show notes for today’s episode, episode number 57, and click support this podcast.

Special thanks go to official cool cats, Sean Locke and Rebecca Werner, official bookworm, Matthew Paulson, official rad dudes, Andrew Coons and the Sioux Empire Podcast, and official caffeine enablers, Coleen Cotolessa, war writer, and Harrison Werner. You are all wonderful. Thank you so much. You help me cover hosting costs, website costs, equipment costs, all of the costs that are associated with podcasting, so thank you so, so, much.

Again, if you have feedback for me from this show, from other shows that I’ve done, please feel free to email me at hello@sarahwerner.com. Or, you can also go out to sarahwerner.com, navigate to where it says contact, and fill up a little form there. That also goes to my email. You can also sign up for my newsletter while you’re out there, if you want. It’s free. It delivers news and stuff to your inbox. I don’t spam. I’m nice. At least I try to be nice. No, I’m nice.

With that, this has been episode 57 of the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps aspiring writers and all writers to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I’m Sarah Werner, and I am way past my coffee limit for the day.