And Now, I Am Officially and Not Entirely by Choice a Writer

I quit my day job a couple days ago, you see, meaning in just under two weeks the only income I’ll be receiving for a while is from writing. It won’t be enough to provide a sustainable living–I quit for “my job was growing increasingly sucky”-related reasons, not because I’m finally making enough from freelancing to do nothing else–but it will be enough to pay the rent while my bank account slowly dwindles.

I figure I could go six months before I need to start seriously looking for a new job. I’m going to write a lot. I’m going to continue submitting my backlog of short stories. And I’m going to start querying my last novel again and see if the combination of better query letter + several actual writing credits gets any bites.

Unless I go on some mad short story-selling bender–quit pretending you don’t want to pay me fat stacks of cash, Asimov’s and F&SF–there’s no realistic way I won’t have to end up taking a new day job sooner or later. Even if my novel sets the agenting world afire, finding representation and publication is going to take longer than my savings can hold out, no matter how fast I race my advance to the nearest Chase.

But it looks like, for half a year or so, my only job is going to be writing. I’ll be doing exactly what I’ve always wanted to do with my life. That should cheer me up when at this point next year I’m manning the counter at the Exxon down the street.

Postscript: Got some writing that needs doing, imaginary blog audience? Drop me a line. My credits are over there on the right side of the page and I’ve got a snazzy English/fiction degree from NYU, if that’s the sort of thing that turns your crank. We’ll work something out.