10 Signs to Quit your day job and Become a Full Time Writer
I’ve seen a lot of Twitter activity on the topic of making a career change to write full time. It’s a big risk, but doesn’t have to be cold turkey. Kayla Lee wrote an article for The Writing Cooperative with a terrific three-month plan for converting from a nine-to-fiver to an income-generating writer.
But when is the right time? How will you know? Here are ten signs that you might be ready.
1. When frustrated, you have a tendency to escalate into a fit of Tourette’s in such a way that you’re on the cusp of being fired and probably escorted from the building.
2. You prefer to receive all your constructive critical feedback in writing, as opposed to face-to-face, so that no one sees the tears rolling down your blotchy, red cheeks as you eat an entire chocolate cake over the kitchen sink, chanting the positive affirmations that your therapist suggested, and occasionally blurting out “Reducto!” while waving your cake fork like a wand in an effort to make that illiterate editorial nerd over at Big Cheese Publishing Co. spontaneously explode.
3. You’re a vampire. Vampires just don’t do well in rush hour traffic unless they take the subway, and with the subway prices always going up, who can afford that? Plus, there’s that awkward moment at lunch when everyone orders a sandwich and you order the sandwich maker. No one likes blood on their clothes.
4. Unlike your humorless, rule-following boss, your dog doesn’t lay into you when you show up at work with a Kahlua-spiked coffee and no pants. And your dog certainly isn’t going to call Human Resources so that you can have the “no one likes to see your ass” lecture for the third time. Nor will your dog refer you to the Employee Assistance Program, where – for god sake – they don’t even offer a grocery delivery service. How is that any kind of “assistance?”
5. You have spent a year and a half not writing a book, and instead spent every spare moment setting up the perfect space where you could write a book if only you could get rid of that pesky day job. How are you possibly expected to focus with barely a couple hours each night, especially when you still have three seasons of Game of Thrones to get through before Season 8 is released?
6. Paying income taxes to the government is causing you high anxiety, so you logically decide that making no income as a full-time novelist will relieve that stress. I mean, isn’t your mental health worth it?
7. Your social media presence is suffering. Everyone knows it’s critical to develop a following for your eventual book launch. The world needs to see that you’re an expert. A professional. And that takes time and creative effort that you simply can’t invest with a boss looking over your shoulder. But let’s be honest. You’re really just re-tweeting that taco cat meme and quietly judging others’ less clever cat memes.
8. Watercooler chit chat makes your mind wander to an awesome scene where all your coworkers develop a flesh-eating virus, and just as Leonard is trying to convince you for the umpteenth time of why we should go back to the gold standard, the skin on the right side of his face turns black, starts bubbling and oozing a split pea-colored puss, and then his whole cheek slides down the front of his shirt and splatters onto the floor, eating a hole the size of a basketball through the carpet.
9. You can almost always find a cushy armchair in Barnes & Noble during a typical workday. Not just that, the Starbucks inside of B&N usually has a sufficient stock of lemon bars. Good fresh ones, not the stale, dried out bars you find at airport Starbucks. Thousands of books. A cushy armchair. A lemon bar, and a grande latte. Is a paycheck really all that necessary?
10. You’re prepared to work really hard to make no money, increase your probability for soul-crushing rejection, and become a target for social media trolls and cyberbullies because the only thing you want to do, every moment of every day, is WRITE.