When I tell someone I’m a full-time writer, they ask me how many books I’ve had published. I blush, knowing I’m about to disappoint: “Well, I write for an app.”

Their face screws up in confusion. “Oh, what kind of app is it?”

Then comes my stumbling spiel—I say my work is creative, but not in the traditional way, and I do write my own projects on the side and hope to get published one day, etc. etc. But it’s too late. Their eyebrows are sky-high. I shut down any wild notion that they’ve met a contemporary of Donna Tartt’s in the flesh and explain that 99% of full-time writers do not, in fact, churn out beautiful tome after beautiful tome of their own work. Not even close.

The truth is that most writers write for someone else.

I always thought writers were blessed with independence—they thought up and directed their own magnum opus, they didn’t need to have a day job, and they were unicorns in a world dominated by inter-dependent teams. I envied how they could hide away in their brownstones and write in large, book-strewn rooms full of weeping figs until it was time to send their manuscript (begrudgingly) to their editor. There was always pressure on a writer, of course, but creative genius couldn’t be rushed.

Oh, what a cute little daydream.

After college, I had some tools in my arsenal: a creative writing degree, a couple awards, poems featured in the college journal, and I was co-editor of an online magazine called the Alligator. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. And instead of settling down in a cozy brownstone, I moved to Prague, one of the most beautiful cities in Europe—the perfect place to work on my novel set in late 1700s Prague.

I prowled around looking for inspiration. I visited Bertramka museum, where Mozart stayed with the Dušeks, and glimpsed Mozart’s clavichord and a lock of his wispy blond hair. I went to see Don Giovanni in the same opera house where it had premiered in 1787. I gazed longingly at the house where Beethoven had stayed in 1796 and at the shop where he’d gotten his violin repaired. I strolled through the Waldstein gardens where scenes from one of my favorite historical movies, Immortal Beloved, had been filmed (I sat on the bench Gary Oldman had sat on! AH!).

Waldstein Gardens by Peter Tóth from Pixabay

But the fairy tale eventually came to an end. My family broke apart and money became scarce. I had to scramble to find a job in a city where I didn’t speak the language and had a very particular skillset.

The “day job” can be a blessing or a curse for a writer. If it’s a blessing, writers can land jobs that hover around their interests but don’t creatively drain them: librarians, editorial assistants, book critics, proofreaders, English teachers, and so on.

If it’s a curse, writers have to take jobs that don’t boost their credentials and may leave them braindead.

What was mine? The latter.

I worked for 2 years as a hostel receptionist, working 12-hour shifts that demanded extroversion (ugh) and constant vigilance. I could have easy swung into “I guess the writer thing just isn’t for me” territory, but I kept picking away at it. When the sun drifted low and the hostel guests were out enjoying the city, I practiced my craft, writing and trashing piece after terrible piece.

I couldn’t let myself give up. I had to make a difficult choice, one whose repercussions have proven both positive and negative.

I chose to make writing my day job. A company that was developing educational apps for children was looking for a copywriter—someone to write marketing text, game narration, and general copy. I took it, salivating at the idea that my resume would read “Copywriter” instead of “Receptionist”.

I shared an office in a modest corporate building and had my own desk. My copywriting was well-received and I felt like I was finally putting my skills to use, but over the next five years, I barely touched my novel. Sitting at a desk from 9-5, writing and rewriting text with specific parameters and demands, drained me. While I did put my creative spin on it, the work was ultimately not mine. It didn’t belong to me. After doing my best work at work, I would arrive home zapped of creativity, allergic to the neon-white of a Word Doc and the squat squares of my keyboard.

Had I made the wrong decision? If I’d taken another job, such as a tour guide or English tutor, maybe I would have a finished novel already. Writing all day for someone else had left little energy to write in my free time for myself. Instead, I dove into other activities like theater and YouTubing. My mojo drooped like the anaesthetized mouth of a dental patient and I didn’t know what to do.

At twenty-eight, I was panicked. Long gone was the brownstone daydream. Even when I cut my hours back, I couldn’t write my own work. My copywriter methods had become so ingrained; fulfilling the task-holder’s needs and imaging an audience of children and parents. I had no idea what my own writerly voice sounded like. I had no idea how to brainstorm topics without a focus group. I depended on a team.

What would come next, writing technical manuals for Amazon? Writing manipulative marketing campaigns? Had I sold my talents to the man for a bit of security?

I needed to step away and think. 2020 and the pandemic hit. I turned thirty. Jobless, confused, and holed up in a studio flat, I began evaluating what I wanted out of life. Yes, I went deep, as a lot of us did that year. I looked at my habits and made a list of changes. Marijuana smoking: no. Yoga: yes. Vegetarianism: yes. Theater: no. De-programming of toxic traits: yes. Working for the man: no.

My resume revamped, I hopped back onto LinkedIn and searched for something with a bit of meaning. I knew I couldn’t skip past every post with the word “copywriter” in the title, but for a month that’s what I did. Whatever didn’t spark my creative interest was a no-go.

That’s when I discovered a listing for a writer. Not a copywriter, not a technical writer, not a marketing writer, just…writer. A startup was developing a mobile version of Dungeons & Dragons, the famous role-playing game, and they needed someone to design and write original content. I applied for and got the job. Everything was different from what I was used to. I was my own task manager. No one was above me. I had complete creative control over the content I wanted to make, which was both exhilarating and terrifying.

The whole nature of D&D and role-playing games is creative. You create your own world, populated by your own characters, and play within it. There are rules, of course, which every game must adhere to, but like a novel, there’s lore and story and plot twists and heart. This job was just what I needed to feel like a “real” writer again.

“Um, hello? You were writing for someone else!” you might say, and you’d be right. But that someone else wasn’t a toxic boss, or an audience whose money and attention I was trying to siphon by manipulating them with catchy tag lines and product descriptions, or even the little kids who could only handle certain subjects and certain words. I was writing for the role-playing community. They were readers who would explore and discover the secrets within the world I and my design partner had created, much like the readers of a novel would.

As my creativity was being liberated, I had the intense desire to restart my book. The mature signature voice I’d created to write for the D&D app became my writerly voice and it felt natural. It felt like progress.

I finally realized that I’d made the right choice back then to make writing my career. Being challenged to write within parameters and revise according to dozens of other people’s opinions made me patient and careful. Having to shift my voice to appease little children and grab customers’ attention made my writing adaptable and unique. I had to meet deadlines, sometimes same-day deadlines, which gave me discipline. I knew how to be a style chameleon—something those who only write for themselves may never learn to do.

There may be more corporate gigs in the future, and that’s absolutely ok. I know that I have the ability to keep my own writing projects alive on the side. I’ve made peace with the fact that I’ll never be the prodigy who wrote a bestselling debut book at twenty-two, or the writer who can pump out a dozen books a decade like Stephen King, or the writer who earns enough money to fill a brownstone with weeping figs and first-edition Alice-in-Wonderlands.

But if I’m enjoying myself, my mojo is intact, and I’m writing things that make readers feel something, I’m the writer I always wanted to be.

So if you write for someone else as your day job, embrace it! Look at it as the learning and humbling experience that it is. Give yourself time to step back occasionally (maybe between jobs?) and reassess your skills and what makes you tick. Discover why you love writing and make that your goal, even if you have to follow the scriptures of a soulless corporation. Writing for others is not a failure, because it’s actively evolving you. You are still an artist. A creative. You can still create your magnum opus on top of creating pieces that may not be your own, but that make an impact on the world nonetheless.