Fave Authour Roundup: Five Years At My Laptop

Not nearly as exciting a title as Seven Years In Tibet, eh?

I've been thinking of adding a favorite author roundup as an occasional feature, profiling writers I adore that influence my writing and their thoughts on writing.  This is somewhat random (random postings from me, I'm sure you are terribly surprised) but while reading on Dean Koontz's website, I was really struck by this bit in his biography:

The following year was filled with challenge but also tension, and Koontz was more highly motivated than ever to build a career as a writer. He wrote nights and weekends, which he continued to do after leaving the poverty program and going to work as an English teacher in a suburban school district outside Harrisburg. After a year and a half in that position, his wife, Gerda, made him an offer he couldn't refuse: "I'll support you for five years," she said, "and if you can't make it as a writer in that time, you'll never make it." By the end of those five years, Gerda had quit her job to run the business end of her husband's writing career.


Mm, say what? Koontz took five motivated years and developed a successful career as a writer. This struck me because, as you may remember if you've been following my blog, my goal is to make it in five years. Despite struggling with a day job simultaneously, this really reminded me of what can be accomplished -- especially given the coincidence of our similar time frames.

Of course, MJ also offers sometimes to let me "retire" before 30 and take a few years off to just try and make it as a writer.  It's hard for me to imagine giving up my career and jumping into writing before I've made it... but in a few years, it might be an option (right now, I'm under obligations to work). Wouldn't that be crazy? I've been thinking about how it could work -- I could do the Marines as a reservist (the one weekend a month/two weeks a year bit). I was just offered a part-time position tutoring for the finance classes at the university where I'm working on my Master's. I could still bring in a little money without major time investments.

But that's a debate for another day! Right now, this option seems too far away to even consider. So I'll keep getting up at 6am to write before work, and trying to make it -- with a day job.  Honestly, I think it would be hard to leave the security of my day job, too. There's a lot to consider.

Are you a full-time writer or a dayjobber?  Have you ever thought about how you could make it work to go full-time? Would you even want to?