# Who else writes for a living without being a "professional writer"?



## InstituteMan (May 8, 2014)

Hey, all, I had this thought occur to me as I felt bad about not making any progress on the fiction front today: even though I am not a "professional writer" I actually earn my living by writing. I wrote several thousand words today, and darn good words. They were all techno-legal words instead of a novel, but nevertheless I am, in fact, a writer.

The downside is that sometimes after slinging techno-legal words all day, I am too mentally done to focus and write much of anything else. Most days I deal with that by writing my creative work first, but today the normal schedule couldn't hold due to other demands.

I am curious who else has to juggle creative writing with work writing. If you do, do you have any tricks or tips for managing the writing work flow?


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## Pluralized (May 8, 2014)

My work has become primarily sending messages to various clients via e-mail, some short and to the point and some in-depth and complex. Between fifty and seventy messages per day, regarding construction projects all over the country. I guess my job has become a writing job, and I am not sorry for that. I'm sorry most of my clients and colleagues are awful writers, though.


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## Plasticweld (May 8, 2014)

I used to write for a living, I had a motorcycle repair business that was internet only, I did all of my correspondence by email, my promotional stuff by web  sites and articles and in  magazines. I wrote for hours everyday and spend most of my time on the net whoring myself out, and the rest in doing quotes for the work and convincing customers we were the way to go.  I did this for 12 years, in that time I did almost no writing for myself, I was in the same boat as you, burned out from doing it all day I did not want to sit in front of a computer screen.  I still have to write but not like I used to, I still sell lumber and forest products and still have to do quotes every night and communicate with  customers, now not more than a hour or two a night. I wish I could offer some words of wisdom on how to balance the two worlds, I failed. The one thing we did get to do that was creative, was commercials and U-tube videos which were real effective at getting us traffic.


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## Plasticweld (May 8, 2014)

Pluralized said:


> My work has become primarily sending messages to various clients via e-mail, some short and to the point and some in-depth and complex. Between fifty and seventy messages per day, regarding construction projects all over the country. I guess my job has become a writing job, and I am not sorry for that. I'm sorry most of my clients and colleagues are awful writers, though.



I would think that given the lack of people that are effective communicators using the written word that there would be a huge demand for someone who is capable, this must make you a much harder employee to replace; therefore making you more valuable .


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## stormageddon (May 8, 2014)

I can speak from balancing about ten essays a day for school with creative writing, if that counts?

My secret - naps.

I have 4 hours in lessons on a school day, but 12 hour days when I count free periods and travel time - exhausting. I nap through my frees, once my overdue homework is done, which keeps the work-migraines at bay, and keeps me awake in economics.

I write on the bus on the way into school, think about writing all through my essays to keep the urge going (never take three essay based subjects, to anyone out there who is young enough to have the chance to heed this warning), and write on the bus on the way home from school, if I'm not tired, or nap (its a very long journey - I'm what's recently been termed a "super commuter") if I am. That way, when I get home, I am awake enough to write.

If I don't nap on the way home, I nap _at _home, so that I am ready to write again after dinner.

Between napping and essay writing, I get about three hours to do the enjoyable kind of writing, but my eating time tends to cut a large chunk out of it v.v life is hard. And I have forgotten what the point of this post was...


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## T.S.Bowman (May 9, 2014)

Pluralized said:


> I'm sorry most of my clients and colleagues are awful writers, though.



This reminds me...

My supervisor at my former job used to make me write all the email to the trucking companies and customers because, in his words, I wrote them like someone who knew how to write.


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## bookmasta (May 9, 2014)

This is off topic, but technical writing is a possible career path for me one day; maybe working at a firm one day and end up writing those lengthy contracts divorcees have to sign when dividing up assets.


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## InstituteMan (May 9, 2014)

Pluralized - amen to your observation about all of the bad writers out there. Before I left my prior mega-firm, I was the partner tasked with the informal mentoring of writing skills for new attorneys in our group. You would think that at least 4 years of college and 3 years of law school would have these mid-twenies new hires at least able to write grammatically, but that is not the case. Seriously, people, it may be a legal document, but your sentences still need subjects and verbs . . .

Plastic - you make a good point about writing promotional type materials. I forgot about that aspect of my new endeavor, which is a pity because that may be my favorite part. My new firm blog is kind of boring topically to the general public, but I have a lot of fun writing it (and I have garnered lots of praise for it already from those who need to read in my esoteric field).

Storm - I would like more naps. Alas, that is not in the cards for me most days, but it is good advice all the same.

T.S. - Funny how the writing jobs always find the writers. True story: just this morning, InstituteWoman advised me that I was going to be responsible for writing a letter that she and I are supposed to send for one of our kid's school stuff.

Book - I am obviously a fan of sorts of technical writing as a profession. There are downsides, but talented writers who also understand technology are very, very valuable. If you are ever considering law school, PM me and I will try to convince you otherwise (which is always my default setting, even for people who ought to go to law school).


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## Nicholas McConnaughay (May 14, 2014)

I am working on it. Let's see if it happens. It'll be a long-process if it does. I don't know if I'll be a published writer, but a lot of the times, I'm not entirely sure if I want to be one. We'll see.


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## Bard_Daniel (May 14, 2014)

I am now an unemployed "freelance writer", looking for work. Anything but SEO. Let's see how I do.

$0.00 earned so far...


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