Alternative Career Options for Burned-Out Writers
Posted by Lauren | Under Working Class Angst with 132 views Monday Oct 29, 2007My mom can probably attest to the fact that I write better than I can walk or talk. As a child I ran into walls and fell into pits; as a teenager I mouthed obscenities that made my former-frat leader dad shrink in horror and wish that he had been a better son to his parents when he was my age. Put a pen into my hand or a keyboard at my fingertips, however, and I am gold. Ever since I learned how to physically write, I knew there was nothing else I wanted to do in my life but that. Oh, the naivety of the young! I was two years old then, and had no clue that nineteen years later, writing is exactly what I would end up doing.
And I’m starting to hate it.
Okay, hate is a strong word. I don’t hate writing. How can I hate it when it’s the only constant thing in my life? Friends disappear and reappear, boys are a dime a dozen, but writing has always served as my comfort zone, especially when things turn shitty. Of course, that was before I started writing in a sweatshop. When you’re forced to churn out over three thousand words a day for a living on the most random, obscure topics in the world, it zaps your imagination dryer than an eighty-year old lady’s vagina when it comes into contact with a shriveled, eighty-year old penis. There are days when I feel like stabbing people with a blunt object if I have to write another word again. Today is one of those days. (Don’t ask me why I’m still typing away.)
I’m going through a really bad burnout at the moment and I’ve been giving some thought into going for a career that doesn’t involve writing a single word. So far, I’ve come up with the following options:
Why be the underpaid writer churning out the dialogue for TV shows, soaps, and movies, when I can be the one saying them instead? Unfortunately, I wouldn’t last a day in Philippine show business. Not only do I have a lot flesh attached to my bones; I know for a fact that I’m not conventionally pretty. Oh, and my Tagalog sucks harder than a gay man behind a glory hole. Speaking in my “burgis twang” is not exactly how I’d like to entertain people.
Strippers and bar girls earn more than I do in one evening, which makes this career path very very tempting. After giving it more thought, however, it’s highly unlikely that anyone will see me humping a pole at Quezon Ave. Sry gais. It’s not the gyrating for an audience of potbellied, middle-aged men that turns me off (which is not to say that that’s my kink, either). I have flat feet and can’t walk for shit in heels. Also, I wouldn’t survive in an environment of female coworkers. Do you have any idea how catty, vicious, and sneaky women can get? I’ve heard stories of bar girls beating up fellow bar girls until they end up close to death in the ICU. Working as a stripper will be like high school again except this time, we have murder weapons in the form of stilettos and thong panties. Life is nasty, brutish, and short, and I don’t what my life to get nastier, brutisher, and shorter with a job where I could get seriously maimed.
A funeral director. Why not? Well okay, why not is because the embalming process involves draining out the corpse’s blood and sometimes stuffing cotton balls up anuses. Handling dead bodies aside, I can’t even go to a wake without getting philosophical about life and death. So, no thanks.
Apparently, you can earn six figures a month just by telling people how to run their lives. Hmm, I could be a life coach. I mean I’ve already got some experience under my belt, what with all the emotional retards I tried to save during those stupid moments where my messianic complex kicked in. Not to mention all the time I spend listening to girl friends bitch about the same old boy or romantic problem over and over and over again. Did I mention that the emotional retards are still emotional retards? And that my girl friends are still crying over the same boys? I thought so.
I’m a short Asian female and from a third world country so I think I have all the qualifications I need to be a mail-order bride and snag me a rich white guy from teh first world. Ah, I can see it now - a life of indolence and luxury, a closet full of designer clothes, a crack pipe in my dresser drawer because what else am I going to do with all that time and money? Somebody please shoot me for considering this. It’s not even an actual career.
Meh. I don’t feel like going to work tomorrow. Or ever. 
Mail order brides are usually for lonely white men in their upper middle class social strata…the only designer stuff you’ll get will be in the discount bins of their ukays.
*hugs* Find a hobby that doesn’t necessarily need writing, maybe? When you’re bored with writing, take photographs, paint or something. That usually works. :3
Well, take comfort in the fact that even completely burned out on writing, you still churn up better blog posts than 99% of the internet. Dryer than an 80-year-old woman’s vagina? Classic (and classy) shit.
Remember, you’re not writing three thousand words a day to unleash your muse, you’re writing three thousand words a day because you need money. It’s a day job to provide you with security so that one day you can go pursue writing about what you really want to write about. Don’t let your day job ruin your dreams.
I have to agree to this. I was laughing my head out the whole time I was reading this.
One of my co-workers used to be a life coach. And he also happens to be a social failure. His whole team at work can’t even stand talking to him. Since you are many times more interesting and more socially-able than he is, I think you could make a pretty credible life coach.
Felt the exact same way about a year ago, and I was more mature with a brain used to compartmentalizing. Try writing with just enough ounce of brain matter and practice using your fingers more than your mind. It’s hard to explain but I managed to skip on coffee and almost doze my way through 4,000 words. By then, I was spending more time looking for jobs at jobstreet, etc. than actually working.
If you publish a book that has some of your best posts (which makes almost all of them), I think you will be a big hit.
[…] While waiting for my professor to show up, the impracticality of what I’m doing with my life suddenly hit me full-force. Despite occasional bouts of working class angst, I’ve grown rather fond of my blue and white cubicle of mouselike proportions. Sure, I spend a good chunk of my time at work dicking around Facebook and thinking about all the things I’d rather be doing instead of writing articles on androgenetic alopecia. (Which is not to say that I never got any work done. Even with all the time I waste destroying kingdoms in Warbook, my PM told me that I’m one of the strongest writers in the team. Huzzah!) Incidences of sexual harassment and minor food poisoning aside, the office was safe. The office was predictable. The office had free internet. The office gave me money. […]