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Fiction Debut Author Roundtable
4.
AOTW: Do you have a "day job," in addition to being a published author? How do you balance your "day job" with writing books?
Masha Hamilton: Right now, I've had the relative luxury of being able to write fiction and mother three young children. That may soon change, since writing for me is a labor of love rather than money! I balance writing with motherhood badly some days, better on others. I get up about 4:00AM virtually every morning to begin writing. I can usually get in a couple hours before my kids rise.
Ad Hudler: As was divulged in Househusband, my day job is being the caregiver for my family, and though it sounds like a dream situation, the family's needs always scream to be addressed before I can get any writing done. I have made it very clear that mornings are my writing time. I get up around 5:30 and write for an hour then have to stop to get everyone fed and out of the house. Then I return to my computer and write from about nine to one. And from then on, I resign myself to my trophy-husband chores and errands. I'm a firm believer that you need to schedule your writing time, and that you need to alert everyone in the household that this is a sacrosanct period.
Ali Smith: Nope, this is all I do, along with some journalism and the occasional teaching, both of which use another part of the brain so I appreciate the exercise.
David Benioff: I used to teach freshman composition. Now I write scripts, which is more fun and more profitable.
Michael Redhill: I have always worked in fields compatible with my writing, so I have been an editor, a ghostwriter, an essayist, a scriptwriter etc. I can't make a living just from fiction, so these other roles are important ones. In terms of finding a balance, if I owe someone something on deadline, then it comes first. Otherwise, I try to divide my day into my own work and other work. So far, it seems to be functioning OK, but I do get swamped at times, and that means my own writing suffers.
Jill A. Davis: I've been writing full-time for 15 years. How is this possible? Well, here's my secret: coupons.
Steve Almond: I teach a class a term, because I just love teaching. Helping my students find the stories inside them gives me a big charge. But back when I was teaching two or three classes a term, I wasn't writing as much as I needed to and the result was that I resented my students --- which is not cool. I was a reporter for years and I still do a few pieces to earn lunch money. But I have to be careful not to use the quick ego hit of journalism as a way of avoiding the real work, which is fiction.
Anahita Firouz: I do not have a "day job." But I do have children and through the years I've enjoyed being a very involved mother of two and a writer with a relatively flexible schedule because I've worked at home. Working at home has its own kind of difficulties but also many rewards.
Terrence Cheng: My day-job is working in publishing as an online marketing director. It's fun because I get to work not only with the web, but with books and publishers as well. Being in "online" and in "marketing" helps me keep a distance from editorial, so I don't feel a conflict creatively. But I do learn from my colleagues who are on the editorial-creative side. I also teach on the college level one class per semester, advanced fiction or introduction to creative writing. I like it because it keeps me intellectually stimulated and creative on an analytical level. That being said, I don't have too much spare time, so I balance by allotting time to myself just for writing, as I allot time for my day-job and teaching. Usually I write very early in the morning, 5:00AM or 6:00AM, go for an hour or two, then hit the gym, then go to work. On the weekends I can lock myself in and just write, edit, rewrite, read, the entire weekend. If I have to. I love when I have to.
David Rosenfelt: I don't have a day job, other than caring for our 32 rescue dogs. If you don't think that's a lot of work, you should be here at feeding time.
Kate Manning: I am a haggard harried maternal unit with three wild young children plus a small, endlessly barking dog. Sparing you the details, this day job involves a dazzling variety of domestic drudgery requiring large tracts of time, much of it in the middle of the night. But my rule is: when the house is empty, write. Thus, I ignore the debris in the sink, and the escaped pet darkling beetle somewhere down the hall. I don't answer the phone, and am not allowed to go out to lunch or coffee with anyone, unless they are terminally ill and it would be impolite to refuse. I'm always desperate for time to work. That said, when I was a documentary TV reporter without kids I was always too sick of storytelling to come home and write fiction at night or on weekends. Too many hours thinking of stories and voices. For me, parenthood and writing fiction are a good combination.
Stella Pope Duarte: I have two other jobs besides lots of presentations. I am head of counseling for a very busy high school, and also teach at two universities. I also have four children and small grandchildren! The word sleep escapes me. Any chance I get, even between a bite of toast and a drink of coffee, I put down ideas, thoughts. I journal as well.
Jill Bialosky: I do have a day job as an editor and an occasional teacher. When I wrote the first draft of House Under Snow I went to Yaddo for four weeks and pounded it out. But the book changed so much from then. Went under so many different reincarnations. I like to wake up early and write before I go to work. I write on the weekends. I make notes on the subway. When you're working on a novel it's like you have a secret life. I like moving between the two worlds, the everyday world of answering phones and emails in the office and my life with my family, and then the secret life evolving on the page. I've learned to trust this strange, catch as catch can process. It's amazing to me that if you actually write a page or two a day that it adds up.
Karen V. Siplin: My boyfriend and my parents supported me while I wrote His Insignificant Other. As far as the actual writing process is concerned, I feel having a "day job" makes the writing more urgent and satisfying. Don't get me wrong, I would prefer to write full time, but now that I have the opportunity to write all day, I find my mind drifting to thoughts of laundry and washing dishes. When I had a "day job" I was always thinking about what I would write next.
Jay Nussbaum: Well, writing novels is a sort of pie-in-the-sky job, so I find it calming to have a pie-on-the-plate job too. My legal degree gives me a bit of leverage, so I work for a company that publishes legal newsletters. It's fairly straightforward, and they let me work from home. All that time I don't dilute commuting is time I can put into the next book.
Arthur Phillips: I have had day jobs, and did while writing Prague, but I don't at the moment. I always worked part-time or odd hours. I just had to have two hours first thing in the morning, every morning, for my dirty little hobby.
Gary Shteyngart: I am blessed not to have to work at a day job, though much of The Russian Debutante's Handbook was written at various office jobs with my door closed. Colleagues often thought I was very productive because I was always typing away and had a worried look on my face.
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