How-I-Dos: Stages of Creation Part #9 - The Unspoken Option

Not exactly unspoken, because I mentioned this option in my previous post. Regardless, this stage will talk about the so-called ‘unspoken option’, because it seems that no one really wants to consider or talk about this option - working full-time while creating on the side.

Overview

“But I won’t have any time and I need to focus 100%!”

That’s what I often hear when we bring up the suggestion of working part-time or full-time to support your creative career.

That being said, working on your creative projects while still holding a full-time or part-time job is a completely viable solution, though not the most ideal. The trick, however, is to find a workflow or a solution that will fulfill your responsibilities and your creative wants, at least until you reach a state you’re comfortable with.

Balancing Act

“You have to really want it.”

If I get a dollar for every time I see this piece of advice on another creative’s blog, I can quit my job and not worry about money for the next couple of years.

As common as it is, it’s not exactly the most helpful piece of advice.


Pros & Cons

With every option, there’s good news and bad news. Personally, I like to hear bad news first, so here are a few reasons why this unspoken option wouldn’t be recommended:

Cons

• Significant drop in time to concentrate on your creative projects.
  
• Significant drop in energy and motivation, especially if your day job is intensive.
  
• If you’re anything like me, sometimes you can spend time during work lamenting about how much you can get done if you didn’t have a day job in the first place - this can affect your efficiency during your day job, and you’ll need to make sure that you have your boundaries sorted.
  
• If you work in Singapore, the Overtime (OT) culture is not your friend.
  

Pros

• Let’s get this out of the way as soon as possible - Regular income, benefits, and insurance.
  
• Regular income also means the following gets less pressurized:
  
  • Event Costs
    
  • Production Costs
    
  • Grant Applications
    
  • Independent Sales
    
  • Miscellaneous what-have-yous that incur creative costs
    
• Your sick days and holidays are really sick days and holidays (a.k.a. Time to get creating!)
  
• Structure can actually force you into structuring your projects, giving you a rough timeline of when your projects should be complete, and thus, a date to look forward to.
  
• Work experience - no kidding, going out to work can fuel your stories. I wouldn’t have started with my fictional podcast if I didn’t spend almost half a decade doing administrative work for my various day jobs.
  
• Life outside of work - funnily enough, having a day job while working on a creative side hustle actually makes me a little more productive at the day job, especially since I want to get everything done as well and quickly as possible so that I can go home and finish my projects.
  

Disclaimer

Before I conclude this post, I’d like to take this section to say that this option is neither the “better way” nor the “less gutsy way”. The most important point to take in your creative journey is to know what you can live with and work with what you have.

Some artists thrive on the uncertainty of not knowing when their next salary will come, some need the stability of a constant paycheck but still want to create. At the end of the day, you need to be able to work for you.

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So that’s what I have for this post - stay tuned next month for Stage 10!