Ditch job, become an author!?

[Pigsmummy]

I haven't voiced this in RL, I would love to ditch my well paid job and write some gritty fiction. I read a lot, hundreds of books of different genres, I also really enjoy theatre. I have the outline story of about three books in my head currently and in my day to day life find situations that I would love to write about.

Where do I start? Do I type up my outline and try to enter competitions? Do I write chapters then send them to a publisher? (I work in sales so have developed a thick skin regards rejection). How much might a publishing deal be worth? (kicking myself that I didn't get this nailed before ebooks came along).

I have wanted to write for a long time (most of my adult life) but suppressed the desire, i have a good job, been in this position for 6 years, my colleagues would be astounded by my lack of motivation and enjoyment of my job as i hide it well, I often sit through high level meetings wishing the time away so I can get back to my Kindle.

Is this madness? Has anyone done this?

I am 39, married with one DC btw

[SolidGoldBrass]

It's amazing how many people want to be writers. (But don't actually love books and stories, and haven't written anything themselves since they were in the Upper Fourth). I suppose there's something sort of pleasing in the idea, really - all sorts of whangers and no-marks who happen to have made money doing other things are only really happy when their names appear on an actual book (eg Katie Price) - those of us who've had an actual book in an actual bookshop can feel that we merit a bit of respect. Even if we don't have any fucking money.

[Pigsmummy]

Upthechimney I am not suggesting that an author isn't highly skilled. However the practical element of being an author is creative writing which is widely taught in the western world where literacy levels are high.

Becoming a surgeon requires many years of specialist study, skill and practical assessment, I am not about to pick up a steak knife and give it a go.

[BigPawsBrown]

I think it takes about as many years of practise/learning to get competent as a writer as it does for surgeon.

I was writing rubbish for ten years easily.

The best writers make it look easy, but then unfortunately this means everybody thinks they can Be A Writer

[Writersmum]

DS got his book accepted when he was 19, but that was his sixth attempt at a book - he'd written four 50,000 word NaNoWriMo novels, plus another two. NaNoWriMo certainly helped with the discipline of just sitting down and banging out the words. He set up and helped run a lunchtime writing club at his school. Our local university (Aberdeen) runs a school short story competition and he'd had two short stories published through that. He'd entered loads of other competitions, too.

It certainly hasn't come easy to DS, though the excitement of getting a publishing deal, and other exciting bits like approving the art work for the front cover have been unbelievably good.

Just keeping our fingers crossed it sells once it's published!!

[SuzanneUK]

The main point (which seems to have been lost) is that getting your book published does not mean the income from it is going to match the income from your day job.

In fact, unless you're extremely lucky, it probably won't even come close to matching the income from your day job - even if your day job is flipping burgers at McDonalds.

[wordfactory]

I think the trouble with novels is that they are baggy beasts. And the craft needed to make a novel work as a whole is so different from the craft needed to create a smaller piece.

A novel isn't about the great plot, it isn't about living characters, it isn't about vivid images or delicious wordage. It's about the scaffolding that holds up all those things.

And it's that scaffolding that is the hardest thing to build. Particularly as the strongest scaffolding should also be invisible to the naked eye, or removed altogether (which can only happen once the finished product can hold itself up).

Incidentally, it's also the thing that most would-be writers don't want to spend any time talking about or learning about or even thinking about. IMVHO, that's because they're still at the reader stage and haven't yet tipped into becoming a writer.

[traininthedistance]

Why not - but don't give up the well paid day job!

Most of the fiction authors I know work as city solicitors, academics etc. in their day jobs.

www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/17/writers-earn-less-than-600-a-year

[kungfupannda]

I think the thing about writing as a skill is that when you read, you don't, or shouldn't notice, the scaffolding, as someone called it upthread. You are engaged in the story, not in admiring the writer's skill, or thinking "oh, see what she did there."

This means that it's hard, when first starting out, to get your head around the fact that there are a whole load of quite specific skills that you need to understand and be able to employ, even if you ultimately decide not to use them, or to break "rules'"

I don't think that the creative writing taught in schools has any real bearing on what writers do as adults. I think that all creative writing generally does is introduce children to the idea of writing for pleasure, and to exploring language. Useful things, obviously, but about as far removed from the end result of a professional writer as GCSE biology is from a qualified surgeon.

I would highly recommend some sort of good quality course if you can afford it. I know not everyone agrees, but in terms of starting to put together the basic skills and techniques, I think it saves a lot of wasted time and effort in the long run.

For example, most new writers know about "show, don't tell" on some level. When I started writing my first novel I was obsessed with the idea that everything had to be shown. I went to a workshop at a writing festival on this topic, and the tutor dealt with various examples of the different shades of "showing" and the situations where "tell" is actually more appropriate, as well as looking at examples of effective rule-breaking "telling." I came away from that able to look at my own work and see where I'd over-shown.

Similarly, I went to a workshop on psychic distance. Everyone knows about viewpoint - 1st, 3rd etc - but what the tutor did very clearly and concisely, was to show how to adapt viewpoint to get close to a character, or to zoom out. This is something that most people probably know on some basic level, but having it set out in a series of clear examples was a massive lightbulb moment.

I would recommend Arvon. I did one of their short story courses when I started trying to write short fiction. We had a fantastic group, and we're all still in touch on a Facebook group where we've continued to share work and experiences. We also had two fantastic, engaging tutors, so maybe we were just very lucky.

So after all that very, unwriterly-like rambling, I think what I'm trying to say is that I would advise starting to write, without giving up the day job, but to treat it as professionally as possible, just as you would if you decided you did want to become a surgeon. I'd get a decent chunk of a novel down in first draft, as well as a synopsis of where you want it to go. Then I'd do some research about things you're finding hard - characterisation, voice, plot etc - and look into courses or workshops that are relevant. If you can spend a bit of money on it, treat it like any professional training and give yourself a budget and some clear goals. Try to find a local writing group for face-to-face support, and join a writing forum, ideally one with focused feedback groups, like Writewords.

Ultimately, though, none of this is going to get you anywhere if you don't follow the cliche of "apply bum to seat and fingers to keyboard." However much you can learn from courses, you'll learn just as much, if not more, by sheer volume of output. And I think a huge amount of that learning process is in the editing - get a first draft down and then settle down to making it work as a novel.

[kungfupannda]

x-posted with wordfactory on the subject of scaffolding!

[wordfactory]

kung-fu great minds think alike .

I've been asked to give a series of guest lectures on an MA course on this issue and have been trying to think about what I might say! My notes contain a lot of mention of scaffolding.

I have this image that writing a novel is like building a house. That you have at your disposal the bricks (the plot), the cement (characters), the roof tiles (vivid images), the window frames (beautiful words)...we're suspending disbelief here, that most writers do have those things at their disposal...now how do we put up that house? And how do we get it to stay up?

That's the skill!

[BoffinMum]

Unless you win the lottery or marry someone wealthy, this is risky. I had a friend who succeeded, but it took her ten whole years of being supported by someone else, working at it 9-5, in order to secure a 3 book contract, for which she is being paid comparatively little.

I am a published author but do this by having a day job (which informs the writing very well, I have to say).

[BoffinMum]

BTW I went on a great MN course about publishing your first novel, and I soon realised my was really crap compared to other people's on the same course, so signing up for something like that might be a good step for you, so you can calibrate your talent/progress.

[Nerfmother]

What a brilliant thread. Loads of good tips; I have , like the op, always wanted to write, but find it hard to sit and do it - there's always a child around, work calling, washing to do. This year I am going to; I have Fridays off and I don't want to look back and think why didn't i? I've own or been placed in a few things over the years so that's my starting point!

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

'I think what I'm trying to say is that I would advise starting to write, without giving up the day job, but to treat it as professionally as possible,'

Yes, that, and what Wordfactory said about scaffolding.
I've written ever since I can remember. A year or two ago I decided to get serious about learning the craft and basically I have treated it like a job. I'm a SAHM with 3 kids so I'm still doing that - I didn't ditch a job to write, but I did have a big change in mindset about how to spend my free time, with knock-on effects for my family.
My improving as a writer only began once I realised how much I didn't know and I'm not sure OP has got to that point yet.

So far I've been as successful as I could possibly have hoped for: the first agent I submitted to took me on and my book is out on sub in England and the US. But you know what? It is entirely possible nothing will come of it. There's no guarantee the agent will be able to sell my manuscript. And to have a career I then need to write another, better one and she needs to sell that, and then another. And even then, if I establish a career - well, look how many alternative income sources writers typically seem to need. One of the most successful people in my sub-genre still does private language tutoring, I recently noticed.

[wordfactory]

tunip the chances are your agent will sell your book.

In recent years, established agents have become absurdly risk averse (in line with the expectations of editors of course), which means that if they do take on a new author, they're pretty committed and pretty convinced they'll sell it. There's a lot less taking a punt than there used to be.

[SolidGoldBrass]

I do think on the whole that most good writers are the ones who've been doing it for years and years, because on some level you can't really stop. (And I say that as someone who has more than once announced at least to myself that I am Giving Up Writing.) If you say you want to be a writer but don't ever actually get round to doing any writing, well, you're not going to be a writer, are you?

[FreyaFridays]

When I was starting out about eight or nine years ago (I'd been "writing" since I knew how to, but this was the first time with an aim to doing something with it), I got a couple of books to educate me a bit on what writers actually did aside from, you know, writing. How to be a Writer by Stewart Ferris was my little handbook of wonder for a few years, and I still fish it out sometimes if I feel like a need a re-read. The tone is very honest and pragmatic with regards to trying to make writing more than a hobby. The publishing advice in there may be a bit outdated now after the advent of e-books, but still a lot of relevant stuff about the process of writing and editing, etc.

Anyway, write for the sake of writing. If you're a writer at heart, this is what should drive you anyway: the burning desire to just somehow get a story out and onto paper. Please don't set out with the desire to make a career out of it, as you'll likely be very disheartened by your first advance, or the profits of your first e-book. If you have a good job anyway, your first advance is likely to be less than 10% of your salary now. And if you can only write one book a year, it really isn't feasible to live on that kind of money.

Besides, the day job is far more exciting! Mine definitely is, and it keeps you living in the real world, getting ideas from people, conversations and anecdotes. Really, you should be carrying a writing journal for scraps of stuff taken from real life at all times, if you aren't already.

[UptheChimney]

However the practical element of being an author is creative writing which is widely taught in the western world where literacy levels are high

I still think this is naïve and actually quite lacking in understanding of the hard-won aspects of craft and skill (not to mention talent) of properly published writers (not self-published bloggers).

Look, get off MN and write properly and seriously!

Try Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird -- it's brilliant for would-be writers getting started, and a really lovely read, too.

[UptheChimney]

Besides, the day job is far more exciting!

I'm an academic, not a fiction, writer, and I have to say, a lot of writing is sheer grind. You sit, and type, and type and try to work out how to get the nebulous webs of ideas into clear linear prose. It is a grind. can you tell I'm in the middle of trying to write a textbook chapter?

[FreyaFridays]

Yes, I teach creative writing in secondary school... it is not at all reflective of how I actually approach my writing, or possibly how any writer actually crafts their work!

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

'tunip the chances are your agent will sell your book.'

Thank you. Let's hope so, eh?
I don't think I was a long shot but I'm mindful that most agents have stories of books they thought should have sold which didn't.

Re craft, creative writing lessons and the difference between writing and surgery, I think the main difference is that surgery has to be formally taught whereas writers are mostly self-taught, so most of the learning is invisible to most people. It is nice because you don't have to pay fees or get to college for a 9 o'clock lecture, but you still have to put the hours in just like with learning any other skill.

From talking to a friend who did creative writing when she was at school, I suspect the most important thing about it was learning-how-to-learn in relation to writing. Generally people who've had formal creative writing tuition have an understanding of how to improve, they understand the value of craft books, critiquing, rewriting, they have a vocabulary with which to talk about character, plot, voice, structure, etc and thus pin down the problem, and above all they have a belief that you can improve by practice. People who've never had formal lessons are more likely to think writing ability is something you've either got or you haven't. But the creative writing course, even if it's a two year degree, still only teaches you a tiny part of what you need to know.

[rookiemater]

That's brilliant news tunip. I'm afraid life intervened for me, plus I realised there was a bit of a chasm between where I am and where I want/need to be, so I drifted away from the Creative Writing threads. I'm delighted to hear your news. PM me the title if you get a chance.

Sorry OP - side conversation.

[Judyastley]

I've been a novelist for over 20 years and it's a lot harder to get into than it was when I started. Plus advances get smaller all the time - even if you are snapped up you will absolutely not be able to live on one so either don't ditch the job or see if you can find one that engages you more happily. Read the advice given by Trainersandcake, above. Saying you want to be a novelist, these days, is a bit like saying you want to be an actor but really assuming you'll be an instant movie star. You need to practise your craft and engage in the writing community generally. If you want to write romance, check out the Romantic Novelists' Assoc, if crime, join the crime writers bunch. Either way, read Writers' News. Do competitions, put up the odd entry to Paragraph Planet.com. And good luck! Join us, enjoy!

[CelinaGrace]

I'm an 'indie author' - I started self publishing myself about two years ago on Amazon's Kindle publishing program (although before this I did have a literary agent although she never actually got around to selling my book…).

This year I can confidently predict that I will replace my full time day job's income with proceeds from my book sales. In fact, I've just dropped my hours to part-time at the day job which means I'll have more time to write. Yay.

It's part luck, part talent and mostly years and years of hard work, writing around full time work and babies and basically, never giving up.

[squoosh]

Wow, good for you Celina!