Your Dream Job

July 14, 2008

When I posted this photograph the other day for a different post (and I use it a lot, especially the multi-part series on Freelance Writing For A Living), Spy Scribbler (AKA Natasha Fondren), commented that I must really like that picture.

Well, yeah.

But after thinking about it, I wondered, besides the obvious, why. Do I really think that I'm somehow going to find a job that's going to allow me to spend my days sprawled out on a hammock on some tropical beach and spend the day contemplating the blue sky and the beach sand on my toes?

It occurs to me--and it occasionally is reinforced by other people's comments--that I probably do already have my dream job.

I'm a freelance writer and I make a decent living. I get to work out of my house, my schedule is more or less my own and I like the work a lot. I have ownership of my life, or at least the illusion of it, and that's more than most people can say.

And yet...

Sure, I'd like to be writing bestselling novels that make tons of money and allow me to work three-hour workdays and allow me to have vacation homes around the world.

But when I put it that way it starts to seem an awful lot like a Lotto fantasy or someone who hops on the bus to move to Hollywood to become a movie star.

Also, as I was discussing with Leanne yesterday (and although she was listening, she was probably thinking I was an idiot), when you turn something you love like writing into a job, your attitude about it does change. I've posted here before about the notion that if you suddenly inherited a bunch of money or won the Lotto, would you still write. And I thought it was interesting that the people aspiring to be writers typically say yes and those of us already making a living as writers tend to be a lot more ambivalent about that.

I once read a column by Lawrence Block where he said if he discovered an oil well in his backyard he's not sure he'd write another word. As an aspiring writer, that really pissed me off. Now that I've made my living as a writer for a few years and had a couple novels published, I don't find Block's statement terribly surprising or upsetting. It now makes quite a bit of sense to me. 

There's a lot of world out there to explore and there might be other ways to find satisfaction than slamming my head against publishing's big, thick doors.

Or not. Because I do love to write.

One of the things that I think about though is that, generally speaking, I've found a way of making a living as a writer that allows me to stay at home, not travel except rarely, and do my work by myself except via e-mail and telephone interviews.

When my novels are published, to my surprise, I've been forced out into the larger world to do promotion, book talks, library events, bookstore signings, writers conferences, TV and radio interviews, etc. I'm not (to say the least) completely comfortable doing this. Nor do I honestly see where it has much effect, but that's a different topic.

It's possible (sort of) to be a novelist and do none of this. But you know, if you become a bestselling author, it's going to be pretty hard to avoid at least some of that stuff and my suspicion is, the bigger you get, the more promotional demands there actually are because, well, your publisher has a huge investment in you and they want to make sure you earn it back. Hell, YOU want to make sure you earn it back. 

So you tell me: what's your dream job?

Cheers,

Mark Terry