Trying to Write Outside a 9 to 5 Life

So... what's your day job?

I ask partly because I'm curious (nosy), and partly because I've been thinking about this lately in regard to my own life. The reason, of course, is because I have a new job.

And it's a great job. I got hired as a full-time In-house editor at an editorial company called Scribendi (which you can find at Scribendi.com). We handle just about everything, doing critiques, edits, and proofreading for just about any kind of written material possible. Creative writing? Check. Corporate? Check. Business? Check. Personal? Check. ESL? Check. Academic? Check. Technical? Medical? Scientific? Check, check, check.

In other words, I get to sit and play with sentences all day. For a sentence junkie like myself, this is a permanent high. Indeed, I get paid for taking my drug of choice. A fiscally responsible addiction!

But it has got me thinking about the connection between day jobs and the writing life. How does your day job influence your writing? It's interesting to try and chart influence. Owning the fantabulous Inklings Bookshop was great for me in terms of writing. I was surrounded by great books all day, and I could always snatch a few moments to write during the work day. Now, I worked a lot, six and sometimes seven days a week, without taking a break or vacation for five years. But those stolen moments during the day were wonderful. It made each work day somehow more alive.

The carrot factory, however, was not so fortunate for the writing life. I worked even longer hours and lhad even less time off, and there was no time to write during the work day (which was often 14 hours or longer). Only scraps of writing slipped off my fingertips in that period. Which is okay. Sometimes this is the way of things. Paying the bills comes first (otherwise the ferocious wee ones and the vampire infant might devour me). But the work certainly wasn't conducive to writing.

Now I'm editing and writing all day. This makes me pretty jazzed, but there's also the risk that the day job will soak up all the writing energy that used to go to my personal writing. It hasn't yet. I'm still excited to see that blank page. But you never know. I've met a lot of people who've found this to be true, this conflict between professional and personal writing.

And there are other elements, too. Work can influence writing in other ways--subtle and almost subliminal ways. The relaxed, bookish atmosphere of my old shop? Good. The weariness and physical discomfort resulting from the carrot job? Less good. Doing something you love? Good. Doing something you don't? Less good.

And yet each job has its own experiences, its own unique practices and people. Writers are usually observers, watchers, and friendly (hopefully) voyeurs. We pull in life around us, twisting and tinkering and transforming. Transmuting it, really, into something utterly new upon the page. And yet familiar, leaking a personal reality, a personal tone of experience. And when the 9 to 5 job (or the 6 to 6 job, as it might be) forms so much of your waking life it can't help but influence what you write. Won't some of that work experience, however changed, find its way to the page?

So... what do you do for a day job? (Or, what have you done in the past?) And what does it mean to your writing?