day jobs – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Episode 168: Rachel Dougherty — Nonfiction for Kids, Day Jobs, and Finding Confidence

“My writing life is being surrounded by 15 half-empty coffee cups which I keep dipping my paint brush into accidentally.” —Rachel Dougherty (@racheldoughertybooks)

I don’t have kids, but I love the idea of writing nonfiction books for kids. If that’s your jam, or a jam worth undertaking, then Rachel Dougherty is going to Blow. Your. Mind.

This was a fun episode where we talk about day jobs, confidence (or a lack thereof), finding time to do work that matters, and so much more.

Rachel is the author and illustrator of The Secret Engineer: How Emily Roebling Built the Brooklyn Bridge. She’s a Philadelphia-based illustrator, children’s author, and lifelong knowledge-hunter. She works in acrylic paint, ink, and pencil smudges, using humor and color to inspire curious young minds. Rachel is passionate about US history, scruffy little dogs, and board games. [I didn’t ask her about board games. I wish I had.]

Listen, social media is a lousy way to promote a podcast, but it’s a great place to keep the conversation going. I hope I’ve made something worth sharing, so let’s keep it up on Twitter @CNFPod, Instagram @cnfpod, and Facebook @CNFPodcast. Tag me and the show and I’ll jump in the fire.

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The End of Job Shaming Part III

By Brendan O’Meara

Okay, so this’ll be my last (I think) post for a while on Job Shaming. [Parts I and II]

You know what Day Jobs also do? They put you out into the world and in contact with people, and if you’re a writer: people are where the stories are.

Gay Talese, say what you will about him in recent years, but his advice to young writers coming out of school is to get a job driving a cab. What better way to intersect with people, real people.

I owe my first book to a retail job. There I was a double major, an MFA holder, working at a shoe store.

I was fitting a woman for a pair of running shoes. She asked me what I did besides the retail gig. I told her I was a writer and I had this book, Six Weeks in Saratoga, that I had finished and was shopping around.

She said, “I know an editor at SUNY Press and I know they’re looking for a Saratoga book.”

She gave me the woman’s email. I sent her the manuscript and…fast forward a few months…they accepted and would later publish the book.

This was lucky, but I also had done the work and was in the position to capitalize.

And it was the menial Day Job, one that I felt tons of shame over, that ultimately led to my first book. And it’s a good, little book for a 29-year-old. I’m not gonna denigrate it.

Point is, every time you punch the clock at work, you might have the opportunity of running into someone and that is likely someone you would’ve never met had you not had your Day Job out in the world.

No shame in that.

The End of Job Shaming Part II

By Brendan O’Meara

Oh, and another thing about Day Jobs: They create structure, and they take pressure off your art. [The End of Job Shaming Part I]

Let’s address the first one. Say you work 32-40 hours per week, there’s likely a chance that you’ll have one to two hours before your shift or one to two hours after your shift to do your thing. Then there’s your days off.

Some of my best reporting was done during lunch breaks while landscaping (phone interviews). I often said to myself, well, my heroes in narrative journalism aren’t landscaping and doing reporting calls during lunch in 100-degree heat, but, alas, my path is my path and, you know what, it’s sorta cool.

I think people think that if they had all day to do their art they’d get more done. I don’t know if that’s true. The structure and time constraint enforced by a Day Job puts greater focus on the time you have. There’s a chance you do better, more concentrated work when that time is more precious.

To the second point: If you’re relying on your art to be your breadwinning you will find that something about your art dies with it. It certainly changes tenor. Not to mention that because you’re self-employed you’ll be paying nearly double the taxes, so you’ll have to churn out double the work or somehow find very well paying clients or markets.

See Day Jobs as something that pays you an advance on your work that you don’t have to earn back.

Episode 124—Natalie Singer on Finding the Time to Write and Living a Creative Life Around Day Jobs

By Brendan O’Meara

“What I’m doing when I’m not working is thinking.” —Natalie Singer (@Natalie_Writes)

Hey, this is The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to the best artists about the craft of telling true stories. Today I welcome Natalie Singer, author of California Calling: A Self Interrogation to the show.

We talk about confidence, or the lack thereof, books as mentors, and day jobs and feeling shame for day jobs. I hope to change that perception over the next six million episodes, but shame is real, man, it is real. This brought up the great story about Andre Dubus III and how he wrote his famous book in 17-minute spurts.

Well, are you subscribed to the show? You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and just about anywhere else you get your pods. If you like this episode, tell one friend. Hand the show off like a baton and let them run with it. I’d love to see the show grow. For a small show, we get some big headliners. I’d love to keep that going. The headliners bring more ears so that we little people can get some attention we might not otherwise get. It’s getting there. We march on.

Got a newsletter you should consider subscribing to. I give out reading recommendations, but I’m also thinking of sprinkling in some other cool stuff I’ve stumbled on over the past month in the vein of Austin Kleon’s newsletter. I love his newsletter. I’m gonna Steal Like an Artist. See what I did there?

Okay, this is my conversation with Natalie Singer…

Thanks to our sponsors: Goucher College’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction and Creative Nonfiction Magazine.

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