Sunday, May 8, 2016

Don’t Give Up The Day Job – what else authors do for a living


When I had the first novel in my Charlie Fox crime thriller series accepted, I had a full-time job. No surprises there – very few authors go straight from cradle to typewriter without some other kind of honest endeavour in between.

What was slightly more unusual was that I was already a writer, and had been for around twelve years. Being a non-fiction magazine writer was very useful training for what was to come. It taught me to write to topic, to length, to a deadline, and not to be too precious about my work, which was likely to be hacked to death by the subs in order to squeeze in a slightly larger picture.


However, I was also a photographer in order to illustrate both my own articles and those of other people, so if that slightly larger picture was one of my own, I didn’t feel I could grumble too much.

Once I started work on book two, then three and four to feature Charlie Fox, I found the brain-drain of writing both as a day-job and a night-job became a bit much. I sidled out of the article writing but increased the photography side. Nothing to stop me working on my laptop on the way to and from photo shoots – and no, I wasn’t driving at the time.


I’m not the only Murder Is Everywhere author to have a similar day-job. Sujata Massey, having obtained a B.A. in the Writing Seminars from the Johns Hopkins University, became a features reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun newspaper before she became a full-time novelist.

The founder of Murder Is Everywhere, the late Leighton Gage, did a slightly different kind of writing for his day-job. Gage was an international creative director for a major worldwide advertising agency, and won over 120 awards for advertising excellence. Good copywriting is, indeed, an art.

The legal profession has two exponents here, in both Jeffrey Siger – a former Wall Street lawyer – and Susan Spann, who still practices as an intellectual copyright lawyer. This gives me a tenuous connection with two other famous authors and their day-jobs. T.S. Eliot was a banker, although for Lloyd’s in London rather than on Wall Street. And at one point Franz Kafka was a legal clerk.


Caro Ramsay has a successful osteopathy practice as well as writing her novels, and I can’t get the image out of my mind of her with a patient’s buttock in one hand and a pen in the other …

Other authors with a medical connection including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was a surgeon, while Agatha Christie worked as an apothecary’s assistant, gaining a very useful working knowledge of poisons while she was about it.


The Michael Stanleys, as I tend to think of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip collectively, both come from academic backgrounds. Michael from a position at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg where he specialised in applications of mathematics in a variety of areas including image analysis and ecological modelling. And Stan took a PhD in Educational Psychology and up to retirement was Director of Learning Strategies at Capella University. He’s also a keen pilot (until very recently, that is) and has lectured on aviation safety.


Another author involved in the educational field includes – cue tenuous link here – Stephen King, who was a High School janitor, who apparently claimed that inspiration for ‘Carrie’ came from the girls’ locker room.

Before Cara Black turned to writing full-time, she tried her hand at a number of jobs including as a barista in the Basel train station café in Switzerland. She is in good company, as Margaret Atwood worked behind the counter in a coffee shop before her ownwriting career took off.

Jørn Lier Horst was a former Senior Investigating Officer in the Norwegian Police, a profession he shares with George Orwell, who was an officer in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. Douglas Adams worked as a bodyguard to a Qatari family.



More unusual day-jobs of famous authors can be found at The Expert Editor blog. (Oh, and if you're wondering what Annamaria Alfieri did before she became a writer, so am I ...


This week’s Word of the Week is callipygian, meaning to have well-shaped buttocks.

10 comments:

  1. I wish I had gone into the janitorial side of academic work. Although I do often have to clean up the mess my graduate students make...

    Alexander McCall Smith would be a good example for you - background in medicine, law and academia. And he's done okay.

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    1. Sorry for the late responses. My internet has been sulking and refusing to let me do anything on this page!

      I almost dread to ask what kind of messes you had to clear up, Michael, but I think my imagination is way ahead of you ...

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  2. You mention of "honest endeavors" makes me wonder why people consider writing to be a DIShonest endeavor???

    And does Caro REALLY have people's buttocks in her hands all day? THAT would certainly explain her endearing sense of humor... (And why haven't we heard HER discussing callipygian people???)

    But thanks for all the cartoons. Always good to start out the day with a good belly laugh or ten.

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    1. I've always wondered about those phrases that have certain assumptions attached to them. I used to know someone with a boat called Harbinger, which everyone associates with 'of doom' but in fact it simply means a messenger. And I wonder if you can have well-gotten gains?

      I have heard Caro herself claim to spend her days personfully handling people's buttocks, so it must be true.

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  3. I'm so tempted to tell you what AMA did before she became a writer, but I'm afraid she'd kill me if I revealed all...

    Let's let EvKa do it.

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    1. I read Annamarie's blog before I came back here, Jeff. Wow, how's that for something to have on your resumé? And AMA might not kill you, but she'd certainly put you in a small box and stick swords through it ...

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  4. MUM'S the word, gentlemen. or you will give away my surprise tomorrow. Guessing is allowed. But I doubt you will get it right!

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    1. Leaving you out was not intentional, Annamaria, but inspiration for this one struck very late, and internet searches did not reveal all! Love your tomorrow's blog!

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  5. Looking forward to AMA's reveal tomorrow - and I'm honored to be in such a diverse and illustrious company. I love hearing about writers' other ... er, "lucrative pastimes." Thanks for a great post!

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    1. Thanks, Susan. Sadly, it's so often the case that writer's other pastimes are far more lucrative than their writing.

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