How to Quit Your Day Job to Write Full Time© by Holly Lisle
All Rights Reserved
There aren't many things that go without saying in writing; one
of the few is that most people who write at all dream about writing
full-time without the hassle of a day job, too.
First let me tell you that if you're looking for something you
can do to walk away from the job tomorrow, I don't have the answer
for you. It took me about eight years from the time I decided that
I wanted to leave nursing to write full-time to the day in November
of 1993 when I was able to give away my stethescope and do it. And
even then I did it wrong, and jumped too soon, and cost myself some
momentum and some money.
However, if I knew that by staying in nursing for another five
years, I could have had an easier time now ... I think I still would
have jumped when I did. Writing full-time is as cool as you might
ever hope it would be on the good days, and scarier than you can
believe on the bad ones, and I wouldn't trade any of the rollercoaster
ride that it has been up to now for the security a few more years
in the day job could have given me.
First things first. If you are wedded to the idea of security
and you like knowing that you're going to be able to pay your bills
on time every month, kiss the idea of full-time writing a permanent
goodbye. At levels of success higher than those I've yet reached,
I imagine money is a bit more secure. At my level---which is fourteen
or so books in print, all in a solid genre that generates a good
audience, no single title breathtakingly successful, but several
that have earned out and pay regular if small royalties---it is
an adventure. And remember that the definition of adventure is "some
poor shmuck having a hell of a hard time of it a thousand miles
away." I'm doing what I love, and getting paid for it, and I wouldn't
do anything else unless I were in imminent danger of starvation.
Life doesn't suck. But I'm one of those people who never minded
a bit of adventure. And even for me, sometimes the sheer amount
of adventure makes the whole thing dicey.
So how do you go about telling the boss and the 9-5 grind goodbye
forever? Read on ...
Dealing with money>>
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