Why I Still Have A Day Job

In short: because I like it

Kris Gage
10 min readFeb 16, 2019
Chris Barbalis via unsplash

The fact that many writers have day jobs is not new — most aspiring writers do (and many of the successful ones did, too, before they made it big.)

So to say I have a job isn’t all that interesting. Where people get hung up is when I clarify:

I’m not trying to leave it.

Because “escaping a job” isn’t every writer’s primary motivation.

I know that it is the main goal for a lot of aspiring writers, especially bloggers and freelancers, but for a lot of us (myself included) it’s not. (And to be honest, I’m always a bit surprised when folks are confused by this.)

Some writers aren’t writing in hopes it will “save” us. Rather:

  • A lot of writers like their day job, and equally important:
  • A lot of writers’ motivation for writing is simply: to write

PART 1: WORK

John Gorman is another Medium writer who not only has a day job, but isn’t gunning to ditch it. He and I once talked about this on a call and agreed.

Gorman wrote,

“I am so blessed, lucky and privileged to be able to do the things I love (write, play music) for a career, in the city I wanted… It…

--

--