25 September 2021

Ditching the Day Job: When Your Hobby Becomes Your Work, What Then?


Like many young writers, I had a dream…

Ditch the day-job and become a pro!  Write fiction novels that make enough money to support my simple lifestyle without needing a second income from another job.

As a dream, it was a big one.  The stats on writers' incomes are scary across the globe: I read that in England, the average fiction novelist with a traditional publisher makes less than 4000 pounds a year, down dramatically from the 1990s.  That translates to approximately $8000 a year Canadian, which might cover the costs of your nosh for a year, if it isn't too posh.  But forget living in your car for shelter, because you won't be able to afford the parking.

It took me twenty years of writing to be able to ditch my day job and live the dream.  That was several years ago now, and as I look forward to the release of my seventeenth novel, I want to talk about a curious issue that never occurred to me when I was yearning for the life of a professional author.

When your hobby becomes your work, what do you do for fun?

It's great to do something you love for your work. But in doing so, you lose that hobby that consumed you for so many years.   

In past decades, I wrote for pleasure.  I wrote when I wanted to, and when I was inspired to.  It was the ultimate escape.

Now, life is very different.  The deadlines loom.  You end up having to write when you don't feel like it, and when you aren't writing particularly well.  Which is what work is all about.   

And I've discovered, no matter what you do for a living, no matter how much you like it, we all need a break from work.  More so, we need something to take our minds off the novel in progress. 

So a colleague suggests to me:  why not relive the excitement of those early writing days?

You could write something else for a hobby.

I loved writing short stories.  And I still write at least one a year.  But that can't be my hobby. 

Like so many people in late middle age (stop laughing,) if I am on the computer eight hours a day writing mystery novels, and responding to all the promotional requirements of being an author, the last thing I want to do is spend more time on computers.  My fingers hurt.  My eyes are dry and achy.

Also important:  this hobby is needed to take my mind off my work.  Doing more of the same (creating fiction) doesn't cut it.  

That's the problem I am facing.  For most of my working life, I had stressful jobs in health care.  For relief from that, I turned to writing.  And writing was a fabulous hobby.  

But now that writing books is my work, I am without a hobby.  And I find it hard to find a new interest to obsess me so late in life.  Yes, I read, knit a bit, bake.  But none of those are obsessions the way writing was.

 The search for a hobby.

My LIL (live in lover) also known as the Emergency Contact, is a fanatic golfer.  He tells me that all the pro golfers work on their game every day like the full time job it is.  But that's their work, and they do other things for fun.  Some fish, for example.

Fellow Canadian Linwood Barclay makes the bestseller lists everywhere.  In his downtime, he has a world-class model railway system in his home that gives him pleasure and satisfaction outside of our frantic author world.

Friend and colleague Vicki Delany does jigsaw puzzles. And I mean billion-piece, gorgeous puzzles that should be framed and displayed as art.  She says: 

"It clears my mind completely. I find that I never think about my books or my writing when I'm working on one."

That's what I'm missing now.  A hobby that will take me out of my work, so that I can return refreshed and invigorated.  Something besides eating (at which, granted, I am simply world-class.)

Trickier than I thought.  It's sort of like when you try to find a new best friend later in life.  Most people have had their best friend for decades, just as they've had their beloved hobbies.

So all you out there who think you'd like to make the move from part-time to full time, think about it carefully before you make the jump.  At the very least, go into it with clearer eyes than I did.

Do I regret it?  Not a whistle!  This is what I was meant to do, and finally, I'm doing it.  

But damn, I'd love to add something fun to my life to take the place of the glorious hobby I once had.

Anybody else facing the same dilemma?  I'd love to hear from other plotters on this!

Melodie's latest book, The Merry Widow Murders, will be out in May 2022.  If you've read the mob caper series starting with The Goddaughter, you'll get a kick out of meeting Gina Gallo's great-grandmother in this new series!

8 comments:

  1. It's sort of like the difference between falling in love and 20, 30, 40+ years living together. You still love your partner, etc., but you spend a heck of a lot more time on the household chores, and falling asleep on the couch is from TV, not hot sex.

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    1. Oh, what a perfect analogy! Grin - I shall have to tell Mike that one. Thanks Eve!

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  2. Terrific post.

    Writing is my second job. I keep to the (hopefully) pro routines, just greatly condensed other than weekends. Which means I always feel like I have homework due, which means exactly what you say well above: There has to be an Escape Thing. Long walks and music, often. Board games sometimes. Travel again, some day.

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  3. Homework due! That is perfect, Bob. I have heard that a writer never has a vacation. Either you are writing or thinking about writing. Thanks for that!

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  4. Two guys came up with very different approaches to their vocation versus avocation. There's probably a lesson if I could figure it out.

    In one case, a young, unambitious Minnesota guy hated his job with a printing company but loved auto body work. When asked why he didn't hire on at a body shop, he said he couldn't do that because his hobby would become a job and he wouldn't have anything fun left to do.

    The other was the pilot of one of the small stern-wheelers that plied Disney World's lagoon. He kept turning down promotions because he was doing exactly what he wanted to do in a job he loved.

    My alternative has to be something creative. I'm a bit of a mad scientist, so I like to invent gadgets and gizmos. Kindly excuse me now, I have a brain in a jar to deal with for Halloween.

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    1. There is wisdom to working a day job and keeping your hobby a beloved hobby, I have found! But then, I've never been wise. Particularly about men, but that's another story. ;)

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  5. I dream (agonize, sulk, moan) about the day I can write full time. One day!!!

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    1. Yes, it will come Lana! And then you'll wonder...like I do...smile

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