The writer's life. Ain't it swank?

After my lovely day off yesterday, I'm reluctant to return to the cube. I crave the life that involves both good, interesting work and no formal office. Part of me wants to work from coffee shops and libraries and classrooms. It felt good just to write and revise and read and create my own day and get my creative stuff done. But… as nice as that kind of life is, sometimes it isn’t nice. I’ve had that life before, and I was afraid to change it, but I'm glad I did. It was often isolating. It’s hard to create and stick to my own daily structure. It was tough to make enough money. It just... was too much time for it.

I get way more writing done now that I have a full-time job. That seems backward, but it’s true. When I wasn’t working full-time, I was worried about money, which did me no favors, and there wasn’t the same kind of pressure to get the work done, so it was easier to procrastinate. There’s this idea of what the writer’s life should be--and if a person isn’t able to be in a situation where they have loads of time to write (the U of Iowa says 3+ hours daily), they’re not really dedicated.

I don’t think I’d ever, ever want a life (again) where my Main Job is to be a writer (or student-writer). There’s only so much creative energy a person can spend on that kind of work a week, and once it's drained, forcing yourself to keep being creative is self-destruction. My writing is best when its balanced out with non-creative-writing work. When I wrote too much, it soon felt just like going to the office minus the money. Kind of like Christmas every day—it loses its beauty and after a while, chocolate Santas aren’t awesome anymore.

My friends, the myth that “real” writers prove they are real by being so devoted to their craft and their path to success that they reject stuff like jobs, mediocre or otherwise, in the name of art, is a load of crap. There are allll kinds of valid, different ways to do life. It’s a very individual thing.

I guess, if I had my ideal situation (Universe? Hey, Universe! Are you listening?) I’d have some of both. Part of the time there’d be some structured career with responsibilities and someone to hold me accountable that includes a place to go to interact with folks and be involved in projects that are interesting but not the same things I work on in my creative life. Then there would be the creative life part, where I have flexibility and independence and get to follow whatever my intuition (or editor) says to work on.

I’m getting there. I actually like my office job (for once) and it’s a little bit flexible. I have days off (I’ll get paid for yesterday’s skip-day), I can work out of the office sometimes, I can go for walks or work out during the work day or come in from 10-6 one day and 7-4 the next. Still… there’s a career work/creative-work life balance that isn’t totally worked out there, and I’m not sure what to do to get it there.