3 down: Should I get a ____?
2 down: But how will I have time to _______?
13 down: But I need ______ ___________.
12 across: Maybe I should go back to ________.
11 across: Isn’t ____ just going to replace all the jobs anyway?
1 down: I can’t take on more ______ ______.
8 across: I’ll keep ______ so I have more time to write.
18 down: No, I’m almost 30, I’m getting too _____ for that.
9 across: I need _______.
17 down: But I don’t want to give all my time and _____ to some random company.
5 across: And I really can’t be a _____ anymore.
14 across: Seriously, I ______.
4 across: Okay, I’m just going to keep following my writing ______.
6 down: But how are we going to be able to have a ______?
16 across: Do I want stability more than I want _______?
15 across: Do I want good health insurance more than I want _____?
10 across: How do I get one of those full time ______ jobs where you barely have to do anything?
7 down: Okay, I’m just going to write. I’m still 29. I’ll ______ __ ___.
Two questions for you:
Other creatives, how do you make these decisions? Talk to me about the struggle with balancing the need to do creative work and the need to pay the bills in the comments.
And for my writers specifically: what hermit crab forms have you tried and loved? I haven’t written too many hermit crabs, but I wrote a hermit crab as a tarot reading that I loved and a couple of these crosswords now that I’ve gotten way too into doing the NYT crossword on my phone!
With care,
Eryn
I used to be an astronomer full time and made art (mostly textile crafts) on the side. Then I stayed home as a parent full-time and did art on the side and that worked well with one and less well with two kiddos. Now my youngest is in school and I have part-time hours for my creative practice and that is excellent, but not the same as full-time or total freedom to go to residencies or shows. I really appreciated Making Your Life as an Artist by Andrew Simonet and how he presents strategies for making it work. He also legitimizes not doing your creative work as a full-time job, which is consistent with the working artists I know who spend more than half their time on business and admin.
I am so brain dead but like who I work with and for. But I have no space at the end of the day in my brain for creative work or time/$$ to rly invest in it. I feel like everything I could say has already been done. It feels like pandering at this point.