Writing When Your Day Job is Writing Too
Some fiction authors find themselves drawn to day jobs that also take advantage of their writing skills. But then, you can end up in a position where both your day job and your hobby (or secondary job) involve putting words on paper, which can wind up limiting your creativity in one or both venues.
On the flipside of this, however, is the fact that the more writing you do, the more your writing can improve. And sometimes, things you learn in one of your writing venues can benefit your writing in both venues. For example, knowing my overused words in my fiction makes me aware of when I’m overusing them in any context, which helps me to streamline writing that I do for my day job.
I’m fortunate that my day job is more editing than writing, so I don’t feel like I’m doing too much of the same thing. When I do get a chance to write at work, it can actually be a nice switch from my normal work. And the topics I’m writing on are much different from what I’m writing for fun, so it’s easy to find a divide between the two.
If your day job is primarily writing, you might feel like you’re using up all of your words during the day, and have none left for your fiction writing. If you’re in this position, you might try doing some writing warm-up exercises to just get the creative words flowing a little better. You may also find that you need to schedule specific times to write, potentially even before you start your day job writing, or on days when you don’t need to write anything for your day job.
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