Columns > Published on August 16th, 2018

Why I Have to Write, Even While Working Full-Time

Header image by dreamguy, via Free Images

I tell people I have a job and a half. My full-time job, the one that pays the bills and keeps me fed and able to see my doctor, that’s the one where I spend 40+ hours every week (plus commute). That’s my day-job, and that’s my priority right now.

That’s what I do.

My other job, the one to which I aspire to devote at least 15 hours a week and maybe I’ll earn a little coin so I can splurge and see a movie or order in, that can’t be my priority right now.

But that’s who I am.

My day job, while something that I really enjoy, is not what I ever pictured myself doing. And as much as I truly like it, it’s not as emotionally fulfilling to me as my writing. Honestly, I don’t think anything will ever make my heart soar and my soul stutter into place the way writing does.

No other job could so fully match doing with being for me.

But I’m not in a place where I can afford to live while devoting the full-time job sphere to my writing. I don’t have the connections to score the high-paying gigs, and I haven’t yet cultivated the talent to make good on them. For every essay that I write and love, I spend way too much time trying to find a place to take it.

I make time to write because if I don’t, I lose track of who I am.

In short, I have a day job because I’m not Roxane Gay, who can tweet her desire to write about a TV show (for pay), and within less than 24 hours she’s got an assignment. She fought for her place and her right to do that, with talent and wit and sheer determination, and I applaud that, and am more than a little envious, and it’s something I aspire to.

If I’m ever going to get there, though, I need to learn to write through my day job.

Which is proving harder than I ever would have thought imaginable.

I live off of to-do lists, and when I go to bed in the mornings (because I work a graveyard shift and my days and nights are upside down), I give myself a small list of writerly things to work on before I catch the train to my job. And on my nights off, I give myself a much larger list of things to do.

Because I’ve been making lists for a while, I’ve learned how to make them work for me: I have to do my work in small chunks, and I have to mix it up and schedule in down-time. So I’ll write an essay, read a book, critique a friend’s book, watch some TV, work on my novel, write a blog post…and so on, and so forth.

I thought it would be easy. I have my list, I know what I have to do, so I’ll just do it.

And yet I find myself struggling all the same. I don’t just have to work on my novels during my off hours; I have to work on my personal blog; on the group blog I help run; on freelance essays; on reading and reviewing ARCs; on reading and critiquing friends’ novels…

I want to do all of the above. Sincerely and wholeheartedly. It’s just that when I sit down to do it, my mind wanders. Or if I pause for a second, I can’t get back into the right mindset.

I’ve wasted countless weekends passing the hours by hitting “next” on Hulu and Netflix binge-watches.

I never feel good about those weekends.

Yet, every once in a while, I make the system work for me. I accomplish things. I write. And in those moments, I finally feel…complete.

Ugh, that sounds so cheesy, doesn’t it?

But it’s true. Writing is not just something I do, it is a core part of what makes me, me. And it’s something that I need in order to feel fully human, fully myself.

Sure, I can go without writing for weeks at a time and think everything’s okay. But the second I sit down and words begin to flow, it’s like…my brain wakes up again. My heart sings. And something goes, “Oh. Oh, this is how it could have been, all those weeks.”

I make time to write not just because it’s a part-time freelance career I’ve chosen, and it brings in some extra money.

I make time to write because if I don’t, I lose track of who I am. And I never want to do that.

About the author

Karis Rogerson is a mid-20s aspiring author who lives in Brooklyn and works at a cafe—so totally that person they warn you about when you declare your English major. In addition to embracing the cliched nature of her life, she spends her days reading, binge-watching cop shows (Olivia Benson is her favorite character) and fangirling about all things literary, New York and selfie-related. You can find her other writing on her website and maybe someday you’ll be able to buy her novels.

Similar Columns

Explore other columns from across the blog.

Book Brawl: Geek Love vs. Water for Elephants

In Book Brawl, two books that are somehow related will get in the ring and fight it out for the coveted honor of being declared literary champion. Two books enter. One book leaves. This month,...

The 10 Best Sci-Fi Books That Should Be Box Office Blockbusters

It seems as if Hollywood is entirely bereft of fresh material. Next year, three different live-action Snow White films will be released in the States. Disney is still terrorizing audiences with t...

Books Without Borders: Life after Liquidation

Though many true book enthusiasts, particularly in the Northwest where locally owned retailers are more common than paperback novels with Fabio on the cover, would never have set foot in a mega-c...

From Silk Purses to Sows’ Ears

Photo via Freeimages.com Moviegoers whose taste in cinema consists entirely of keeping up with the Joneses, or if they’re confident in their ignorance, being the Joneses - the middlebrow, the ...

Cliche, the Literary Default

Original Photo by Gerhard Lipold As writers, we’re constantly told to avoid the cliché. MFA programs in particular indoctrinate an almost Pavlovian shock response against it; workshops in...

A Recap Of... The Wicked Universe

Out of Oz marks Gregory Maguire’s fourth and final book in the series beginning with his brilliant, beloved Wicked. Maguire’s Wicked universe is richly complex, politically contentious, and fille...

Reedsy | Editors with Marker (Marketplace Editors)| 2024-05

Submitting your manuscript?

Professional editors help your manuscript stand out for the right reasons.