The problems is that people who never were in graduate school see the products of graduate school as people who did something stupid with their lives and do not see them as competent researchers, much less as potential management (we’ve all been supervisors to a certain extent if we’ve directed student work. Being an adjunct in academia doesn’t open up much in the way of alternative employment — tech writing tends to be the fall back for MFAs/MAs in English and that’s generally a dead-end placement even if the money is better. I made more money in 4 months of technical writing and collecting unemployment than I did my last year as an adjunct with half an advance on a novel in the same year.
The problem with having been a writer who wasn’t commercially successful on top of that (books out from places like Harper Collins and Tor Books, but only a few of those earned out) really makes it quite difficult to find someone willing to see you as competent do do anything other than being a rather decently paid proof reader and Word Smith. I had a year and some as a technical writer, which was very useful financially, but frustrating otherwise.
I took early retirement at 62 and moved to Nicaragua.
This is Rebecca Ore, one of the better SF writers of the 90s in my opinion. I was browsing a Slashdot thread that led me to here, and was shocked to see her reply. Rebecca wrote the Becoming Alien series, and wasn’t an obscure writer.
I really worry sometimes about a future where it seems any humanities job will become a part-time, low-paid hobby if pursued at all. A sobering quote for a very sobering future.
Jan 05, 2013 @ 22:24:50
Not surprising, though. Unfortunately. I’ve always looked at my writing career as a potentially helpful stream of income during my retirement from the current job people actually pay me for.
Jan 05, 2013 @ 22:34:06
I’m not particularly hopeful about my own chances, but the source was talking about PHD’s on food stamps, and I keep noticing this trend. There was a blog that tried to bring attention about how research Librarians of all people were forced to live like those university adjuncts, and to find in there a pretty strong writer claiming she earned more from tech writing is a little depressing.
Jan 06, 2013 @ 12:52:21
I was reading an article on Slate.com recently about the pros and cons of attending grad school for literature. The comments were very insightful in regards to today’s attitudes towards heavily-academic subjects such as English (which is what I have my degree in).
Earning a comfortable living as a full-time writer is a nice dream that is still attainable but is increasingly difficult. This profession has been romanticized a bit too much and it is withering under the harsh light of our modern, practical world. But that’s just the way the world turns. The good news is that there are more writers and books now than ever, and that’s more important than the duckets.
Jan 07, 2013 @ 00:33:10
Yeah, this is true. I’m not sure though what kind of a new world it will be, though. There’s some futurists that I read who use the term post-scarcity economy to describe a world where that kind of affluence reigns, and it’s going to be tough to get used to.