How do I find time to work on a creative project while succeeding at work?
December 21, 2011 6:15 PM   Subscribe

I feel borderline incompetent at my job and spend almost all of my free time outside of work trying to work on a creative project. Am I a screw up?

I started a new job recently and I feel like I'm struggling. I've had to learn a lot of new skills very quickly and it is much more fast-paced than what I am used to.

Basically, I sort of fell into this career track because it was convenient and it paid the bills (and then some). After a few years at my previous company, I felt like I'd outgrown the place and was bored with the work, so I started looking for other jobs. I landed a better gig with more potential for learning and less office bureaucracy, figuring I may as well keep myself stimulated between the hours of nine and five while I earned my keep, but it's turning out to be a lot more of a stretch than I planned. I work longer hours and feel more pressure to step up to the plate than at my previous job, where laziness was more of less accepted.

That laziness allowed me a lot more energy to devote to my real passions. I've been working on a writing project that I want to devote the best of myself to with the hopes of publishing it some day and, in a perfect world, making a career of writing. Pipe dream, I know, but I can't let go of it. I've wanted to write my whole life and if I achieved even minor success I would feel like it was worth the struggle.

But I really underestimated just how much time and effort it takes to write a book. I'm not making as much progress as I would like and I frequently have pangs of doubt and a creeping sense of dread that I'm wasting my time, it'll never be good enough for someone to want to read, I'm not creative and I have nothing to say. The stress is putting a lot of pressure on my relationships.

My old job was boring. The obverse of that boredom was a lot of energy to devote outside of work. So I feel like, in a fit of frustration with my old job, I've traded my passion for a career that I'm not really all that keen on in the first place.

On the other hand, if I fail at writing, I have skills that apply in the "real world". But if I don't have the time to write, I won't finish my project, and I'll blame myself for wasting my youth. (I don't think it will surprise anyone that has read this far that I am in my mid-20s.)

The concept of "work/life" balance goes by many names. How do you find that balance, especially when a big chunk of the "life" portion looks an awful lot like work?
posted by deathpanels to Work & Money (11 answers total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
You've only just started this job recently. Why not give yourself some time to recalibrate your system to the new mental demands, and a chance to get to place where your work tasks become more routine (which they will), and you're much better equipped to free up some brain mojo for writing? Tell yourself you're going to take a sabbatical from the book for the next three months. Let it marinate in your brain, of course, and maybe jot down some notes or lines of prose or ideas, but remove the expectation that you're trying to get the book done while you're still climbing up the steep part of the learning curve at work. Spend some of this time rebuilding your relationships, too. And saving money! The book will always be there, and a break from it may actually give you a fresh burst of creativity when you return to it, and you could finish it faster (and like it much more) than if you'd tried to slog through it miserably on top of everything else right now. Three months will not make the difference of whether you've "wasted" your youth.

In short, I've found that work/life balance is not a static formula -- it something that ebbs and flows over time, and the biggest single obstacle to achieving it... is the time and mental energy you spend beating yourself up about how you haven't achieved it yet.
posted by argonauta at 6:27 PM on December 21, 2011 [4 favorites]


NOT a screw up, not at all. Like argonauta's excellent post, if it's a balance it's a teeter board balance, do try to not fall totally off but it's tricky. Try to find small, no tiny, units to work on, no a chapter but one paragraph.
posted by sammyo at 6:37 PM on December 21, 2011


You're young, you have your strength.

Get up an hour or two early and write before you go to work. Then, at work--be present, be aware, live in the moment and do your job as well as you possibly can.

People who laze around at their day jobs can tell themselves that they're saving their energies for their passion projects, but too often--they just laze around at everything. Doers do.

If so, when you go home and do all the normal everyday things you have to do, you won't be sidetracked by thinking about how much work sucks and how much you screwed up. And you'll wake up, ready to write.

Writing is really hard work, and being a freelancer means you're always at work. If you're not writing, you're pitching, and if you're not pitching, you're looking around for something to pitch.
posted by Ideefixe at 6:44 PM on December 21, 2011 [4 favorites]


You have to make the time. You have to sacrifice the time. Even if it means you don't get to watch that awesome TV show or sit down to see that movie or whatever. A lot of people don't get that, they think it just sort of happens, but it really is sitting down every day or night for a certain period of time and grinding out the words, even if they're (initially) terrible or whatever. I'm reasonably sure you do something between 5 and whenever you go to bed that can be sacrificed at the altar of the writing gods.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:15 PM on December 21, 2011


Wow, you sound a lot like me when I was just starting out my first job. I had about a 6-9 month stretch where I wasn't asked to do a whole lot at work. Entire weeks would go by without somebody so much as checking up on me. As a result of this extreme boredom, I started writing a book. And I'm not even a "writer", per se. The characters, dialogue, plot events- just came alive in my head, I had pages upon pages of notes and outlines. It was, at least for someone who has never thought of himself as creative, completely extraordinary. I quit my job to write this book, and I never finished it. I went traveling, got back, found a new job (mostly for monetary reasons), and this new job was much more demanding. I never felt that spark again. But I did get better at the new job!

I'm relating this story not because I want to discourage you- more to say that life and creativity can be strange like that. I'm not unhappy at all that I never finished my book- I have a good career right now, and I don't regret anything I've done with my life. It sounds like my path might be disappointing to you, so that's something to think about. I know a lot of people will say that you can do both- that it just takes work. And maybe that's true for some people, but only you can know whether it's truly worth it to trade stability, career, and money just for the possibility that you'll write a book that you'll be proud of. And only you can know whether that's actually a trade-off you have to make, or whether you're somebody who can juggle a career with a side-gig in writing.
posted by thewumpusisdead at 7:16 PM on December 21, 2011


I'm not making as much progress as I would like and I frequently have pangs of doubt and a creeping sense of dread that I'm wasting my time, it'll never be good enough for someone to want to read, I'm not creative and I have nothing to say.

This sensation is also called "writing."

Pipe dream, I know, but I can't let go of it. I've wanted to write my whole life and if I achieved even minor success I would feel like it was worth the struggle... On the other hand, if I fail at writing, I have skills that apply in the "real world". But if I don't have the time to write, I won't finish my project, and I'll blame myself for wasting my youth.

Much as people complain about them, MFA programs exist to solve exactly this problem. Apply to MFAs which offer full funding, ideally 1-year programs. If you don't get in, it gives you some useful information about the viability of your project. If you do, you have a year to write your book. If it's good, you achieved your dreams. If it's not, you're still in your mid-20s with employable skills, which puts you pretty much where you are right now, except you know you really gave it a shot.
posted by escabeche at 7:22 PM on December 21, 2011 [2 favorites]


As someone with a career in writing, let me tell you, it's nowhere near as glamorous as it looks from the outside. It's just as full of bullshit and bureaucracy and politics as any office job - more so, even, because your field tends to be really tiny and all this shit tends to get aired out in the open. Royalties and advances aren't usually huge, places are late to pay, you're constantly pitching - it's tough.

I'm not saying this to discourage you, mind. I'm saying this because you're actually in an awesome situation right now. Yes, your job might suck, but it's also a full-time job in which you don't have to write. It sucks, but it's also a great thing - it means you don't get burnt out on writing (I am, for instance).

But to answer your question, and I'm kind of the worst at work-life balance so take this with a grain of salt, it's all about two things: being in a good place (rested, fed, getting tiny things done so you feel accomplished, and I suck at this myself but I can tell others to do it!), and thinking your "life" stuff is awesome. There's one project I do that's unpaid but that I never slack off on because it's really rewarding and I think I do it well. Can your book become that? If not, that's not the end of the world (might mean some tweaking); if you can make it be that way, that helps a lot.
posted by dekathelon at 8:43 PM on December 21, 2011


Joyce Carol Oates has always offered the following advice to writers: write.

She realizes that about .1 percent of people who wanna do it can get to that ideal-or-close situation and that if people are serious about it, they'll make time.

A friend once said people have time for what they want to have time for.

More operationally, stands to reason that the work mayhem will simmer down in some haste as you spend more time on the job (and if it doesn't you'll be plenty motivated to find something better, relative to your motivation to write and otherwise).
posted by ambient2 at 10:14 PM on December 21, 2011


Response by poster:

As someone with a career in writing, let me tell you, it's nowhere near as glamorous as it looks from the outside. It's just as full of bullshit and bureaucracy and politics as any office job - more so, even, because your field tends to be really tiny and all this shit tends to get aired out in the open. Royalties and advances aren't usually huge, places are late to pay, you're constantly pitching - it's tough.
I think I'm a bit less naïve about the process than most young writers. I began with a realistic stretch goal for a first draft. Once that's done, I'll move on to working on a second draft, then seek out an editor, etc. I don't expect to have legions or fans or win any prizes. I'll be happy just to finish what I started, to be proud of my work, and do what I can to get people to read it.
posted by deathpanels at 6:18 AM on December 22, 2011


Ah, Deathpanels, I think you are me. Are you me? My story is exactly the same: old, easy job, wrote 7/8ths of a novel. New, hard job, have yet to finish that last eighth. I am also in my mid-20s.

So far I have done very much what argonauta suggested. When I started this job 5 months ago, I spent a month stressing about the novel and trying to force myself to get up early and write like I used to. I got nothing done. Finally, after spending weeks being mean, snappish and unproductive, I took a break. It's allowed me to relax, to learn the new job, to be productive and kind.

I'm still taking that break. However, I'm starting to feel the itch again. I know exactly where I want my novel to go -- I've written that last bit in my head at least once! -- and I've got a little soap bubble of a plan for an even better second novel. I plan to start up again in the new year.

I personally think the break is better than applying to MFA programs unless you have extremely wealthy parents willing to fund said program -- even finding fully funded programs is hard, let alone getting into them. Especially if you, like me, write genre fiction.

Good luck! I hope we share shelf space sometime in the future! :)
posted by AmandaA at 7:08 AM on December 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


Ahhh you are telling a story that is exactly my worry! I have that boring job right now, and worry that if I get a better one it will take over my life and I won't have time to pursue my passions.

How long have you had the new job? Has it been long enough that you "should" be used to the workload and be fully trained in all of your tasks? If not, take that time, maybe 3 - 6 months, to learn it and give yourself a break from writing, as others have suggested. If it has been - or if it's been even longer (it's not clear to me from your post) - then if I were you, I would start looking for a new job. It's not giving up, it's finding something that's the right fit for you. Why spend all of your energy on this office career if you want to be spending your energy on your writing career? You can make a living without sacrificing this time to pursue your passion or being bored all the time. I am somewhat new to the working world and I seriously don't get how people function if they have to work so much, especially other introverts - when do they do their hobbies, when do they just hang out and cook, when do they run their errands? I say, take your time finding a new job that's right for you, and has that work/life balance that you want. In interviews, ask about training and overtime.
posted by fireflies at 9:11 AM on December 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


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