Three or more jobs
Whenever I play golf, I find myself meeting new people and having to answer the question, "What do you do for a living?"
This is tricky for me. I often think of myself as having at least three jobs.
My answer should probably be teacher, which is my "day job," but as a friend pointed out the other day, I've already published two novels and make just as much money writing as I do teaching, if not more. And I write year-round, whereas teaching takes a break for the summer.
And though teaching is the activity that occupies the most amount of my time, I've actually been a DJ for longer than I've been teaching. My teaching career began in 1999 but I launched my DJ company in 1997. In terms of pure longevity and experience, DJ trumps all of my other jobs.
Most important, I take all three jobs equally seriously. The importance of teaching is obvious, but as a DJ, brides and grooms count on me to make their biggest day perfect. It's a lot of pressure and I take the work extremely seriously. And as a writer, I know that each sentence that I write will one day appear in print, unchangeable and immutable, so I'd better like them all.
No job plays second fiddle to the other. They are all important.
In CHICKEN SHACK, my unpublished manuscript (and probably my fourth book), the protagonist (Wyatt) is a restaurant owner, a writer and a teacher. When I wrote the first draft, I thought nothing of him having three jobs. It seemed perfectly normal to me. As I think about revising the book, I find myself wondering if I need to simply Wyatt's life a bit. While I can certainly understand how Wyatt might juggle these three different careers, will my readers understand? Will they buy it?
I'm not sure.
The last time I played golf was the same day that I was marrying a couple in my capacity as minister (my often forgotten fourth job), and when the midst of conversation, I mentioned the ceremony to one of my friends.
"Oh. You're a minister?" another guy (not my friend but someone who filled out our foursome) asked.
"Kind of," I said. It's just a part-time gig, and I'm not actually religious. I'm really a teacher and an author."
"Then why did you become a minister?" he asked.
"Oh, well actually I'm a wedding DJ, too, so I became a minister so I could marry my clients."
"You're a DJ too?" the guy asked. He looked like he had just stepped out of a washing machine. I had just thrown four occupations at him in the span on thirty seconds.
See what I mean? Awkward.
Making it more difficult, everyone else seems to have just one job.
"I'm a IT guy"
"I'm a sales rep."
"I install kitchen countertops."
"I'm a elementary school teacher, and I'm an author, and I own a DJ company, too. And occasionally I am a minister and I am attempting to launch a new company with a friend and become a life coach."
See what I mean?
