There’re occasional moments of second guessing the decision to leave my day job this week. The festival’s big a project, and one I’d like to see through, and we’re so very close that it feels slightly weird to be handing things over to someone else.
Sometimes the worst thing about a job that’s a poor fit — or a job where you feel like you’re ambitions are constantly thwarted by forces beyond your control — is the feeling there’s no other choice but to keep working. There’s nothing we dislike more than constraint and a lack of options. It’s stressful to lack that control over. your life, and feel like there’s no other options.
The moment you give yourself another option, the things you dislike about a gig become easier to manage.
Of course, this has been true of writing as well — half the reason I work a day job in the first place is so creative decisions aren’t being made at the behest of of the bottom line. Working a day job gives me the much-needed space to fail, and a margin that keeps writing pleasurable.
I’ve been a full-time writer before, in spaces between sessional and freelance gigs, and it’s often proven to be a just as poor fit as some of my worst day jobs.
I finish up at Brisbane Writers Festival on Thursday, and the urge to write is slowly returning now that I’ve got some spare bandwidth in my day.