Authors with Day Jobs
Many authors have day jobs.
Actually, to be more accurate, most have day jobs.
There are only a small percentage of all authors in the U.S. who earn enough money from their writing to support themselves. You know who they are…their newest books are always front and center on the shelves in stores or at the top of your online shopping page. But a large percentage of writers work for someone else while they spend time with their passion project on the side.
Most authors would love to quit their day (or night) jobs in order to spend more time writing. However, for those who want to write, who feel the need to write, and can’t spend a day without writing or thinking about writing, no day job will stop them. For the most part, authors hope to make a living on their writing, but when writing is their passion, authors stick with it regardless of their earnings because it’s what feeds their soul. It’s what they were meant to do. And because they finally gave in to the itch they have to scratch every day when it comes to getting their stories on paper.
When I first shared my secret about my passion to write, I was working on my own as a private investigator. Not long after the first post on my blog, I shared that I had decided to take a day job with the public defenders office. At the time, just starting out with only a first draft and no idea what was in store for me in the publishing world, I had equal amounts of doubt and optimism that I could make writing work when ten hours of my day would be spent elsewhere. It’s been ten years since I shared my first post on this blog, and in that ten years I’ve published 10 books. There are days I tell myself I should have more novels published. Other days I tell myself to knock it off…having 10 books published is a huge accomplishment! Of course, it isn’t just the day job that can hinder an author’s progress. There are the components of our every-day lives that come into play as well. We just do the best we can.
I’ve always been curious about the day jobs of other authors because as a writer, I’ll admit it’s difficult not to play the comparison game. Beyond that, I’m curious about the types of jobs some of my favorite big-name authors had before they made it big. I wonder about the types of jobs they held while they wrote on the side and how their working experiences might have helped them with their writing. You might believe many writers are teachers, librarians, journalists or in a similarly related field but then again, you might be surprised. You might also be surprised how big-name authors used to be like you and me. Here are just a few examples:
Not surprisingly, I will start with Stephen King.
King was a teacher, but before he could get a teaching position, he worked for a laundry business and during one summer, he also worked as a janitor at a high school. It was the janitor position, while cleaning the girls’ locker room, where he came up with the idea for Carrie, the story about a teenage girl with physic powers. The rest, as we would say, is history.
Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime, the Mistress of Mystery and a Dame of the British Empire.
Christie did not receive formal schooling because she was home schooled and her first attempts at writing weren’t successful. During the world wars, she worked as a nurse and then she worked in dispensaries. This led to additional training and experience which ultimately provided her with a vast and exceptional knowledge of poisons and drugs. That knowledge played a large role in her novels and the demise of her fictional victims. Her second husband was an archaeologist and she was able to accompany him on digs, which she also later used in her novels. Her first successful novel came about when she introduced Detective Hercule Poirot to the world. She wrote 66 novels before she passed away, among other short stories and screenplays, and she is the most widely translated author with books translated in more than 103 languages. Her work earned her a Guinness World Record, which is amazing and inspiring.
John Grisham was said to have sold copies of his first book out of his trunk.
Grisham, of course, was an attorney. But what did he do before he became an attorney and finally decided to write a legal thriller? He worked in a plant nursery, on a fence crew, for a plumber, on an asphalt crew and in retail. Those jobs held no interest or inspiration for him and he decided to go to college and ultimately he decided to become a trial attorney. One particular case he sat in on as a spectator made him venture to wonder “what if?” and his first novel, A Time to Kill, was born. It was rejected by multiple publishers before it was published and Grisham took an active role in getting rid of copies by selling them out of his trunk, giving copies to clients and even using some as doorstops. Soon after Grisham wrote and published, The Firm, which was the beginning of a long streak of top-selling novels. Not every attorney can write well and not every writer could pass the Bar Exam but his talent and legal background have made him one heck of a story teller. And, I noticed on his website “about” page that he writes about one novel a year…so if I compare myself to Grisham, I’m doing okay!
Charles Dickens was forced to work in a factory at the age of 12…
Can you imagine that? Dickens had to work to help support his family after his father was imprisoned for being in debt. You heard that right. Back in the day, 1824 to be precise, being in debt could land a person in jail. Imagine if that were still the case now? Who wouldn’t be in jail? Regardless, you can imagine what a difficult childhood he must have had but he was able to draw from his experiences while writing novels he will always be remembered for.
Mary Higgins Clark was in her mid-40’s when she wrote and published her first suspense novel.
Before her claim to fame as a famous suspense novelist, Higgins Clark tried her hand at quite a few careers. She was a switchboard operator, a secretary, she wrote catalog copy, modeled for company brochures, and was a flight attendant. Eventually, she became employed as a radio scriptwriter, which was great experience when she finally decided to try her hand at writing a suspense novel. Her birthday would have been on Christmas Eve, but sadly she passed away in January 2020.
Nicholas Sparks, whether you know his books or the movies based on them…
You’ve either read them, watched them or had your girlfriend or wife ask you to watch the movies based on his books (The Notebook, The Last Song, Dear John, A Walk to Remember). Sparks first tried to gain work with publishers and he also applied to law school, but neither of those professions worked out for him. So he dabbled in various fields including real estate appraisal, dental product sales, waiting tables, and running his own business. It was when he worked in pharmaceutical sales that he began to write The Notebook in his spare time and which was the beginning of his literary success.
Nora Roberts decided to start writing during a snow storm.
Roberts is one such wife and mother who did not apparently have to work, except for a brief attempt as a legal secretary before her children were born. After graduating high school she married, had children and spent the bulk of her time with her children while doing crafts. I’ll add that while she didn’t work outside the home, taking care of children is a job in itself. Her road to fame is quite different than other authors, at least with regard to when and why she began to write. As the story goes, she came up with the idea of writing when she was housebound with her kids during a February blizzard and had nothing else to do. That choice to finally put her ideas on paper obviously worked out very well for her, as she is now the author of over 200 novels.
Harper Lee…you may not recognize her name, but I’m sure you will recognize her work.
One of my favorite stories involved how Lee decided to write a novel. She studied law but after four years decided she would rather write. In 1950 she moved to New York, began her career at an airline as a reservation officer and attempted to work on stories in her spare time for eight years. Then a friend offered her a gift of one year’s wages and the opportunity to take a year off from her job to write whatever she pleased. Lee took that time to write her book, To Kill a Mocking Bird, and has done more with one book than many authors have been able to do with a lifetime of writing books. The novel caused her to instantly become a literary legend, she eventually won the Pulitzer Prize and the novel was later made into a movie which won an Academy Award.
Wouldn’t it be something if we could all have a friend like that? But that type of circumstance is rare and last time I checked, fairy godmothers weren’t real. If nothing else, these examples show that even some of the top selling authors had to start somewhere and for most, it was on the bottom where they had to climb their way up.
But it is a climb they were willing to take, regardless of how steep that climb might be. When you have a passion and a dream and the desire for something more for yourself, the willingness and determination to complete that climb is exactly what it takes.
