Writing gigs that aren’t your creative writing gig but are still writing gigs

You get what I’m talking about here, right? It’s the blessing and the curse of cultivating enough experience to be able to get writing gigs that help pay the bills, but that aren’t the creative writing gigs that you feel you probably should be working on.

I’ve hit that sweet spot where I can say I work about thirty hours a week on freelance writing gigs. I’m lucky enough that these gigs are actually creative in themselves and so I am not sitting around writing technical jargon for shitty corporations. I love the work I’m involved in and have the freedom within the confines of the job title to bring my voice and style to the work that I do.

But all that goodness aside, it is still time away from screenwriting. And I’ve found that it can be difficult to pivot from one type of writing to another type in the same day. Not impossible, but a change of mindset from working for the pleasure of others to the pleasure of myself. When I worked jobs outside of the writing field, I would count the hours down until I was free to dig back into my work in progress. I would write notes in a small notepad with ideas that popped up, bubbles of dialogue that would inspire whole scenes, character descriptions based off of a random interaction, it was limitless, the ideas flowed. And there was a window of time that I had to look forward to, when I could finally get home and settle in to formulating the thoughts of day into an organized spreadsheet— ya right, I’m not that good, I’d just rewrite everything in a bigger notebook and hope I could find it later.

In those days, the dream was to have the ability to write all day. Then that opportunity came a few years back and I got my first taste of unstructured writing time. It was impossible to arrange my day to be as productive as I always thought I would be. It was paralyzing, many days I wouldn’t write at all, others I’d eek out a few action lines, then stop for an hour, a scene of dialogue, then maybe a nap. I felt like I was wasting the very thing I had always wanted.

Truth was, I put pressure on myself to know exactly how to spend a day writing without having any precedent for doing so. It took patience to get me to a place that I could concentrate and work, always from a bar or cafe, never from home.

Then Covid hit, and working from home became the only option. I’ve documented the trials of that period, from which I have emerged mostly unscathed and stronger than ever. During this time also I expanded my reach into the freelance world. As nice as it is to have all the time in the world to write my scripts, I needed to write something that I felt would be read. On top of the Buckman Journal, of which I have been the Editor and Scout for four issues and is by far my most fulfilling role in the writing world, I have started reviewing whisk(e)y for a local website and have just picked up a funky satirical ghostwriting gig that I think is going to be a blast. I have stepped far out of my comfort zone into areas that I never thought would be open to me.

All this is said to confront the idea that limiting ourselves to our preferred method of writing is just that— limiting. I have come off of a three hour editing session for the journal and felt such soaring inspiration that I couldn’t wait to jump into my own work. My voice has expanded and become more distinct since I began writing reviews and exploring other modes outside of screenwriting. I think I started my writing journey with the idea that in order to be the best I can be, I needed to stick to screenwriting only. But the truth is, and sometimes it can be painful and other times ugly, screenwriting is my passion but it isn’t necessarily the thing that will bring me fulfillment outside of myself. The broader I reach, the happier I have become.

My collection of short stories is to be released in January, along with the newest issue of Buckman Journal. I have several stories out for consideration for publication. My reviews are in the queue. I am researching a totally fun subject for my ghostwriting gig. I am so close to being finished with my most recent script. I have my next script idea outlined. I am 25,000 words into a novel. I can focus on more than one method of writing while bettering my craft, expanding my range, and finding satisfaction within it all.