Bisky's Twitterling's Scribbles! discussion

I've only been a part of this community since this summer, but I think it'd be interesting to see what this awesome group does for a living when not writing. Does your background influence how you write at all? And how do you juggle the day job and an indie writing career?

I'll share. When not writing, I'm Batman.....just kidding, I'm a history professor...who wishes he was Batman.

Haha, being Batman would certainly be an awesome job! If you can be anyone in life, always be Batman.

It's not quite for a living, but I'm a freelance digital artist and a comic colorist. I've been drawing almost daily since the day I could hold a pen, so about a year ago I decided to start taking commissions and applying for concept art jobs, and that's been working out quite well for me.

To be honest, I don't think I'd be writing if I couldn't draw! Every writing project I've ever worked on began with a drawing of a character. c:

I was a history student :] Though after a pretty successful year of study my health took a bit of a nose dive in February and I had to drop out again. So at the moment I’m kinda taking things day by day and trying to build up strength so I can maybe go back in January. I use my healthy time at the moment to write as much as I can :] But it's kinda hit and miss at the moment. Really miss my writing/studying/socialmedia routine from last year xD

But history does influence a lot of my work. Especially Viking stuff :p

Batman would be the coolest job ever :3 and like Bisky I also was not a good history student (my grades in the subject reflected this).

How do I balance writing with my day job? I made it my day job xD

At the moment I'm between jobs so I have plenty of time to write. On previous jobs, I would always try to write on my lunch breaks. My last position in a call center, I was able to write between calls. In any position, I would try and make time to write when I got home from work.

My current day job is stay home dad. Been doing that for about 6 months. Having to chase down a toddler and stop her from pulling all my books off the shelf and ripping them apart and eating them, apart from the rest of the stuff she gets up to, can put a dent in the writing, but I manage.

Before that I worked in an office environment in a call centre/complaints department of a big international tech co for five years. Like Michael (nice hat and sonic, BTW) I was able to write during work, which is when I took the challenge and most of NaNoWriMo 2013. If it wasn't for that job I don't think I would have made it through, lol.

Before that I worked with photocopiers, low level maintenance stuff. I've done retail, worked in a roadhouse.

The best thing about all the different roles is the diverse people I met and I definitely put that into my writing. The only time I have directly put my job into a story was a flash fiction about a demon coming through a photocopier.

Yeah, I bet you can tell which job I hated most :P

I homeschool my children. Basically, I can write because I only sleep 5-6 hours a night on a good night. Hooray for insomnia!

Jim wrote: "My current day job is stay home dad. Been doing that for about 6 months. Having to chase down a toddler and stop her from pulling all my books off the shelf and ripping them apart and eating them, ..."

I hear you with the little ones. I have a 1 year old girl and it's a general rule that days I'm home watching her will not be productive writing days, which is okay though. Daddy-daughter time is important.

I work full time as a legal assistant/exec assistant (have been with the same lawyer for 20 years). I have homeschooled my special needs kiddo since birth (he is grade 11 this year!). I am the head of the women's ministry in my congregation. I run, I bike, I cook from scratch (multiple allergies and diet issues), I write, I publish, I market....

One of my fears of becoming a full-time writer (part of my 5 year plan) is that I will become less productive because I have less to do (Parkinson's Law, you know).

I work as a psychologist, advising teachers and parents, and being a psychologist and observing people does help with creating characters. I have no kids to take care of, so my days after work are free but I mainly write on weekends. I am always shocked to learn how people manage so many things and write at the same time, since I'm a very slow writer.

I work Loss Prevention for a rental car company. Basically I get yelled at and lied to all day. Some of the stories I hear all day are pretty crazy and can be entertaining themselves. I don't use any of them in my own stories though. With everything I do in my "free" time, I wonder myself how I find time for writing.

I have a blog post about finding time for writing, and there are some good resources down at the bottom too:

http://pdworkman.com/when-do-you-find...

Balance and structure are definitely key to routine. And routine can only come from repetition.

I made it a point while still working my day job to write during my lunch break and when it was quiet. Apart from getting in word count it made it look like I was hard at work :P Then at home after dinner and family time instead of watching TV. It also helps to be a night owl, and a story rattling around in your head definitely fuels insomnia.

I'm an HTML email programmer by trade, which is essentially web design but for your inbox. There's so many different email clients to accommodate that it's a tricky job from time to time. I love the problem solving element of fixing a template that a customer has ruined. I'm the big gun that gets sent in when no-one else can fix it. I've been doing it with this company for 11 and a half years.

I tend to write in the evenings when my young kids are asleep, so they can't hassle me. My writing is usually very sporadic though. I've been struck down with depression the last couple of months, which has hampered not only my work life but writing as well. As some of you may know, it's bloody horrible when the claws are stuck in.

I am a global supply chain manager for an animal health company. I wrote all four of my books in the evenings after a day of work!

I scan chicken autopsies, bleeding beef, and -supposedly- organic produce AFTER asking you if you want this bagged in paper or plastic.
Yeah.
We military wives live the glamorous life, eh?
We take jobs wherever we can :D
I work on base, at the commissary, scanning groceries. It's actually a federal job. Who knew barcodes came with benefits??
Trust me when I say, I'm writing book 2 like a bloody mad hatter!!

...wow...y'all have REAL jobs...
*hangs head*

I am an office administrator/bookkeeper for a Midwestern Mall. It's exhausting, low-paying and thoroughly unchallenging. But good benefits. I nano my way through 50,000 words every other November. Then I use my laptop and, for about 15-20 minutes each night before I go to sleep I try to add a little something. I'm currently at nearly 90,000 words on my 4th book and it seems like the closer I get to my goal, the more I want this to be my real career. I find myself daydreaming at work - a lot. Gets me through the difficult days.

My last two jobs left me with a lot of free time so I wrote a lot during then. I am jobless now (kinds sucks) and should be taking advantage of my free time, but I haven't been able to be productive. It's like my brain shut down. Though I have been reading a lot so at least that's something.

I'm currently a full time history grad student/part-time librarian and in the summers I'm a park ranger. Balancing having enough energy to write is a challenge, but I love it.

I would say my jobs influence my work because I'm constantly surrounded by fascinating info and luckily my boss lets me research at the library desk. :)

Kay wrote: "I'm currently a full time history grad student/part-time librarian and in the summers I'm a park ranger. Balancing having enough energy to write is a challenge, but I love it.

I would say my jobs ..."

History grad school?! Awesome! I'm happy for you and I pity you all at the same time. Hang in there! It's hard to write creatively when you're reading four books a week and writing 20 page papers. My unsolicited advice is don't beat yourself up if your creative writing isn't where you want it to be. It took me a good semester or so to accept that my brain could only do so much.

Kevin wrote: "Kay wrote: "I'm currently a full time history grad student/part-time librarian and in the summers I'm a park ranger. Balancing having enough energy to write is a challenge, but I love it.

I would..."

I'm always jealous of people who seem to be able to do everything. I did tell myself I need to take a step back and accept that my writing will likely not be able to really take off until after I finish. I am currently trying to work on my annotated bibliography for my thesis which is an incredible beast. Telling myself the creative work I'm doing is for relaxation and work later helps balance it out.

I am a programme manager by day, as well as a single dad by night. I hate the fact that writing has to fit around my real life. If I had a five year plan, becoming a full-time author would be top of my list of goals. Well, maybe equal top, alongside helping my kids grow up happy!

My first book is due out in January so I will soon get a pretty good indication of whether or not I am living in cloud cuckoo land!

I'm a bit late to the party but still. I am a half time university administrator (mainly do scheduling, student communication and general admin). I also study part-time. Ideally half-time but right now it's at more like 1/4 time because I'm struggling a bit with a course. I enjoy admin work and love studying (well, this one course I'm doing now), but I'm quite glad to be able to do it half-time (even if money is tight) so I still have time for my writing.

I work in a high school . I'm the principal's assistant and I don't have much time every evening. I think we can use technology and find a little more time. You can install a software (Dragon speech to Word)(dragon natural talking) on your notebook. It turns words you utter into typed words on your computer. It increases speed of your work a lot. You can walk or take care of babies or cook, at the same time you can talk into remote microphone connected to your notebook and this software types your words on Microsoft word program or other word processors. Of course installing this software is hard and you should find your exact accent when you install it.

I currently work as a full-time library assistant (which, being surrounded by books, helped me become a writer, natch), as well as working in a shop in Camden in London (as part payment for them to sell my books) AND write semi-part-time as a writer for a video games website.

And the rest of the time, I sleep. And write, of course.

Brittany wrote: "Haha, being Batman would certainly be an awesome job! If you can be anyone in life, always be Batman.

It's not quite for a living, but I'm a freelance digital artist and a comic colorist. I've bee..."

Being a history teacher is no easy job!