Storytellersunplugged

There are day jobs and then there are day jobs. Many of us storytellers have them (even if they’re at night), and writing time must be stolen from whatever leftover hours we can scrounge. Jeff Thomas recently posted a terribly perceptive essay about the tradeoffs and sacrifices involved in living such a double life; consider this one something of a corollary.

Many is the time that I’ve wished I wasn’t just another cog in the machinery of corporate America; that I could essentially be my own boss and set loose my writing demons at will, or at least on my own timetable, rather than one dictated by the demands of my primary employer. Deadlines imposed by publishers, the need to adjust my workflow to get a project in on schedule, the sad fact of having to surrender an unreasonable share of my income to Uncle Sam — I think these things would be a wee bit more palatable if they occupied the top tier of my vocational responsibilities, rather than one just below. As it is, I — and many of the writers at Storytellers — have to do these things in addition to paying our pounds of flesh to da man.

Then there’s the other hand…

Almost all the writers I know who don’t have day jobs are scrambling to pay the bills by hook or by crook, often having to devote themselves to projects that are patently unappealing and/or every bit as taxing time and energy-wise as packing up and going to the salt mines. Still, many, if not most, happily accept that tradeoff because these things are just what dedicated professional writers do. Simple as that. I’ve personally considered damning the torpedos and attempting that big leap into the unknown so many times it makes my head hurt thinking about it.

To date, I’ve had to choose otherwise. For one thing, I’ve got a wife with serious health problems, which often affect her ability to work, so making ends meet even with a regular biweekly paycheck, insurance benefits, and paid time off is far from an easy task. When we got married, I signed on for better or for worse, and in this relationship, there is no me. We are a we, and I am not only unwilling to leap into a world of even greater financial uncertainty than we already face on a daily basis, I think doing so to fulfill my own desires would be irresponsible.

But there’s more to it than that. The day job I currently have, and have had for seven years, has changed my thinking a little bit; it’s modified my ideas about what I want to do with my life.

I work for a company that produces educational magazines and workbooks for teachers of preschool through intermediate grades. (It’s called The Mailbox, in case any of you have a teaching background and are familiar with it; The Mailbox is the number one magazine for teachers in the country, and our book line is both prodigious and indispensable for an awful lot of educators.) Ever since I got out of college, with a degree in Fine Arts, I’ve been drawn to the education field, and in the 80s, I taught art at a community college and at the local art center. Primarily adults, which I enjoyed; some children, which I friggin’ hated. (The job, not the children. Well, mostly.)

The career I have now allows me to contribute to education without actually having to put myself in the classroom with young ’uns or interact with the public in general — for which I am more grateful than you can imagine. I work primarily with former teachers, so the level of intelligence and integrity is far higher than in any company I’ve previously worked for — in fact, I can safely say there’s virtually no dead weight on the staff. That’s not to say I don’t have any issues with people at work, or always agree with company management, or that I don’t pretty regularly want to shoot somebody. But a whole lot less than with previous jobs. To me, that means a lot.

The fact that I’m able to go to the office and be assured that the job I’m doing is having a positive effect on others, especially kids, makes up for a lot of the emptiness I sometimes feel for not being in a position to more closely follow the dream I’ve had for a most of a lifetime. Fortunately, I leave my day job behind when I clock out for the day; it’s not something I have to bring home with me. I can forget it and dive right into my fiction or whatever project I have going at the time. Another advantage is that my coworkers, even management, see my outside vocation as a fascinating endeavor and tend to be supportive rather than condemning — the latter of which seems to be the more common, sad state of affairs for many I know who struggle under a corporate yoke. Shortly after I started working at The Mailbox, I got an email from a woman in another department who asked if I was the same Mark Rainey who’d written “Somewhere My Love” in B&N Books’ 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories. When she learned that I was actually me, she ran screaming, which I confess to enjoying. (Okay, so it was not entirely like that.) Not to mention that quite a few of my coworkers were Dark Shadows fans back in the day, and many of them are proud owners of autographed copies of Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark. This makes me smile.

Yeah, trying to juggle life this way can be thoroughly exhausting. I can’t produce nearly as much of my own work as I’d like to, and many is the time I feel like slamming my head against a wall when I consider some writing opportunities I might have had if the better part of my waking hours wasn’t otherwise engaged. But frankly, I don’t think I know anyone whose life doesn’t exhaust them in one way or another. That’s pretty much the nature of the beast. Trust me when I say I count my blessings — though sometimes grudgingly, if it’s been a bitch of a day at the office.

Still, life changes daily, so who’s to say what’s going to happen next week, next year, or sometime down the road? Ten years ago, I doubt I would have foreseen where I am right now. The tradeoffs and compromises I sometimes have to make have been heartbreaking. On the other hand, I rarely have to devote more writing time than I’m willing to spare on projects that I dislike just to pay the bills. If writing were to become merely another chore for me, sorry, I’d just as soon have the day job. Down the road, I will have other choices to make, and the options may be very different than they are today.

My writing is for me and whoever chooses to read it. My primary vocation, for as long as I have this one, is about a lot more than just me.

I really like the closing of Rick Steinberg’s Storytellers essays — “Believe.” As broad and general as the world is big, but as focused as you want it to be for your own world. For my closing, I think I’m going to add “Balance.” Life is a high wire, and sometimes it swings in the wind. If you’ve got good balance, you’re less likely to have to grab on for dear life when the gale picks up.

–Mark Rainey