I just taught creative writing for a summer session to a group of very bright and talented 11th and 12th graders. It was a very intensive program, a five-day-a-week gig for three weeks, in which the students studied and wrote poetry, short fiction, dramatic scenes, and long prose (both fiction and nonfiction).
It was very rewarding but also absolutely exhausting.
I got to teach the students a variety of forms, which reminded me that I need not pigeonhole myself only as a nonfiction writer (I started a short story yesterday!). I also got young writers excited by new genres and authors (they loved the idea of prose poetry!). That was totally gratifying.
I would love to teach creative writing at the high school or university level as a career in the future. However, this teaching position took up all my time even though I was only teaching for about an hour a day. My personal projects got pushed to the backburner. I was tired after leading class and trying to remain energetic all the time and then prepping for the next session each afternoon.
This got me thinking about the future again. Since I’m going to need a day job after I finish graduate school (no $200,000 book deals in my future), why not teach creative writing and do journalism to keep my mind involved in writing-related tasks and exercise my writing muscle?
But then this post got me all worried and nervous:
After a brief stint waiting tables, my first real job was as a writer. I thought I had it made. Only problem: the writing wasn’t really mine. I was ghost writing huge tomes on stuff like tax legislation and investment advice. It drove me bonkers. Each book got significantly more difficult to finish than the last, and I soon realized that I only have so many words in me each day. Once I’d finished my paying gig, there was no juice left for fiction.
D.J. Morel suggests that a day job in which you write will just sap all your creative energy from you. You’ll come home at the end of the day after having worked for pay in a job that was mildly creative and you won’t feel like doing creative writing because that’s what you did all day.
I feel like that’s been true for me for the past three weeks. I was always so tired from reading all this literature in preparation for class and doing all these in-class exercises that I didn’t feel like coming home and writing.
And now that my teaching gig is over, I’m left with my job as the web editor for a journalism organization. I love their work. I love getting to copyedit and write for their site. But does it mean that there’s no energy left at the end of the day for my own writing projects?
Does this mean my approach has been wrong all along? Should I get a job that has nothing to do with writing so that when I come home from the job, I want nothing else but to write? Should I save my writing energy for myself?
I just don’t know. I’m torn. I’ve always looked for jobs that relate to my passion and my skills. So I end up getting paid to blog, to write, to edit, to interview, to research, to teach creative writing, to do communications work.
But maybe I should be wilfully withholding my writing skills for myself and not letting employers take away my writing energy? I just don’t know.
It seems counterintuitive to seek out a job that’s not in line with your passion, but if it means that you’re leaving your creative juices for yourself at the end of the day, then maybe it makes sense.
Maybe instead of worrying about the type of job I get, I should instead focus my energy on instituting a daily writing practice, so that regardless of how much I’m working or what I do for a living, I make sure to set aside time each day to do my own writing.
What do you guys think?
