What's in a (Job) Title?

Considering ideas around paid work and the writing life

Woman Working via PickPic

Welcome to A Narrative of their Own, where I discuss the work of 20th century women writers and their relevance to contemporary culture.

This is an extra post for paying subscribers.  As it is the first in a new series, however, I am opening it up for free to all subscribers.

This post from Smallish Book entitled ‘Your Job Title Does Not Matter’ (hat tip to Haley’s post from Closely Reading for this rec), chimed with my thoughts this week on a matter I’ve been grappling with.

A bit of background: as regular subscribers will know, I write about the fantastic plethora of 20^th century women writers and their works, as well as their relevance to contemporary culture.  I recently completed a postgraduate Masters in English Studies with a specific interest (read: obsession) in modernist women’s literature. 

As a woman writer myself, the writing and ideas of those that have gone before are of infinite fascination and value to me.  But I also glean so much from more contemporary sources, including some of the wonderful writers and artists I have met personally – both IRL and here, on this flourishing platform we find ourselves.

Recently, I had the opportunity to pursue a work-role within a highly regarded UK university.  I was already employed in a paid role within the UK’s National Health Service, but thought (and was encouraged) to follow a path more in-line with some of the skills I had been developing since studying at a postgraduate level, as well as allowing me more time to work on my research and writing projects. 

However, it quickly became clear to me that, though the job title appeared more ‘prestigious’ and the kudos of the role (I kept being told) was more highly regarded than my previous one…I did not feel it fit well with my personality.  I missed my team of work colleagues, and the whole feeling that my role ‘mattered’.  I felt like I made a difference and supported the clinical team I worked for in their own important roles.

Woman using laptop via CoWomen on Pexels

This led to a LOT of soul searching in the past couple of weeks.  It made me consider the notion of work titles and what they say about us.  One of the first things we often get asked when meeting new people socially or otherwise is: What do you do?  They don’t mean for fun, or in general with your days.  They mean what job title do you ascribe to, and I’m not sure if it’s just me who has struggled with low self-esteem in the past, but it often feels that their opinion of you hinges on the answer to this question.

When I stayed at home for a couple of years with my first child, I could practically feel the questioner’s eyes glaze over when I gave this answer.  Add in I’m a writer or well, I’m trying to write…and you might as well walk away quickly and get stuck into the fruit punch, because that will cause either a raised eyebrow in confusion (the audacity of calling yourself Writer - capital W!) or further curious follow-up questions of but how do you make a living from that?  Or, worse: have you written anything I might have read…? 

Yikes!

As I went down the rabbit-hole of ‘successful’ writers and the other work they did, I realised that writers and creatives have done a whole smörgåsbord of work, both related and unrelated to writing.

Stephen King was famously a high school janitor, before becoming a high school teacher, before making it as a world famous, best-selling author (as well as writing one of the best books on the craft of writing).  His experience of cleaning the girls’ locker room was actually said to have inspired his first big hit: Carrie.

Prolific crime writer Agatha Christie was a pharmacist, which helped hugely with her knowledge of poisons for her famous detective fiction; whilst Toni Morrison was an editor at Random House.  Dorothy L Sayers was an advertising copywriter; whilst Jean Rhys did a stint as a chorus girl.  Master of the short-story form Raymond Carver worked, both prior to and whilst writing, as a janitor, a gas-station attendant, and a delivery man.

I could go on.  But the essential point here, I think, is that most writers (and other creatives) will have or do hold other job titles other than that of ‘writer’.  The sad fact is that making a living as a writer or artist of any kind is difficult, and many, many creatives need to work in order to keep the lights on.

But there’s another interesting thing that I don’t think often gets talked about: it is often these other roles or experiences which can actually feed into the writing.  Maybe not directly, like King’s experience of cleaning the girls’ locker rooms fed into his eponymous high-school misfit, or Christie’s knowledge of poisons.  But in more delicate ways that we may not even be aware of.

Using creativity within any role (within reason) is going to affect the way we work and contribute to the workplace, our colleagues, and the people we serve.  Conversely, being around people other than writers is going to contribute to our ideas of the world and the nuances of the people within it.  If we sit alone at home in front of our laptops for endless hours every day, we can become stale and withdrawn, and the ideas can dry up. 

Connecting online can only give us so much; we need to see the expressions on people’s faces, or the intonation of their words, to truly understand how people speak, live, think, and react. 

This isn’t to say you should not spend some time alone developing as a writer and committing to that full-time if that is what fills you up and what fits with your life at this time.  There are some periods of our life when we need to dedicate ourselves to something important, and if that time for you is now: I am cheering you on!  

But also, we need to have enough belief in our own sense of self that we do not listen to the voices telling us we ‘should’ be dedicating more time to our craft, or that we ‘need’ to have a job title which represents who we are as writers, (or artists, or film-makers, or academics, or teachers…).

I heard an interview several years ago with a short-story writer who said he had held a day job for many years which involved a lot of writing, and was constantly congratulated for his ability to get to write for a living.  But he warned young authors against such a career move, stating that writing all day for a company left him feeling drained and disinterested when he got home.  The slog to write more creatively on his own work was difficult to overcome.  He interestingly said that his advice to other writers was to take a job which required no writing at all: “something like a janitor”, he said. 

Similarly, I know a successful local artist who combined painting with working as a gardener for many years, both for the income and for the physical activity.  Her outdoor work and nurturing of the gardens of others gave her inspiration for her paintings, and vice versa.

Woman in the Garden Gardening picture credits

To this end – and because I am infinitely interested in writing and writers – I am hoping to delve deeper into some of these ideas in the coming weeks.  Looking at some of the inspiring writers we love and investigating their writing techniques, including modernist, post-modernist, and more contemporary styles, and what the differences and nuances are, as well as how they borrow from earlier traditions.

I am interested in looking at the work we do as writers (and readers) and what both bring to the party. 

I want to look at what the modernists thought about the act of writing; the importance of building a support network with other writers, including some unexpected famous writer friendships; and an issue that comes into a lot of my work: how motherhood affects the act of creating art.

I hope you enjoyed this slightly more personal post this week, and are interested to come along on a journey of exploration with me into that age-old question: what makes us write?

(Update: I left the ‘opportunity’ with the University and am returning to my old team of colleagues, though have negotiated a new contract with slightly less hours to enable me to commit to both writing and supporting a role I believe in.  So this story, at least, has a happy ending : )

Postscript: This series is going to feature as mainly for paying subscribers for now.  If you would like to upgrade, please check out my subscription tiers.  If you are currently a student or unwaged, please get in touch if you think my work resonates with you and would like a free upgrade.  You can also opt for a free trial, to enable you to test the waters before fully diving in!