The hands of our next great novelist?
Many years ago I heard a radio interview with Scott Turow about his experience working as a mailman. This was in the days before businesses and organizations were obsessed with efficiency, and there was an unwritten rule that if you finished your route early, it was okay not to come back to the post office until your shift was officially over. Turow used the extra time (he said he’d finish his route in five hours) to go to the public library and read Joyce and dream about being a writer.
Ulysses was going to teach him about the novel, but he’d already learned an important lesson about having the right day job. Lately, as I’ve been advising Carleton students about how to start a career in the arts, I’ve been encouraging them to consider money work that will either give them more control over their schedule, or keep their mind free, or help fill the pot with experience.
Personally, if I were doing this all over again, I’d go with hair stylist.
First, you’ve gotta love the hours. You might have to open early once in a while, but no one is expecting you there at eight. I like the idea of getting up at six, writing for two or three hours and still having plenty of time to get to work.
Second, cutting hair is social. Bartenders are supposedly the great collectors of our collective confessions, but I tell my hair stylist all kinds of personal, self-revealing things. What could be better than having a variety of (non-drunk) people bringing you their lives?
Third, working with your hands keeps you mentally (and creatively) engaged without burning out your language centers. (Matthew Crawford’s new book SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT argues that physical work may even be better for your soul. Click here for Michael Agger’s take on it in Slate.)
Fourth, you won’t get rich chopping hair, but unless we move into some kind of post-apocalyptic bullets-and-spring water economy you probably won’t go broke either. You’ll make a good living, but not so good of a living that you risk selling out the dream.
Final thought:
From talking to a friend of mine who is a stylist, your biggest worry is probably staying clean and sober. It’s a boozy, druggy business, and if you’re young it may be hard to refuse all that fun. But if you can get your ass home and go to bed at a reasonable hour, then I don’t see any reason why cutting hair couldn’t be your before-you-make-it dream job.
money work that will either give them more control over their schedule, or keep their mind free, or help fill the pot with experience
Excellent advice. And it’s one reason — or three — why I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of creative-writing programs, which too often (just my opinion!) prepare students just to switch over to the front of the classroom, upon graduation. Good-bye schedule control, good-bye an uncluttered mind, and (sadly) probably good-bye to a potful of experience.
I haven’t read (or even seen, until now) Shop Class as Soulcraft. But an earlier book on sort of the same topic — probably a lower-key treatment — is Sweeping Changes, by Gary Thorp. (Incidentally, that’s one of my favorite book titles of all time, because it can be read two ways: as the conventional modifier-noun, or, more interestingly, as noun-verb.)
Good idea. I always thought Warren Beatty had the ideal life in “Shampoo”, but kind of a tragic ending actually. The Agger article is terrific. Thanks.
The bartender gig is a good one for a writer, but has distinct downsides. Like hairstyling or any job with flexible hours and quick cash money, it takes a lot of self control not to waste years in quick fun.
An important thing for a writer’s other job, though, is that it be social in some way, as you mentioned. Writing is so solitary, we need something that gets us out of the house at least occasionally.
Being a mommy does much the same thing for me. My life is filled with all sorts of inane physical tasks, but I also have to use my brain to sort through big life problems and deal with all sorts of people on behalf of my kids. It feeds the muse all right.
If I had to do it again I’d be an emergency room nurse, (or firefighter, except I’m too small). Why? Hard-core time on, but then lots of recovery time off, and the material! William Carlos Williams had it all figured out, but the doctor thing seems difficult now because it can require 8 – 15 years of round the clock grueling/almost free labor, which isn’t conducive to writing. Of course, police-work is the ultimate material-source & resumé line — what I wouldn’t give to be a 20 year veteran homicide detective!
Emergency Room Nurse. Love it.
Also, let us not forget Harvey Pekar and his VA filing job.
Anyone else have any ideas?
Well, your question is about jobs for young writers. I’ve been teaching since I was young–but now I am not. And I’m not making a living from the writing either. So should I be going to beauty school now? What happens when you hit 40?
mapelba–Fabulous question! In fact, also beyond 40.
When I wrote “young” I meant young as in age, but I don’t think the rules change for “young” as in “not yet published.”
Personally, if I were to go back to school right now I wouldn’t get an MFA. I’d learn a trade and continue to write.