Could you please also talk about the non-monetary impacts of having another job?
Iām wondering if being a lawyer/writing/thinking/negotiating as a lawyer helps with writing/ performing in the creative arts? Do you get a chance to leave any job at the door? Or does it mean that you are never not working? Or is writing hard work but also replenishing?
PS, love your writing!! And appreciate being a paid subscriber š
Thank you so much for reading, and for being a paid subscriber! ā¤ļø
Oh my goodness, I could probably write a whole piece just about that! I definitely think there's a really big overlap between the skills needed to write legally and creatively (being good with words, having attention to detail, being able to see things from multiple angles) but they obviously result in pretty different outputs. The lawyer-writer combo is definitely surprisingly common in Australia - Alice Pung, Jaclyn Moriarty, Rebecca Lim, Leanne Hall, Shaun Micallef (and many others!) all studied or practised law at some point.
You have totally hit the nail on the head - the main disadvantage to having a day job + writing is that it takes up a lot of time and balancing the two is incredibly hard work. Author Lex Croucher said something along the lines of: if you want to become an author, writing has to be what you want to do more than anything when you get home from work. So you certainly have to be really committed to writing and figure out a routine that works for you. For me, it's mostly been writing in the evenings and part-time/flexible arrangements at my day job. Another example is there's a wonderful group called #6amAusWriters on Twitter who get up at 6am every day to write before work/other priorities.
Thanks Julia, this is a great article!
Could you please also talk about the non-monetary impacts of having another job?
Iām wondering if being a lawyer/writing/thinking/negotiating as a lawyer helps with writing/ performing in the creative arts? Do you get a chance to leave any job at the door? Or does it mean that you are never not working? Or is writing hard work but also replenishing?
PS, love your writing!! And appreciate being a paid subscriber š
Thank you so much for reading, and for being a paid subscriber! ā¤ļø
Oh my goodness, I could probably write a whole piece just about that! I definitely think there's a really big overlap between the skills needed to write legally and creatively (being good with words, having attention to detail, being able to see things from multiple angles) but they obviously result in pretty different outputs. The lawyer-writer combo is definitely surprisingly common in Australia - Alice Pung, Jaclyn Moriarty, Rebecca Lim, Leanne Hall, Shaun Micallef (and many others!) all studied or practised law at some point.
You have totally hit the nail on the head - the main disadvantage to having a day job + writing is that it takes up a lot of time and balancing the two is incredibly hard work. Author Lex Croucher said something along the lines of: if you want to become an author, writing has to be what you want to do more than anything when you get home from work. So you certainly have to be really committed to writing and figure out a routine that works for you. For me, it's mostly been writing in the evenings and part-time/flexible arrangements at my day job. Another example is there's a wonderful group called #6amAusWriters on Twitter who get up at 6am every day to write before work/other priorities.
Oh wow, thatās a great reply! Thank you so much!! And yes, if you write a longer piece, Iāll be very interested in reading that too!!
This is a fantastic article, Julia! Love being transparent about the creative industry and pay
Thank you so much for reading!