How to Become a Full-time Writer

You'll never guess this surprising hack blah blah blah

Image by 愚木混株 Cdd20 from Pixabay

How to become a full-time writer

Get sacked.

See how easy it is? One minute, you’re marking a pile of 6,000-word student portfolios in a university creative writing teaching career spanning 27 years, and the next, boom! you’re a full-time writer. Like the Magic Wish Fairy came along and ripped that security blanket right out of your hands. Did I say security blanket? I mean stifling fire-snuffing fibreglass blanket that’s been choking your oxygen for a decade. I mean, you’ve dreamed of being a full-time writer since you were nine. When were you going to do it, seriously? In your damn coffin?

No doubt if I snagged you on the headline because you, too, want to become a full-time writer, you’re already feeling cheated. You mean jobless, don’t you, Ros? Who wants to be jobless? Not me.

I’m with you, friend. Or am I talking to myself? It’s so hard to tell when you spend half your life conversing with imaginary people. And I can’t even work out if I mean characters or readers. But assuming you’re real, and you’re reading this, I am with you. I too, don’t relish the idea of being jobless, with all the insecurity that entails. This is why I prefer the title ‘Full-time writer.’ At least until I have sold all my belongings and am eating chalk.

I’m kidding about the chalk.

Sure, I loved having a steady income. It was bliss after years of being freelance. But sometimes, the universe has other ideas. Yes, I do believe in ‘the universe having other ideas’. Why? Because this is where writing ideas come from (answering that cliched question thrown up in writer Q&As). Call it what you want, that ineffable matrix of brilliance. The Universe, the Collective Unconscious, Inspiration, the Ether, the Muse. As discussed here, you show up at your desk, keep your bum glued to the seat, get yourself into a flow state, and the universe (or call it what you will) feeds you the goods. And sometimes it does extraordinary things that give you goosebumps (paging my real invisible friend).

If the good ideas come from what I’m calling (for now) The Universe, the bad ideas come from your internalised version of your mother (‘you might as well give up, because you’re not Irish, only Irish writers are any good’, yes, she said this) or your father (‘downsize, get a sensible job that pays the bills’). Bad ideas come from your inner version of anyone who installed your running-in-the-background programs of self-criticism and doubt. Well, dead Dad, I’m too old, too experienced, and too damn rebellious for a ‘sensible job’ now that profit-squeezed academia has booted me out. So, full-time writer it is.

I trust this process. The truth of it is reflected in our sayings about doors closing and opening. And it has come at an interesting time for me, after two years of writing-and-job-related challenges that forced me to divorce my sense of self-worth from external validation.

So here I go, my friend. Into the void (but still sending you weekly updates). Trusting all will be well.

Since I announced my job loss on Notes and other social media channels, I’ve received a mountain of commiserations, and also some people intending to be helpful. Please note that I am not looking for job offers. I am definitely not looking for “helpful advice” of the kind delivered from Our Friend in Bagged Aggregates (unarchived for a week, because I love you).

What I am looking for, is subscribers, both free and paid. The former increases my chance of landing a decent book deal. The latter increases my bank balance, but also my sense of being loved, which, as any writer knows, is as central to survival as biscuits and pets.

Cue top pet, Zebedee, hoping for a little something from the table.

So, if you’d like to support me in some way, please share any post you’ve enjoyed. If you have the means and inclination, a paid subscription would be amazing. Anyone who takes out an annual subscription before the end of July gets (if you want it!) a signed copy of my last poetry collection, Material, the one with the poems that ended up on the UK exam syllabus *plus* a random book from my poetry shelves at Goldsmiths (since I’ve no room for them all at home). Or if you hate poetry, I’ll send you a signed copy of one of my novels, either The Marlowe Papers or Devotion.

I’m writing this from my Goldsmiths office in what is going to be one of my last times at this desk. I won’t pretend it didn’t hurt, walking in here knowing it’s not going to mine much longer. I won’t pretend I didn’t cry a little bit. But there is nothing so important in life as learning the skill of letting go. And life is always helpfully on hand to deliver a refresher course.

Normal service will be resumed next week.

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Since last week I have:

• Delivered a 15-minute talk on my new discoveries in Christopher Marlowe’s biography (this morning! It went very well)…. [NOTE: this was yesterday; I didn’t feel happy with the editing and had to go to the end-of-conference ‘banquet’ so I’ve delayed my ‘Friday’ post to Saturday morning.

• Attended my first Substack writers meet up. (Which was wonderful. What a brilliant community this is!)

• I attended the funeral of my funny and generous father-in-law, who had lived with us for the last year. The wake was held at an actual race meet at Brighton Racecourse. (‘Best funeral ever,’ said more than one person. That is what happens when your husband used to organise fringe events and is suddenly given a serious budget.)

Over to you!

No advice or commiserations needed; wrong energy! Instead:

1)    Tell me your empowering stories of when something looked bad but turned out to be a blessing in disguise

2)    Tell me which Substack pieces of mine you have liked most, and why. This will help me plan my future direction on here.

3)    Is there anything you want me to write about that I haven’t written about?