Writing as Work: Treating Being a Writer Like a Job, Even When it Doesn’t Pay Like One

Writer enjoying sunshine while he works

Lee Child, Dual Beliefs, and the Discipline Dilemma Every Aspiring Writer Faces

The Writer Quote That Won’t Leave Me Alone

A while back, even before I started my blogging venture, I remember hearing a quote from Lee Child, the author of the Jack Recher series. He said something in an interview I watched on YouTube, and that quote has been rattling around in my brain ever since. He was talking about the mindset needed to not only be a writer but to make money at it. He described it as holding two beliefs that on the surface seem contradictory.

On one hand, he said, you have to believe that writing is a creative, artistic, and noble pursuit. Something meaningful and important. Something worth dedicating your life to.

You also have to believe that writing is your job, that your family and their income depends on it. You have responsibilities to publishers, readers, and deadlines. You have to believe that what you’re doing is work, with all the obligations and discipline that word implies. 

It seems mathematically impossible, Child also said, because it is. But you have to believe both things 100%. The art and the job, the creative freedom and professional responsibility have to exist simultaneously.

That second part about treating writing like a job hit me like a ton of bricks—cliche intentional. Here’s my problem: Writing doesn’t pay the bills. Not yet anyway. It doesn’t make any meaningful contribution to my income. It’s something I do around my actual job, something I do because I enjoy it, in the margins when I can find the time, energy and mental space. 

Yet I want it to be my job. Even during those years in my twenties where I felt myself get lost, I think I’ve always wanted to write for a living, though I didn’t know if it would be novels, non-fiction, articles like these, or a combination. Whatever it was, I wanted to spend my waking hours writing, making my income doing something I loved, and by extension not having to work a day in my life. But how does one develop the discipline to treat something they love like a job, especially when it isn’t…yet?

This is that catch-22 that often keeps me up at night. I know I need to maintain a sense of discipline and professionalism in my writing if I want to make it a career. But without the immediate consequence for not writing, without the disappearing paycheck that would come from missing a day, week or month, it is incredibly difficult to maintain that discipline. 

Before starting on this article, I spent nights on end contemplating quitting my job and focusing on this venture, forcing myself to sit down and write every day. The savings I’ve been building for retirement can only go so far, after all. 

But every time that thought came to me, I pushed it down. I knew it wasn’t realistic. Not now. I needed more of a cushion. More than that, I needed something I had yet to build. I needed proper discipline.

The Discipline Gap

Let me be completely transparent about where my mind is right now. The discipline to sit down and write is inconsistent at best, nonexistent at its worst. I have bursts of productivity where I’d write every day for hours, focused and committed to making actual progress. Then there are stretches, sometimes weeks at a time, where I barely write at all.

My day job, the one that gives me consistent money and pays the bills, takes priority. It takes priority because it has to. There are immediate consequences if I don’t show up to work or do my job the way I’m supposed to. The writing, no matter how passionate I am about it, gets placed on the proverbial back burner when life gets busy or when I’m tired or just don’t feel like writing.

That’s not a luxury I can afford at my day job of course. I can’t just decide to skip a shift because I’m not feeling inspired to work. My parents would not approve of such an attitude. I can’t just tell myself I’ll work twice as hard tomorrow to make up for slacking off today. Any day I do that could be my last. There are expectations, deadlines, responsibilities and structure.

All that exists with writing as well, but the difference is it’s all self-imposed. Self-imposed discipline, as I’m learning the hard way, is the most difficult to maintain, especially when you’re already exhausted from life and your day job and there aren’t any external pressures forcing you to sit down and write.

This is the part where Lee Child’s words sting a little. He is absolutely correct in saying professional writers have to treat their craft as a job. But he was saying this as someone for whom writing was already the job, someone who’d already made that jump. He already had publishers, reeaders, and deadlines to create that external accountability. This brought a question to my mind, something he is adept at doing both when he writes and when he speaks.

How do you create the same sense of obligation and urgency when you’re still trying to break in? How do you stay motivated when the only person you’re letting down is yourself?

The Mental Battle

The lack of discipline feeds into something darker for me, something that ties into my ongoing mental health struggles. When I don’t write consistently, I feel like a fraud. When people ask what I do for a living, I mention being a writer before I mention my everyday job. That’s because I think of myself as a writer. But the there are days that go by that turn into weeks of not actually putting words on paper. At that point, that little voice in my head breaks in and starts asking very uncomfortable questions.

Are you really a writer if you’re not writing? Can you call yourself a professional if you’re not getting paid? How can one expect writing to become a career if they can’t maintain basic discipline around it.

The more those questions rattle around in my brain, the more the guilt compounds. I feel guilty, sometimes physically sick when I don’t write. It makes writing feel like an obligation, which makes it less enjoyable, making me want to do it even less, which leads to more guilt. It’s a vicious cycle that’s hard to break.

And here’s the one thing that makes it even harder. Writing requires a different energy than my day job. Even on days where I have time to write, I don’t always possess the mental and emotional energy on that day. There are days where I’m drained from work, life, and the general exhaustion of existence. After all this, sitting down to create something from nothing feels like being asked to run a marathon after being exhausted from the day.

With my regular day job, I can sometimes coast on autopilot, especially on slow days. I can have an off day and still get through it. You can’t really coast through a writing session though. You either show up fully, or what you produce is less than quality. And lets’ be honest, showing up fully for a writing session when you’re already depleted is extremely difficult.

What Lee Child Understood (And What I’m Learning)

The more I think about Lee Child’s comment about holding two beliefs simultaneously, the more I realize that what he’s describing is a mindset shift that has to happen before you can make writing into a career. You can’t afford to wait until writing is paying the bills to treat it like a job. The mindset shift has to come first. The discipline that comes with it will eventually make writing a viable career. 

In a way, it’s a leap of faith, tell yourself that writing is already your career, even when it isn’t yet. It’s the only way to create the structure, the routine, and the sense of obligation that would exist if there was a publisher breathing down your neck, even when you’re just writing for yourself or a small audience. 

Lee Child had the advantage—if you could call it that—of being forced into taking the aforementioned leap of faith. When he lost his job and decided to write a novel, he needed it to work. There was financial pressure, real stakes. That probably made it easier to maintain discipline. After all, it wasn’t optional.

Those of us trying to transition into writing while still working other jobs don’t have to the external pressure of those who are doing it full time. We have to create the pressure, the deadlines, and routines ourselves, which is a good deal harder. 

Though it might be harder, I now understand that’s necessary. If I keep waiting for the perfect circumstances, for more free time, more money, more energy, or more external validation, I’ll never change. I’ll never own that lakeside retreat I’ve been dreaming of for the better part of a decade now. That kind of stuff doesn’t just fall into your lap. The mindset has to come first. And maybe, just maybe, the career will follow.

The Dual Nature of Wriitng

The one thing I really appreciated when I listened to Lee Child speak about the craft and the business of writing is he doesn’t dismiss the artistic aspect of it. He doesn’t say that writing only meant to be a job and that it’s only about discipline, productivity and deadlines. What he does is that you have to hold both truths at once if you want to have success.

Writing is, at its core, an art form. It’s a form of creative expression. It’s where you can explore ideas, emotions, and stories that matter to you. It’s personal, meaningful, and yes, noble in its own way. That part is important. It’s what makes it worth doing.

Writing is also work. It’s a craft that requires practice. It requires discipline. Writing is something yu have to show up for even when you don’t feel inspired. It demands time and energy, requires commitment. It’s something that, if you want it to be your career, has to be treated with the same seriousness as any profession out there. This is something I have neglected, but I am slowly learning what it takes to do what I love and get paid to do it. 

I think I’ve been leaning too heavily into the belief that writing is art and far enough into the belief that is also work. I’ve been treating writing as the precious passion, the thing I can only do when the muse hits, when I have the perfect conditions, or when I feel inspired, energized, and ready.

While there’s truth to the idea that creativity can’t be forced, there’s also the harsh truth that professionals don’t wait for inspiration. They show up and do the work, anyway. This is something I am, by my own admission, struggling with. I tend to avoid the desk if the words are not flowing. It’s something I definitely need to work on if I’m going to take freelance jobs and my deadlines. I need to write even on the days I don’t feel like it. Deadlines are sacred, and professional writers meet them even when the words aren’t flowing. They treat writing as a job because for them; it is one.

That’s the shift in mindset I need to make. Keep the reverence for the craft, but also pair it with professional discipline.

The Practical Reality: Creating Structure Without External Pressure

So how does one do this? How do we create the discipline of a professional writer when I don’t have the external structure or pressures of one?

This is a question I’m still working to answer, if I’m being honest. I don’t have all the answers. But here are some things I’m putting into practice on an experimental basis to help build that mindset:

Treating writing time as sacred: This is something I learned a while ago from best-selling author Jerry Jenkins. In one of the many videos I watched on his YouTube channel, Jerry talked a lot about making writing time–and deadlines—sacred. I’m going to try to protect my writing time the same way my employer protects the time for my regular job. I’m going to turn “I’lll write if I have time” into “This is writing time, and unless something is on fire, I’m writing.”

Setting deadlines for myself: Though I don’t have any external deadlines hanging over my head, I’m attempting to set artificial deadlines for my projects. Finsih this piece by Friday—or Saturday in the case of this piece. Edit and revise that story by the end of the month. Having target dates makes what I’m doing feel more real and more urgent.

Tracking my work: Last November, during what used to be National Novel Writing Month, I created a writing log to keep track of my daily and monthly word counts during that time. I’ve taken that through into my year-round routine. I will make lists at the beginning of the week with the articles I want to get written for the week along with the word counts actually written every day. I also have a separate document in which I track my fiction word counts. I do this not to shame myself for days spent not writing, but to make my patterns more visible. When you’re tracking your work, it’s a lot harder to let weeks slip by.

Thinking of readers as real people: This one has been tough. It’s been hard for me to come to the realization that real people actually want to read what I’m writing. When I think about the fact there might be someone out there waiting for the next post, it gives me a sense of responsibility—one that I’ve admittedly been letting slip lately. I don’t see this as an external pressure, but as proof that what I’m doing matters to someone besides me. 

Separating inspiration from execution: I’m trying to embrace the idea that writing does not require inspiration. I can write mechanically, professionally, and let my creative side do the revision later. First drafts are just supposed to exist, and therefore can be mechanical and workmanlike. As I’ve learned in my fiction journey. A lot the writing process is in the revisions. That’s how professionals work, and that’s how I’m going to try to work as well.

Reminding myself of the goal: On days when I don’t feel like writing, when it feels like it doesn’t matter because it’s not my “real job.” I try to remember that writing as my real job is what I want and the only way it will happen is if I act like it already is.

None of these strategies are perfect or fool-proof. I still struggle. I still have days, sometimes weeks where the discipline gives way to doubt and falls aport. But with every word that falls upon a page from now on, I’m trying to shift my mindset from “I’m not an actual writer because I don’t get paid” to “I’m becoming a professional writer by treating the process professionally.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Going from “Aspiring Writer” to “Writer.”

I want to be honest about something that crosses my mind often. There’s really no clean transition from aspiring writer to professional writer. There’s no switch that suddenly flips that turns writing from something you do in your spare time to something you do for income. It doesn’t fall into place all at once.

For most people–including me—there’s a messy period between “aspiring” and “professional” writing where you’re doing two things at once. You’re working a day job to keep money coming in while also trying to build a writing career. It leaves you stretched thin and trying to maintain discipline in something that doesn’t pay off immediately.

The in-between phase is anything but comfortable. It requires a work ethic you wouldn’t need if you were just doing one thing. It requires you to believe in something before you have proof it will work out, the very definition of faith. 

Perhaps the difficulty is part of the process. Maybe treating the craft I love so much as if it’s a job when it doesn’t pay like one is exactly the test you have to pass to change to professional writer. Maybe the discipline you develop during the uncomfortable transition between “aspiring” and “professional” is what prepares you for the demands of the business side of writing.

Lee Child made it through this phase, though his transition was more abrupt than most because of the loss of his job. But he understood that writing required discipline, structure, and professional commitment in equal measure. He brought that mindset to the desk every day, even when he was just starting out.

With this in mind, I have to trust that if I do the same, the writing career I desire will eventually file.

When the Job Belief Feels Like a Lie

There is something that comes to my mind often that I feel I need to be honest about; sometimes treating writing like a job when it isn’t feels like a lie. It feels like I’m pretending, like a kid dressed up in his parents’ business clothes.

Who am I kidding? I’m not a professional writer. I don’t have a book deal. I don’t make a living from this. I’m just a person with a blog and some unfinished manuscript and a dream that may never come true.

That is the voice of pessimism. When that voice gets loud, it’s hard to maintain the discipline, to sacrifice free time and energy for something that might not come to anything. It’s hard to keep sitting down to write when there’s no external validation, no paycheck, nothing to say, “This matters.”

Here’s what I’m learning though. Every professional writer started where I am, or some place similar. Every. Single. One. Even the likes of Lee Child or Stephen King. All those writers whose names regularly grace the bestseller lists and whose books line the shelves at bookstores, they all started by jumping into the unknown.

They all had a period where writing wasn’t their job, but they treated it like it was, anyway. They all had to build discipline before there was any external accountability or validation. They had to believe in their work before anyone else did.

The difference between writers who make it and those who don’t often has nothing to do with innate talent. It often has more to do with persistence. Be willing to keep showing up, treating the piece I’m working on—and the craft itself—like it matters. Simply put, you have to keep doing the work even when it doesn’t pay off right away. 

That’s job belief in action. We believe in what we do, so we don’t wait until it pays to treat it professionally. Rather, we treat it professionally so that eventually, it may pay.

The Art Belief Keeps You Going

Here’s the beautiful thing about what I learned from Lee Child and his dual belief framework. The art belief is what sustains you while the job belief helps you develop the discipline to write even on the bad days. 

If writing were only a job, just an obligation, or just a grind to get through, it would be even more soul crushing to do it without some sort of reward. After all, who wants to work for free? Who wants to pour hours and energy into something that doesn’t add to your bank account?

But writing isn’t just a job. It’s also art. It’s creative expression, and sometimes catharsis. It’s also something that feeds your soul in ways that have nothing to do with money.

On the tough days, when the discipline fails and I can’t seem to make myself sit down and write, that’s when I try to reconnect with the artistic aspect of the craft. I remind myself what writing has done for me and why I fell in love with it. Not because I thought I would get rich or famous, but because writing has always helped me to make sense of the world. It’s my way of working through emotions and connecting with other people. 

The art belief makes the job belief bearable. You can keep yourself disciplined through something that doesn’t pay if the work itself means something to you. The bank account doesn’t matter as much when the work feeds something deeper. 

This is the balance I believe Lee Child was talking about. You need the job belief to tell yourself to show up consistently and do the work even when you don’t feel like it. You need this belief to build the foundation you need to turn your passion into a professional career. You need the art belief to sustain that discipline, to keep you going when the external rewards haven’t arrived yet. 

Moving Forward: Imperfect Discipline

My discipline is far from perfect. You can look at both of my blogs and the gap between some articles and see that. I probably will never have perfect discipline. There will be weeks where I write every day and weeks where I barely write at all. I’m going to continue to struggle between treating writing like the job I want it to be and the hard truth that, for now, it’s not.

Even with that in mind, I am committed to trying, to building a structure around my writing, even when it feels artificial. I’m committed to showing up much more consistently, even when my mind and body are screaming for rest and the ideas aren’t there. I’m committed to believing that this matters, that I can become a professional writer even though I haven’t crossed that threshold yet. 

Child’s insight about holding to beliefs simultaneously has given me the framework and inspiration for my new approach to my craft. I don’t have to choose between viewing my writing as sacred creative work and viewing it as a job that requires discipline. I can hold both beliefs at once.

The creative work deserves respect while the job demands professionalism. Both are necessary. Neither can be ignored.

If you’re reading this and in a similar situation—trying to build a writing career while working another job to pay the bills, struggling to build and maintain discipline without external accountability, wondering if calling yourself a writer is complete wishful thinking—I hope this resonates with you.

We’re in the marathon of the middle together. The uncomfortable transition where we’re not quite hobbyists anymore but still not quite professionals yet. We’re building the discipline, habits and mindset that will eventually make our writing career.

It’s difficult. It requires faith, belief in something that you can’t see, at least not yet. You need discipline without immediate reward. You have to treat the craft like a job even before it pays like one. 

Perhaps that’s what separates the people who make it from the people who don’t. It requires willingness to do what is difficult, to maintain the discipline and keep showing up even without external validation. 

Lee Child did it. Hundreds, even thousands before him did it. We can do it too. 

All we have to do is believe in two truths at once: that writing is art worth pursuing, and thatit’s work worth doing professionally. Both. At the same time. Even when it’s hard. 

Especially when it’s hard.

Special thanks to David Perell and his "How I Write" video series for the inspiration for this article. David does a fantastic job interviewing writers and authors to get their unique perspectives. I thoroughly enjoy his channel and invite you to check it out also. You can find David on YouTube here https://youtu.be/uHBKKvDbQaY?si=QvlAq2cmOE3ZVvI0.