Literary life dayjobs

What are some good dayjobs for aspiring authors? There seem to be two approaches to this: Those that choose literature related jobs and those that choose jobs that aren't literature related but provide space for it.

Which do you think is best and what are some examples?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Yikes & it's over

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      You’ll never be an author

      This is the gayest, most pretentious setup I’ve ever seen.

      Mean. What's wrong with it?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Frick them. I like it. Setup looks clean asf. Love the minimalist setup. Post more shit like this

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        The immense attention to detail. The perfectly rotated cup. The perfectly placed spoon. The way the keyboard is neatly aligned with the desktop monitor. The way the alarm clock is neatly aligned with the corner of the table.

        Every inch of this photo reeks of inauthentic, insecure homosexualry. Bro is trying to look cool *in front of IQfy.* he thinks writing is a lifestyle, and identity, and not an activity.

        why are writers like this?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >alarm clock
          are you a literal boomer or what?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I’m 24… is that not an alarm clock?

            My grasp on reality is quickly fading

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            how has a zoomer like you even have heard of an alarm clock?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            it's a speaker from Bose, there is even a big logo on the front

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >I'm 24
            So you better shut up then.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            My guess was some niche modem, if it's a speaker, and I know Bose makes speakers, what's with the LCD/Control panel on top? Never seen a speaker with that.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            My guess was some niche modem, if it's a speaker, and I know Bose makes speakers, what's with the LCD/Control panel on top? Never seen a speaker with that.

            Zoomers make me believe that those sci-fi stories in which humans live among technologies they no longer understand are entirely realistic.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Chances are we'll live to see the last person who remembers watching a man walk on the moon, die.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Sci fi stories????
            That already happened. The older Egyptian structures were more complex and the people didn't know how they built them.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          It's interesting to me as a neat person that others think such setups are fake and tryhard and that people think actually nobody actually lives like this. I'd have to go out of my way to achieve a sort of fabricated slobbishness that would probably satisfy you, being neat is effortless.

          A clean kitchen counter, a neat desk, a made bed, folded laundry, organised drawers and cabinets, this is all just a more pleasant way to live and ultimately less draining.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Find me one good writer in the history of forever who has not been a slob.

            Highly conscientious people spend too much time making sure their Bose is perfectly aligned at a 90 degree angle to their desktop to write — that’s why there’s compsci cope on your screen and not your manuscript

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Yes the genius is a messy slob, look how cerebral he is, the more mess and disfunction the higher his mind must soar, above things like the basic functions of adulthood

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            That’s not a genius, that’s a compsci kid. They’re all slobs, it’s not an indicator of anything.

            Low conscientiousness only indicates godlike autistic writing powers when it comes to the humanities.

            all STEM degrees please leave my board

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >tfw drunken unemployed mentally ill madman who fricks bpd girls and writes poetry whose hovel has monastic level ordnung and austerity

            what means?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Does this look organized to you?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            i've seen worse

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Man, this guy really did not give a frick at all. I love the story he told about how he enrolled in a French university as a middle aged man just so he could take advantage of the cafeteria until the French government put an age limit on their university enrollments. He was committed to being a NEET.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            "I made a decision: Not to work. To live as a parasite. I never worked in my life. I never had a job, except for a year, in Brasov, as a high school teacher. And it was a complete failure. I realized I could not practice a profession. I have to wander around in life. To avoid any responsibility. I have to do everything in order to save my freedom. Freedom to not work in the proper sense of the world. All my life, I calculated how I can be free in a complete sense. Life is only worth living if you are free. I don’t want to be a slave in any way. This is the only absolute certainty that I’ve had in life. I don’t want to be subordinate. I can succumb to any humiliation. On the condition that I am free."
            - Emil Cioran

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Oh my god literally me

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            drip fr

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            he was such a larping homosexual with his peasant outfit kek

            worse than heidegger

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Tolstoy's setup here is actually rather minimalistic and free of clutter
            big difference with Celine's here

            i've seen worse

            this is rather messy. Big difference between a stack of 3 books and a stack of 10

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Looks quite neat actually, even has fresh flowers on the desk, clearly a well cared for and thought out workplace. Requires more organisation than op pic.

            i've seen worse

            There are even worse examples

            >During the summer of 1809, Beethoven was visited by a French envoy, the Baron de Trémont, whose description of Beethoven’s dwellings has become legendary:

            > Picture to yourself the dirtiest, most disorderly place imaginable — blotches of moisture covering the ceiling; an oldish grand piano, on which the dust disputed the place with various pieces of engraved and manuscript music; under the piano (I do not exaggerate) an unemptied pot de nuit [chamber pot]; beside it, a small walnut table accustomed to the frequent overturning of the secretary placed upon it; a quantity of pens encrusted with ink, compared wherewith the proverbial tavern-pens would shine; then more music. The chairs, mostly cane-seated, were covered with plates bearing the remains of last nights’s supper, and with wearing apparel, etc. (Beethoven: Impressions by his Contemporaries, p. 70)

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Mom, see, my piss bottles mean I'm a genius like Beethoven!

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Yes.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >under the piano (I do not exaggerate) an unemptied pot de nuit [chamber pot];
            he just like me fr

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Isn't that Cioran?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Yeah he's Cioran. I wrote Celine because I was drunk

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >I wrote Celine because I was drunk
            Time to get on the water wagon.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I drink water too sometimes, usually mixed with hops and malt

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            sober life is ironically more pleasurable and contains less suffering

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Looks quite neat actually, even has fresh flowers on the desk, clearly a well cared for and thought out workplace. Requires more organisation than op pic.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Not him but it's 100% like he said. It's not just neatness. All these images are extremely performative.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            If anything the OP pic looks to me like that of a sloppy pleb tbh.

            >ugly speaker (speaker on one side enjoy your shitty asymmetrical sound in addition to your asymmetrical aesthetic
            >cheap old monitor, portrait mode is interesting but branding and buttons on one side ruin it
            >ugly beat up desk that looks like a discarded school table
            >cheap Ikea mug, not even porcelain, no coaster or saucer
            >basic stainless spoon in mug, sign of sugar consumer (cringe)
            >probably an ugly pc tower below the desk with shit cable management

            Any teenage girl with a pinterest could do better, even many a IQfy autist could.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          It is Reddit to the t. Also LaTeX with no live preview is pretentious.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >The perfectly rotated cup. The perfectly placed spoon.
          I don't normally say this, but... meds. Now.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          unlike your typewriter and overfull ashtray, next to the bourbon bottle and the schizo notes scattered around the desk right anon?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            THAT'S a writer I want to read from.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          he's just apollonian

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Frick them. I like it. Setup looks clean asf. Love the minimalist setup. Post more shit like this

        It’s too organized. It is only possible to think in front of a cluttered desk.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    You’ll never be an author

  3. 1 year ago
    Cluster B

    This is the gayest, most pretentious setup I’ve ever seen.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      This is the gayest, most pretentious tripgay I’ve ever seen.

      • 1 year ago
        Cluster B

        You can’t do anything about it. I’ll just keep posting.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Oh no, how am I gonna ever recover from that

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          We got rid of butters.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Looks kind of comfy

    • 1 year ago
      cockler

      >poverty tier set up with a titles monitor
      tf are you projecting at *crying laughing emoji*

    • 1 year ago
      Cluster B GY4CZZOlWY Sucks Cock

      You can’t do anything about it. I’ll just keep posting.

      moron

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      says the triphomosexual

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Something that fits your predilections. Kafka worked as a clerk. Melville was a sailor. Pick a job related to what you always write about. Or take any job and start writing about it.

  5. 1 year ago
    ࿇ C Œ M G E N V S ࿇

    THE LITERARY LIFESTYLE IS WAKING IN THE AFTERNOON OF A DAY THAT COULD BE, EITHER, TUESDAY, OR SATURDAY —NO ACTUAL DIFFERENCE—; DRAGGING YOUR BODY THROUGH THE DAILY LIGHT CALISTHENICS ROUTINE; SHOWERING WITH WARMCOLD WATER, THEN WITH COLD AT THE END; TAKING TWICE AS MUCH TIME DRESSING, AND GROOMING, YOURSELF; EATING CEREAL; BROWWWSING; COMPLETING A LESSON IN «DUOLINGO» TO KEEP YOUR MULTIANNUAL STREAK, EXPECTING THAT THIS WEEK YOU WILL GATHER THE WILLPOWER TO MAKE IT TO THE PROMOTION ZONE, AND GET BACK UP TO THE PEARL LEAGUE, WHERE YOU BELONG; READING A PARAGRAPH WHILST ASPIRATING FECAL PARTICLES IN THE BATHROOM; EXCRETING A HAIKU WHILST PERAMBULATING IN THE KITCHEN; EATING WHILST WATCHING A HISTORICAL PRESENTATION RE NERO CLAVDIVS CÆSAR AVGVSTVS GERMANICVS VIA «YOUTUBE»; DEFECATING A «TWEET» THAT WILL BE SEEN BY 90, READ BY 10, LIKED BY 1; SAVING MORE IMAGES OF YOUR WIFE; RECEIVING YET ANOTHER SUPERPOLITE REJECTION LETTER; AFTER HAVING DRUNK OVER SEVEN CUPS OF COFFEE THROUGHOUT THE DAY, GOING TO BED, AS THE PALLOR OF PHŒBVS' NASCENT SPLENDOUR PIERCES THROUGH THE NIGHTLY FIRMAMENT FROM BEYOND THE HORIZON.

    ATTACHED IMAGE PERTINENT: MY WIFE.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      hahahahahaha lol youre my favourite tripgay keep it up

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I ran a search in this wall of text and writing doesn't seem to appear in it.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        no but excreting a haiku was

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      this was actually based until you mentioned duolingo. ngmi

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >RECEIVING YET ANOTHER SUPERPOLITE REJECTION LETTER

      This pisses me off so much

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >best
    >most efficient
    >more perfect
    >MOAR
    >MOAR TECHNOLOGY
    >WE NEED MORE FRICKING TECHNOLOGY
    REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I suggest having a conventional 9-5 thing and writing for a couple of hours in the morning every day. When you really can’t stand it anymore and you _need_ more time, try to talk your way into contract work. I work about 3 days a week now but it took a while to transition.
    There is another way to do it — just do random gigs and shit jobs and work like a maniac on your manuscript. But a lot of people who do that hit a wall after 5+ years. You need a certain type of personality.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Is being a NEET good for writing?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      so long as you go outside and interact with the world yes, you can only write about what you know and experience

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      No, unless you have genuine life-experiences before becoming a NEET.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Why do you think being a wageslave is the only experience worth writing about?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          No one implied being a wagie = life experiences, you genuine fricking moron.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            So why do you say that one needs to have the experiences before becoming NEET? Seems to imply that one can't have them as a NEET.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            not him but its probably a generalisation because most neets don't go outside and their only exposure to life experiances is through second hand accounts from media

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      If you can capture the zeitgeist and speak to the audience, yes. Being a NEET turned author is literally more interesting than being a run-of-the-mill office worker turned novelist.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Yes. Check out Cioran, lifelong NEET

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      You must be a dyed in the wool anti-work NEET, a principled NEET. You cannot merely do nothing out of apathy or fear, you must dedicate your energies to actively avoiding work. If you relent in this, you will fall victim to pointless hedonism or simply not have the motivation to get anything significant done.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        This is me, maybe I should start writing about militant hardline neetism

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I quit being an engineer to be a security guard so I could read full time about a year ago. Best decision of my life.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      How does this make sense? You could work for like 6 months as an engineer and then probably spend a year being a NEET from your salary.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        anon is probably working the nightshift watching security cams or sitting at a desk the whole time. he can just read then and get paid rather than just becoming a NEET to do so. we had a security guard at my old apartment building and i don't think i ever saw him not on netflix or something similar. in fact the more i write this the more its sounding like something i should go do

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    If you’re an office worker, you’ll probably find it difficult to write unless you take long breaks from work, like months to years. At least that’s been my experience and the experience of people I know. Something about the office just atrophies the writing muscle. Remote work is no exception in my experience. But when I was working bars and on job sites, I had less time but sitting down to write when I did have time was easy. For that reason, I would recommend something like a service or blue collar job. If you can do something interesting, do it. Even better if it affords downtime like working on a container ship or manning a desk at a hotel overnight. Personally, overnight security was the best job I had for writing and drawing too actually.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      interesting. it's probably because desk jobs are more mentally taxing whereas physical jobs keep your brain nice and fresh (bonus is you also get to see and touch things and talk to people in a less aggravating context). i have to force myself to keep a block of time BEFORE work to get any reading done. it just doesn't work too well during, and i'm too tired after. doesn't matter if your schedule's flexible if you keep getting interrupted by Slack messages.

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The problem with prescribing the same job to everyone who wants to be a writer is that in western culture writing is supposed to be confessional. What you do influences you and that’s supposed to come out in your writing. So if your working life is boring there’s a good chance that your writing will be boring as well.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Throughout my twenties I worked marketing jobs - lots of copywriting which you might think is good, but mostly it was soul-crushing. It did toughen me up to feedback though, and taught me how to manage drafting in large documents. Might look good to publishers as well, if they think I can sell and have some commercial sense.

    I've moved into a product management role and i've got far better money, better prospects and have far more time and energy to write. Overall, I'd recommend coding, devops, business analysis or an Agile role. Good money and lots of home working perks if you go public sector.

    I would strongly advise against blue collar or service jobs. Chances are you'll never make money writing so you need a career that pays and a pension.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I would only recommend coding if it’s a job at a large company. Chances are, the smaller the company, the more work you would have to do. It can be soul crushing, too.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      If all you do is hedge your bets and never take any risks you’ll end up without any substantial losses but without any real big wins. Do you think anyone wants to read the novelist with the stable day job as an accountant? Probably not.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I take your point, and there is romance in the idea of the starving artist, or the blue collar genius, like Bukowski being ground down to a stub in the post office.

        In reality, many great writers had steady middle class jobs throughout their careers. Off the top of my head

        Philip Larkin - head librarian
        Nabokov - lepidopterist
        Kafka - legal clerk
        Orwell - colonial police service
        TS Eliot - banker
        Agatha Christie - pharmacy assistant

        You sound young. Don't put yourself in a position where you're in your mid-thirties with no prospects. Life is SO much easier with money, and I think we're in for a tough few decades.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >You sound young. Don't put yourself in a position where you're in your mid-thirties with no prospects. Life is SO much easier with money, and I think we're in for a tough few decades.
          YOU sound young. If you think money will prepare you for what's coming, you're very immature. Your savings will vanish overnight once your national and international currencies start nose diving. You're not ready.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            What do you imagine is coming, friend?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          All of those showed a great talent for literature very early on. That’s the thing.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Btw I’m in my 30s. I’ve been around long enough to understand that if you want to win big, you have to take risks. When I look back at my life, my 20s, particularly, not taking more risks once I identified something worth pursuing is my single biggest regret. You just can’t hedge your bets in life. You have to choose an arena and go full tilt in it. Everything else is just subordinate to that.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            What would you do different, anon? Honest question, I'm approaching my 30s and getting desperate. If I don't have a published work by the time I reach 30 I'll off myself. I still have 3 years.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            It’s like I said. I would’ve taken bigger risks when I was in my 20s. If you know that writing is what you want to do, do it now and subordinate everything to it. Quit your job and spend all day writing or hawking your writing if you have to. That’s my advice. Something changes when you turn 30. Things just feel different. So don’t wait. Your biography is being written right now.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            George Eliot wasn't even George Eliot until she was 37. Proust started Swann's Way in his 40s. Relax.

            Just work diligently, finish what you start, and start things you believe are publishable.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Soundest single piece of advice ever given on IQfy.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Soundest single piece of advice ever given on IQfy.

            It’s not sound. These people don’t just wake up and write their first work at 47. They’re putting in the work since they are young. There is absolutely no reason to put things off.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            What aboiut Burroughs

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Nobody considered Burroughs a great writer, but regardless, he loved an interesting life and I doubt he wrote his very first work in middle age even if others were never published.

            My dad did it. He is a railroad worker and we are a small nation so there isn't much competition I guess. But still, he wrote and publish his first book in his 50s, and has never been writing before

            I don’t mean it’s not possible. I mean it’s not a recommended path for someone who wants to be great.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            My dad did it. He is a railroad worker and we are a small nation so there isn't much competition I guess. But still, he wrote and publish his first book in his 50s, and has never been writing before

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            That's very cool. What's his book about?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I don't really know lol, we are not that close, we have never talked about the story and I cannot make myself to read it, it feels like reading his diary or what, very uncomfortable. I just know it's set in 19th century in our country, he is a big history geek, and I kind of assume it sucks

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            you don't deserve your father

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >we are a small nation so there isn't much competition I guess.
            Isn't that more impressive, that with a smaller potential readership the publisher still thought it worthwhile to do so?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            That anon was anxious about being published though. I assume he's still writing in the background. Honestly, the moment of publishing is just when society recognizes you, which is random. Look at the books listed on The Untranslated for all those voluminous tomes probably written by autists with nothing other than cult recognition in their lifetime.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >If I don't have a published work by the time I reach 30 I'll off myself
            same except i'm 30 in two weeks and have been waiting to hear from a literary press' "first novel" contest, they said they would announce the winners and finalists mid-february

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Nobody gives a shit about your day job if your writing is good. You are not Hemingway, anon. There’s no need to shoot shotguns to write a short story.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I want this exact setup but know nothing about tech. What do I do? Strap a Raspberry Pi to a monitor?

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I'm an esl teacher. I earn more than the average here and work very little. Last year I had a gf and thought I needed to earn more money, so I got all the classes I could in 3 different schools. It fed me up quickly (both the gf and the jobs). Now I'm back at earning enough to drink and pay mom's medical bills - and write, of course. That also forces me to interact with people on a daily bases, from youngsters to seniors, and thats nice. I'd recommend becoming a teacher (not highschool tho, that sucks).

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    There's only two options for authors (based authors) and they harmonically flow into each other. One is minwage cucking and working internships for free, as well as volunteering and going to farms; I've done this millions of times. One day you will despise working so much that you will also start to appreciate NEETdom. You should be prudent enough about it to not take NEETbux. When people ask me if where I work, I say "I work at shit". Most of the times they change the topic instantly, otherwise I continue with a rant about vomit in the bathrooms and shitty customers. Men of spirit are NEETs because, as the free men that they are, they do not work because they consider it as unproductive and low, better even, as something that should only be done when it is necessary. So he NEETs until he found a new place to live in or when his savings burns up. He is intelligent and his needs are so little, and douted with the ability to create most of the things he needs from the environment that he NEETs more than he works. I cannot stress enough how important it is to be a NEET in order to become an author. Even hunting game is better than that.

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    lots of writers were journalists or copywriters. try that

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Insurance 🙂

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Either a work from home job that asks nothing of you, or gig work shit like food/grocery delivery and other online odd jobs like tutoring

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I personally don’t think my fully remote job has been a boon to my writing. It’s better than being in the office but it’s still very difficult to focus or get into the creative mood.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I am of the same opinion, my almost genetic, protestant work ethic prevents me from exploiting remote work. I'd rather be at the office working at max efficiency than linger on longer at home trying to do multiple things at the same time.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Oh not me. I exploit the hell out of it. I did as little as possible. I’ll have entire weeks, months even where I do literally no work at all. But I’m still paying attention to work stuff, I’m replying to Teams messages, I’m replying to e-mails, I’m answering questions on phone calls. If it happens sporadically enough it just totally breaks your focus. Writing is like deep work in my opinion. I can’t really just do it sporadically in between interruptions.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Yeah it's deep work, I'll usually have the feeling in the morning and then by late afternoon-evening I'll have the correct mindset to write good stuff. No way I could do that while also having some duties in the back of my mind.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I am of the same opinion, my almost genetic, protestant work ethic prevents me from exploiting remote work. I'd rather be at the office working at max efficiency than linger on longer at home trying to do multiple things at the same time.

        This is just you coping though. If your telework job has lots of downtime and you're letting it go to waste, just start writing and try to bring out the creative mood.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          My job requires extensive abstract thinking (and I'm a midwit) so task switching like that just makes everything more bland and painful, like I'm halfway in both and neither gets done properly.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          It’s not about downtime. I completely admit I have more than enough downtime to write. It’s about headspace. It’s very difficult to get into the creative headspace when you’re sitting at a computer watching your Teams messages and pretending to tune into Zoom meetings.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >get into the creative mood.
        Mood is a thing for cattle and making love. It's not for writing.

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    This is what happens when you go into STEM. 0 understanding of aesthetics and a 'minimalist' setup that says "I have no sense, nor soul outside of my day job".

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I too write technical articles just going off by what pops up in my head at a given moment with no sources, references, or books anywhere in my field of vision

    What a moronic fricking photo

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I work as a detective in London, pretty IQfy job. Lots of writing and interviewing plus using intuition. Seen some shit lads, some really fricked up stuff.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      How did you become a detective? In the United States, you usually have to work your way up through the ranks of police before you can be a detective, unless you become a special agent at a federal agency, in which case you have to be an accountant or soldier or something first.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        You can join as a DC straight from university if you have a decent degree. That's what I did.

  22. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    OP, you should buy Apple hardware. It's far more aesthetic than that eye sore 20th century tablet or whatever that is

  23. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I’m a remote worker in the administration for a large university. I don’t recommend it. I don’t recommend working in a university at all.

  24. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Fresh out of college with my English Literature degree, I got a job as a copywriter at a small company. I joined a little team of writers and we spent our workdays researching and writing articles for various websites the company owned. At the end of each day, we would take some time to trade what we had written to review each other's work before publishing online.
    It was a decent enough job that payed very little, but I was proud to say that I was making my living as a writer. During our lunch breaks, we would often hold workshops where we would read and discuss our own creative writing or poetry. It was probably the most productive I had ever been in terms of my personal writing projects.

    If the owner of that company hadn't been such an absolute piece of shit who would scream at us and abuse us writers, I probably would still be there. It's been ten years though, and now I'm in a different career making a six figure salary, but I haven't written a damn thing in years.

    I miss those days sometimes.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      What do you do now anon?

  25. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I run a breakfast cafe, would recommend.

  26. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Useless to listen to anyone in this thread since it's not like they're even a good, much less great, author. Go read biographies or Paris Review interviews or something.

  27. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    My writing ambitions don’t require an English degree but they do require that I become recognized as a serious author and young social critic. How I can possibly make that happen while balancing a normal unrelated job I have no idea. My plan right now is just to write enough short stories and essays that I’ll be noticed by some people in my university and related institutions

  28. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Either something that affords you time to write (i.e. you don't take your work home with you/consistent hours) or something that you can derive inspiration from. Depends largely on what you're writing about. So, for the first category, anything physical labor-related, minimum wage but not shift work. For the second category anything that involves travel and/or conversation (truck driver, taxi etc)

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