It’s not a ‘job’ if you love doing it.

I’ve seen this comment several times lately made in reference to writing for a living.

The first time was directed to one of the writers I chat with a lot on twitter, Yasmine Galenorn.

Well, the first thing I want to say… ?

I loved nursing, especially the years I spent working with kids.

But um…the vast majority of people are going to agree that nursing is a job.  Whether you love it or not.  Loving it doesn’t make it any less work.  It just makes it easier to do the work without hating the work.

And I’m rambling off tangent…I wanted to focus on writing as a job.  I can see, in general, where people think that when you love what you do, it makes it easier to do the job, as opposed to when you hate it.

Perhaps that’s the idea behind this comment?

I’m not sure.

But I really, really hope there aren’t aspiring authors out there operating under the assumption that if they can just get a contract…it gets easier from there on out and they will have their dream job.  If they are writing for a living, then it will so much easier than whatever they are doing in their dayjobs.

Let me state, up front, that while I love what I do for a living… make no mistake:

I work harder as a professional writer than I ever did as a nurse.

Period.

It doesn’t get any easier after you sign a contract, after you land an agent, after you sign a second contract, a third.  After you and your agent have a parting of ways and you have to start searching all over for a new agent… and try doing that job when you’ve got a proposal floating around and you desperately need advice.

Getting that first contract doesn’t mean you’ll never again experience the sting of a rejection.  It doesn’t mean you’ll never again have an agent pass on you, for whatever reason.

Those are the things the unpublished, aspiring author worries the most about, and those are worries that continue even after you’ve signed contracts.  I’ve been doing this professionally since 2004, and yes, I still have to worry about rejections-yes, I still get them.  When my old agent and I had a parting of ways, yes, I had agents pass on me.

But on top of those things, once you’re published, you now have new things.

There are deadlines.  For the book to be finished, for the synopsis/partials for following books in the contract, if you went the traditional route.  And those deadlines are important, especially early on.

There are also deadlines for edits-imagine the fun of opening your door one morning, when you’ve kids to get to school, a couple of doctors appointments, groceries to buy, you’ve got a deadline looming for the next book, and there is a white envelope from fedex… (although lately, all my edits are via emailed galleys) and included in those edits?

A little note that reads…

here are the edits/galleys/whatever…the deadline is such and such date (which is usually like 7-10 days away).

Plans for that weekend?  Um.  Maybe not.  If the plans can’t be canceled or changed, then look forward to several late, late nights.  And imagine the fun if you write for multiple places… I’ve had edits show up from Berkley and Samhain in the same week.  With a deadline looming the following month for a different project.

But those edits have to be done–everything moves on a certain schedule in publishing and if you don’t get those edits turned in, then you put them behind on the schedule…and know what that means? Well, that book that’s due out in July?  Maybe it won’t be out in July.  You messed up the timetable and since the schedule is a damned tight one, I dunno where they’d put you in at. You’ll get in, but where?  A few months down the road? Six months?  Better off just not to miss the deadline.

There’s promo, and contrary to what some people think?  Those pens and bookmarks and totebags and magnets, most authors don’t have a promo budget.  That’s on your dime, but spending money on promo is kind of necessary.  It doesn’t have to pens, bookmarks, etc, but you do need to spend the money, because now you’re self-employed and if you don’t shell out so much money on expenses and stuff, the IRS takes an even bigger chunk out of your tail.  Promotional expenses are an easy way to do it, easy to do, yes, but you still gotta pony up the dough, and that’s not always that easy, because again, contrary to popular opinion, getting published doesn’t mean we’ve got it made in the shade.

There’s the hassle of websites, and while most writers probably already know this, that’s another expense that’s on you, and once you’re contracted, keeping that site up to date is crucial because letting it lag behind is one easy way to lose readers.

There’s the mess with social media… which ones should you do, how much to do, whether you should do it all…

There’s the major, and I do mean major worries, that come up after you finish one contract up and start trying to negotiate another one.  And just because you got one contract, that doesn’t mean you’ll get another.  Even if you sold okay.  Selling okay isn’t enough.  A writer can get dropped for not being picked up by Walmart.  Shoot, I vaguely recall hearing about a writer who had a 3 book contract for a trilogy and the publisher can decided not to publish the third book.  All of these worries are why so many authors hustle with the promo and the social media because we don’t want to risk being the next author who gets dropped, or risk being the one who doesn’t receive an offer when we try to go back to contract-and yes, that does happen.

And on top of all of that, we still have to write.  Not when we feel like it, or when the mood strikes us, or when the ‘muse’ is there (I’m not a muse writer).  We have to write.  We’ve signed contracts, we’re obligated to fulfill them and that’s all there is to it.   It’s not just the one book for many of us either–even while we’re working on whatever book is due, we’re thinking about the next, and the next….

Writing, in the end, is only part of it.  It’s the easiest part, but ‘easy’ is relative.  There’s a whole lot more that goes into being a professional writer than just writing.

All of this-all of the time… you bet it’s a job. Whether you love it or not, it’s a job.