Forum / Finding one's way as a writer (financially)

Ann Bogle
May 20, 02:33pm

Fictionaut has been a loving place for writers on the net. The academic world for writers is not always a loving one, but it does butter the bread of those lucky enough to find paid posts in it. I'd like to ask, in this thread, whether anyone has tried to enter or reenter paid academic ranks, where publications matter more as credit than as source of income.

In fact, I have many questions.

In '93, when I first looked seriously for an academic post to follow my third graduation in May of '94, I did my own mailings. I had asked for one set of letters in hand, and the others had been returned to me when I closed my dossier account at AWP. I was short on funds, and AWP rates had gone up! What a mistake. It is an unwritten law, it seems, to disqualify applicants who handle their own mailings. Whereas friends imagined that I was a real and genuine fuck up, in not finding a post, it was probably related to that decision.

More recently, I send out my c.v. (now 14 pages in length), frequently without a cover letter. I apply very selectively and only to positions I would be willing to accept if given an offer, to places where I'd be willing to move and live. Mistake again! I find I have nothing to say (often) to represent myself academically or professionally that is not inscribed in the c.v. The c.v. is ENTIRELY accurate and edited by many professional eyes, people I have turned to for expert advice.

History is full of stories of men and women whose lives were shot due to costly decisions but whose art fetches reverence and millions in the marketplace and at auction. Van gogh cut off his ear. Rembrandt lost his social position. Beethoven was shunned by high society. Plath took her life, as did Sexton. Niedecker toiled cleaning hospital rooms. Hurston landed in an unmarked grave after cleaning hotel rooms and being shunned by the Harlem Renaissance itself after helping to create it. Fitzgerald died bankrupt of alcoholism.

I could rub down the mistakes I made to a few. There was a glass of wine (a single glass); there was a single beer; there was my writing a tome worthy of Cotton Mather, not Emerson as we had hoped. Those things are for the record, except the tome, and the tome is not half-bad in its entirety and shockingly great in its parts. So, really, it boils down to the single glass of wine and single beer (over the legal limit for driving). Canada turned me away at the border for it 10 years later! What do they want someone to do who has made a mistake such as that one, cease to mingle? to appear? to apply oneself? to eat? to live? It amounts to that.

Illegal forms of discrimination create loopholes and reverse preferences.

My query (about employment) extends beyond the academic to other forms of it, other places.

I once got a man a job (unpaid at first) who turned it, due to various elements, distractions, and events, to a paying job worth in theory over $200,000. I was affianced to a man whose total wealth (he was wealthy) doubled in two years. I dated a man whose income doubled the year of our involvement. I found three apartments in NYC for another man, though I never found a lease there for myself. I attracted business for a woman realtor in Minnesota who scored three sales each time two people had unauthorized sex in the suburbs: the woman needed a different house, the man needed a different house, the old house had to be sold, etc. I had been the realtor's natural cheerleader since she was a woman in business, a fact I found so endearing.

I think if I were to try direct fundraising, though, it would not work. I am so accidental, so unprone to business deals and sales, so trusting.

David Ackley
May 21, 01:51am

Ann, my bona fides are these: after 8 years of teaching Creative Writing and Humanities full time, the college sacked me. And others. A year later it went out of business, a year I spent confirming that, for whatever reason, I wouldn't be hired by another college. I went on to do other things that included bartending, running a swing saw in a sawmill, carpenter's helper. Community organizing for a CAP agency which eventually led to my getting a fringe fulltime academic job, running an offcampus center for the UNiversity of Maine System.

When I left that, I went back to teaching part-time first offcampus for the UNH system then for a community college center.

Here's what I think, from all that. College and University fulltime teaching gigs are gold and many are prospecting, with more coming out of grad programs every year. Chances are, if you do not already have a fulltime teaching position, you will find it extremely hard to impossible to get one. Most jobs go to someone moving from one job to another, given the conservative nature of academia few colleges will risk a teaching position on .

I wouldn't presume to tell you what you should do, but what I would do--and have done--in your position is scout the local area for the nearest community college, offcampus night school, or whatever college-like( or lite) program. Don't write, walk in the door and ask to speak to the director. Tell them what you can do and ask them what they've got. Once you get one of these gigs the next will come easier and you can often put together a number of them to make a (slim) living.

Adjunct teaching isn't much in a lot of ways, but it has its upside( adult students) and particular gratifications and it's just about the only wheel in town unless you want to teach Junior High School, which I've also done: I'd sooner rassle alligators.

Ann Bogle
May 21, 02:38am

David Ackley, you are my guide to opportunity! Great reply.

James Claffey
May 21, 03:03pm

oh boy. i've taught junior high (hell), high school, college, and now languish in a long-term temp job storing architectural documents for a university. i drive by the schools of english, and of education, every day, and feel much like the ghost at the feast, able to smell and see the spread, but unable to partake. geography hinders my ability to take a teaching job, as we're not open to moving across country again, even for the best job ever. the trade-off is quality of life vs working for the man and appearing successful. i can write, submit, and work on my manuscripts right now, something that i'd be less likely to do were i entrenched in the academic life of lesson plans, grading, meetings, parent/teacher nights and the like. my guess is the universe has its plan for me, and i'm better off submitting to its will...

Ann Bogle
May 21, 03:29pm

Oh, there, James Claffey. Thanks for your reply. It sounds so right. I admit that I do not miss grading papers (at all). I was too difficult a grader. I do miss seeing student eyes, though. Actions I have taken since yesterday: 1) applied to (very quickly, attempting to snatch) a p-t tutoring gig with a Brazilian engineer visiting the U.S. (Minneapolis) for the summer and 2) asked for a stipend where I already work -- let's see what happens. D'zwill!

RW Spryszak
May 21, 03:43pm

I work in a print shop on the graveyard shift. Then I drink too much. then I write. It's no way to make a living.

Once, a long long time ago when the internet was 6 months old I took an online test connected to some university or other. It was a tremendous thing, maybe 300 questions, and designed to be the definitive answer to the question "what is my ideal life?"

It turns out I was supposed to be a professor in a small private college (yes it got that specific) in some north eastern state. I assume ivy and elbow patches as well. Who would have thought...

I dropped out of college after two semesters. I do wish I'd stayed sometimes, but other times I have no regrets at all because I take a dim view of academia in general.

I think a person should just do whatever it takes to get food and shelter and then write like mad.

Marcus Speh
May 21, 03:48pm

There's a long thread on this over at Red Lemonade in case you're interested, started by Fictionaut Jana McCall — it ran since January 2012:

http://redlemona.de/jana-mccall/what-do-you-do-for-a-living

Ann Bogle
May 21, 04:30pm

Thanks, Bob, love your answer and the images (of working) it evokes. And your sense of priorities. Thanks, Marcus, for the link. I'll go there now.

James Claffey
May 21, 04:39pm

RW has it right! and ann, it is hard to miss the student moments that define the job, really hard. but who knows what's around the corner?

Ann Bogle
May 24, 04:42pm

Marcus, fascinating conversation re: working writers at Red Lemonade. Thanks for linking.

I took out a free ad at a literary website in the Twin Cities offering my services as a writing coach. I have my first session tomorrow with a beginning memoirist. This is exciting to me, especially because she is a mature woman (her background is in marketing/copywriting).

Ann Bogle
May 26, 12:33am

The session went AMAZINGLY well. I found her to be very self-possessed, almost intimidating. I had read her first six pages. In writing, she can use my guide, but her STORY is worthy; there are factors in her life that suit her to writing AND she loves writing -- to the point that she loves REwriting. As our hour neared its end, she asked if we could go into a second hour, and I agreed. I told her about Mary Karr and Anne Lamott. I think (hope) we have established ground for further meetings.
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