I’m sure for most writers out there, a writing job would be their dream form of employment. But, while I don’t doubt that it would be a perfect situation for some people, I also think that some writers may not like to have writing jobs and I am going to use this blog post to explain why.
I work full time as a writer and write thousands of words at work every single day. I write articles and generic text for web pages. When I get home I often experience the feeling of being “all written out” which leaves me less motivated to continue my personal writing pursuits. I’m quickly writing this blog post out now just before bed, for example, because I wasn’t exactly motivated for writing when I got home (since I had just been writing for hours already.)
So I think that there’ll be a lot of writers out there who might be better off if they didn’t have writing jobs. Let’s face it, most of the writing jobs that are going around are the kind of work that I do and there are probably only a small few who consider that a “dream” piece of writing work. You might then be doing that piece of less than ideal writing and pouring all of your creative energy into that and then not able to do your own projects.
Having said that, I certainly wouldn’t want any other job. Even though a lot of what I do is written in a very uncreative buisness-like tone, I still get the occasional opportunity to be very creative and I am very grateful for that. Even if I had much fewer opportunities for creativity in my work, it would still be a lot more than in something like answering telephones as a receptionist. While I would do other work, the creative freedom I have every day means that my work never truly feels like “work” and while a lot of my creative energies may be spent, I feel that it is a small price to pay. This is just something to keep in mind if you’re thinking of going into writing.
