Don’t Quit Your Day Job
Blog posts with this title always perplex me. I’m not sure why they’re written or who they’re aimed at, because anyone deciding to quit their day job is an adult with a brain and can reason for him/herself. Not to mention that, as an adult, people are perfectly entitled to take their own risks, make their own mistakes, and choose the wrong path.
That seems to be the greatest fear of these blog posts: that someone will quit their day job and run out of money.
I say: so what? Really, what if you make the leap and fail?
I would hypothesize that the best things come from stumbling and making risky leaps.
I’m guessing that when you have no food in the house you will possess the logic to get out there and get a new day job or do whatever you have to do to survive. I’m guessing that if you have kids and a family you possess the intelligence to do something before your children starve. I’m guessing that if you make the leap, you considered how long you could go before you had to take a job.
If someone does not possess the above common sense, then undoubtedly a blog post is not going to help them. And again: so what if they fail?
Living and learning is the best part of life.
A blog post is so limited in scope that it can only skim the surface of the complexities of such a decision. It can’t examine the issue as deeply as one making the decision certainly has.
These posts for writers that examine the day job issue are prevalent, so they must serve some purpose I am missing.
I can’t say as I consulted a single article on quitting the day job when I leapt to full-time writing, but then I did that for music a year or two out of college. I’ve been self-employed in the arts for fifteen years. Is my experience blinding me to the usefulness of these posts?
I suspect they may reassure those who made the decision to keep their day job that they made the right one, and give courage to those who’ve decided to make the leap.
I’m wondering:
Why do these posts exist? What purpose do they serve? Do you enjoy reading them? Why? If I were to do a post on quitting the day job, what would you want to see? When reading such posts, what do you hope to get out of them?
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Natasha Fondren is a writer traveling the U.S. in a camper with her four cats. She is currently enjoying the lizards and desert heat in Arizona.
Although I think “don’t quit your day job” is pretty good advice, in general, I don’t think you accomplish anything without risk. I’m quite sure that had my father been alive and my mother coherent at the time I quit to write full time that they would have given me now end of shit (my sister and brother, as supportive as they were, were quite doubtful, although they expressed it to Leanne, not me), and Leanne claims that if my father had been alive I probably never would have quit because he would have been nonstop talking me out of it.
Ultimately, I think people wait longer than they should to quit their “day jobs” although that’s different for everyone and God knows not everyone’s well equipped to be self-employed for one reason or another.
It’s tough to be self-employed, that’s for sure. Isn’t it funny how sometimes circumstances push us to take risks when otherwise we wouldn’t have? I’m so glad you did quit, Mark! Look at all you’ve done!
I got laid off from my day job so I can’t take credit for making a big leap. As Mark says, you can’t accomplish anything without taking a risk. The challenge is probably to take an intelligent risk. If you always look for 100% security you’ll never do anything (and you’re also deluding yourself) but you probably shouldn’t decide to quit your job in the hopes that your next lottery ticket’s a winner.
As for the posts — I think they most serve to make folks who didn’t quit their jobs/are afraid to quit their jobs/can’t quit their jobs/quit their jobs and failed feel better.
It’s still a risk you took, Eric, one that did inspire me! You could have just sat and collected unemployment and searched for another day job, but instead, you built a business for yourself.
Well damn–about the lottery ticket. I really thought this was the one!
I abhor that moth-eaten cliche. And why is it that people in the industry of writing are bent on deterring dreams? Whether a writer envisions books in print or via self-published digital, it is their dream to realize.
This is why I only read blogs written by well-informed thinkers. So many posses tunnel-vision, immune to critical thinking, thumping their chests to prove theirs is the better way. Screw them.
Great post, my well-informed thinking friend.
I saw your blog on STET and loved it, Kath! I agree with you. I’m not sure why people are obsessed with others taking their path. It’s odd.
Thanks, Natasha!
And I just read the blog you linked to, didn’t finish reading after the second paragraph, and decided I will definitely NEVER query that agency. Who needs a Debbie Downer as an agent, right? Like it’s not difficult enough.
I figure it’s an extremely difficult question for someone to answer who’s never gone without a day job… so it’s odd to me that people ask it of agents who have never NOT had a day job. I figure she’s answering as best as she knows how… agenting and selling IS a creative pursuit, but it’s not quite like the writing life.
Natasha, those posts make me cringe, because I did quit my day job. But I hated my day job. I felt like it was sucking the life out of me. And it wasn’t that the job was horrible; I felt that way about every job I had.
My not working made a huge difference in the way we live, but at least I’m happy. And as you said, I’m capable of making my own decisions.
Ditto what Edie said.
You were one of my inspirations, Edie! And it’s funny, because I have the same thing you’ve mentioned before: sometimes, when I’m tempted to take an easier path, something in me just doesn’t let me.
i think if more people quit their day jobs and pursued the lives they really want instead of the lives they feel they’re condemned to, we’d have a lot of happier people.
also, it appears that your post on restoring honor is continuing to make the rounds. someone just linked to it @ http://malialitman.wordpress.com/2010/09/05/palin-is-synonymous-with-hate/
Aw, thanks, Lexcade! It’s funny to me how that post has taken a life of its own!
Well, I haven’t honestly given those kind of posts much thought. I’m not quitting my day job. No chance of that. I will be happy to retire when that time comes around.
LOL, Charles! Yeah. They come around every now and then, and it’s odd. You seem to be happy with your job!
I hate that phrase. IMO, it carries such an undercurrent of contempt and dissuasion. They might as well say “Don’t quit your day job, LOSER.” I agree with Kath that it is a “moth-eaten cliche” and needs to be kicked to the curb.
Seriously, Elizabeth! I agree whole-heartedly!
I quit my day job 15 years ago and never looked back. My father was the person who said, “It’s a friggin’ job . . . if the freelance thing doesn’t work out, you’ll find another one.” I didn’t want to be beholden to The Man.
That said, my income tripled. One or two years, it quadrupled. Having no safety net (or not much of one) pushes you.
That said, I’ve never posted a blog entry like that . . . but I will say, “Look, as a full-time writer, the checks NEVER come when you NEED them”–LOL!
And THAT said, Natasha, honestly, over the last 20 years, I have met some people who were seriously deluded about publishing and about book contracts and how they work. I have met people who thought, “I’m a careful reader . . . I can be an editor . . . how do I get work like that?” I’ve seen people really not understand some basic things about freelancing and writing f/t. So maybe bloggers have had occasion to run into someone with that sort of delusion and it prompted a post. Recently, someone who hired me asked, “What do you think my percent chances are of selling this?” and another ask, “What kind of advance do you think I can expect if it sells?” showing me that no matter HOW many blog posts like that exist, people just do. Not. Get. It.
Erica, sounds like people think you carry a crystal ball.
I agree with your father: if it doesn’t work out, get a new one! Then you’ll never look back and regret not trying.
And it’s the story of my life about checks. They don’t come when you’re a piano teacher, either. That sure sucks!
I figure the people who don’t get it, won’t get it anyway. And honestly, I talked a lot with someone this summer who was deluded about the industry. I waited for him to ask me ANYTHING, because I freely would have offered him advice. But maybe it’s the teacher in me: sometimes you just have to wait until they’re ready to hear it, and he wasn’t.
And anyway, he was having the most fascinating and wonderful life of doing good in the world, while waiting to get his first chapter done and then sell his book, that I figured there was a higher plan in place that counted on him not knowing.
Like Eric mentioned above, I didn’t quit my day job, it quit me. It’s been a tough couple of years, but I’m starting to think it might have been the best thing to ever happen to me. I’ve wanted to be a full-time writer for at least 20 years, the same amount of time I had my old career as a newspaper editor. The only reason I became a journalist in the first place was to have a job until my writing took off. Guess what? My writing didn’t take off until I no longer had the job. Imagine that.
Ty, that makes a lot of sense to me. I knew I wouldn’t do as well if I wasn’t in a position where I had a backup plan. I mean, if you maintain two careers, both are going to suffer, or at the very least, one is going to suffer.
I love this line “because anyone deciding to quit their day job is an adult with a brain and can reason for him/herself.” This is the very reason that I try hard NOT to offer advice to anyone, unless they specifically ask. But we humans certainly do find it hard not to tell others how we feel about how they are living their lives
Definitely I’ve followed your example in this! Or maybe this is why we’re best friends.
Anyway, it’s pointless to offer advice when people don’t want it!
Having been homeless in my youth, I no longer fear “quitting my day job.” I know things can always get much worse. I understand peoples’ general need for safety, however. A few years back I “quit my day job” to work part-time at the local library & continue with my art career. There have been times when the finances were stretched thin (particularly when I had my surgeries last year,) but I’m not a “material” person, anyway.
Isn’t that the truth, Lana? Wow. Yeah, I’m the same way. THe times when I’ve been the poorest have really made me into someone I rather like. I wouldn’t trade them for the world.
I think situations are so unique that it’s hard to compare one person’s decision to stay or leave a job to anothers. I did quit my day job to write full time and so far it has been an amazing journey!!
[Catching up after vacation.]
I think it depends how they’re written and exactly what they say. If the whole gist of the post is “Don’t quit your day job, dummy!” then I agree they’re pretty pointless and a bit insulting. But if they give a reasonably thorough analysis of all the factors involved in transitioning from a regular job working for someone to a freelance job where you’re on your own, then I think they can be very valuable.
Sure, we’re all adults here and can make our own decisions. But in order to make good decisions we need infomation and data, and some insight into all the factors involved in the transition so we know what to think about and how to analyze our own lives to see whether we’re ready — or have a reasonable chance of being ready — to quit that job. Anyone who has a ghost of a chance of making it as a freelancer needs to approach the decision intelligently, doing research on the subject. Which every take on the subject doesn’t have to be The Freelancer’s Survival Guide, a decent overview which at least gives the incipient freelancer some idea of what subjects to Google can be very helpful, even if it general post is couched in a negative fashion.
And the fact is that most people who make the jump do fail. And many of the people who make the jump never would have if they had more than two brain cells rubbing together for warmth. I’m sure we’ve all heard stories from various editors and agents about writers who called them up to ask when their first advance check would arrive, so they could give their employer two weeks’ notice. [eyeroll] That’s massive ignorance at work, and while I’m sure some of those folks wouldn’t listen to a clear, well-articulated argument for doing your research and waiting for your best chance, I’m also sure that some of them would.
I guess it’s like any other criticism or advice. If it’s just a bare assertion of opinion, then it’s pretty worthless. If it comes with rational arguments and good data to back them up, it can be very valuable whether you agree with the writer’s conclusions or not.
Angie