Thread by @seananmcguire

The best career advice I ever received--not writing advice, of which I have received roughly a metric shitton, but "how to survive as a working writer" advice--came from Todd McCaffrey the first time we met at a con.

I was a brand-new baby writer with stars in my eyes and ARCs (not even finished copies) of ROSEMARY AND RUE in my hot little hands. I gave him one to give to his mother (HE DID IT!!!) and asked if there was anything he wished he'd known.

"Yes," he said, with all the gravity of someone who'd been around long enough to have regrets. "Don't quit your day job until you're sure you can survive off of your royalties."

Todd is a great guy. He's sweet and funny and kind. He's also the son of an international bestseller; he does his own work, he puts in the hours, but he always knew he'd have a leg up for his last name alone. There's no shame in that, if you own it.

And still--STILL!--his advice was that I not quit my day job until my royalty checks could manage the absolute bare minimum to keep me alive. I might be eating mac and cheese for every meal and only running the heat at night, but dammit, I'd survive.

I've thought about that advice a lot as my career has progressed.

Because see, I grew up poor. I grew up so poor that we were the poor people other poor people laughed at.

It took me decades to break myself of the habit of taking other people's food to go when they didn't finish their dinner at a restaurant, because HOW CAN YOU WASTE FOOD, HOW CAN YOU TAKE THAT RISK.

I have eaten out of dumpsters. I have pretended to work at pizza parlors so I could bus tables and steal half-finished pizzas. I have smiled and I have starved and I do not do better work when I am hungry.

Poverty has damaged me permanently, both physically and psychologically. I can't handle not being able to buy groceries. I go to grocery stores to calm myself down, because as long as I can afford that can of peas, I'm okay. I'm okay.

I nearly lost my first "real" job because sleeping outside as a teenager had damaged my lungs to the point that I got bronchitis once a quarter and pneumonia twice a year, and my absence rate was too high for my office.

My teeth are bad. My teeth cost more than most people's teeth, because I didn't have access to childhood or teenage dentistry. And the beat goes on.

Choosing to leave your day job as an adult won't suddenly give you my background, and I'm grateful as hell for that: no one deserves my background. I certainly didn't. But it also won't make you a noble figure out of an Edgar Allen Poe poem.

You can have adventures and a day job. You can find your hustle, find the life that suits you. But if you're not married to someone with a decent income and don't have a trust fund, and full-time writing is the goal, there's way worse advice than "don't quit until...

...you can be reasonably sure of living off your royalties." Especially not if your math is different from mine. If you have kids. If you have disabilities. Hell, if you need to feed your leaded crystal animal habit to know true joy.

Saying "just quit, just go for adventure, just do it do it do it" is not only privileged, it's willfully, intentionally ignorant.

And if someone wants to say I missed adventures due to my day job, they're welcome to a recitation of my scars.