Writing While Holding a Job

In LA, when someone asks what you do, you either tell them about the job you do to pay the rent, or the job you do as your passion. I love writing. That's my job. Unfortunately, it's not the job that pays the rent. I guess that makes it my "passion job." There are some people who pay their rent with their writing work. Most of them write things they don't care as much about; that's why they're able to make a living at it. They're more malleable because it doesn't mean much to them, so they're able to do the work that needs to be done. There are others who get to make money writing what they really love. Those people are called the luckiest people on Earth. The rest of us need to find some sort of work that pays the rent, allows us to live a life, and doesn't get too much in the way of our writing. For me that's been transcribing. The main thing about transcribing that gives me the freedom to write is that I can do it at home. I get up, go to my computer, transcribe, then I switch over to my writing without much effort. No hour-long commute, and I don't get so exhausted at work that I can't write. Also, I can travel and still work from wherever I am; so when I want to write in another area where I'll get more inspired for the specific story I'm writing, I can do that. I'll be writing a very personal story this August in Nebraska this year. I don't believe I could write this story anywhere but Nebraska. Having my transcription job allows me to continue doing my day job while I do my passion job where I need to do it. The down side is that, as a transcriber, I'm at the mercy of the industry. sometimes it slows down and we have no work. At the time of this writing, for instance, we've hardly had any work for seven weeks. Without my girlfriend supporting us right now, I'm not sure how I'd pay rent, let alone take care of other bills. However, had I planned better during the months when it was busy, I could have done more work and made more money. So it can pay off if you do a better job than I have planning. Plus, while a lot of my books don't do great, some of them make a little bit of money. So I often let their profits pile up on their bank account until these desperate times in which I withdraw them to carry me through these rough patches. Thus the life of a writer.