How to Keep Loving What You Do When Your Hobby Becomes Your Job
And why it can be harder than you might think...
When I’m happy, I write. When I’m sad, I write. It’s the thing I’ve always done in spare moments to relax, to sort out my head and because I love to do it. But now it is also my job. I feel incredibly fortunate to have made a career out of writing novels but turning my hobby into a job has definitely come with its challenges.
When I wrote my debut novel, The Lido, I had a career in marketing and wrote on the side just because I wanted to. Fitting it in to my life might have been hectic but I didn’t feel any sense of pressure – I just did it because I wanted to with no expectation that anyone would ever read it apart from maybe my mum. In some ways it was freeing because I could just write, not thinking of anything other than the story I felt like telling.
My head was quieter back then – just the voices of my characters and not the noise of my agent, editor or that terrible newspaper review chattering away in the background.
Sometimes, the pressure of what people might think of my work can feel crippling. It can make me want to not even try because I feel certain that I am bound to disappoint someone.
Although it doesn’t always feel like a job (I can do it in my pyjamas or, if I really wanted to and didn’t mind risking water damage to my laptop, in the bath) writing is now my bread and butter and my only source of income. I am not someone who would ever have considered a job in sales – I am not nearly bold, hungry or feisty enough for that – and yet as an author however many lovely reviews I get, ultimately my income is based on one thing alone: book sales. I need my books to sell in order to pay my mortgage and feed my son.
That dynamic has shifted the way I think about my writing in a sometimes-difficult way. The work that I feel most proud of – that I feel best showcases my skills as a writer – isn’t always my most commercially successful.
Reconciling myself with the business side of publishing is an ongoing struggle. That push and pull between the creative and the commercial.
Writing for a living has also changed the way I read books. I still read voraciously and get a lot of joy from books, but I also can’t help but analyse why I am enjoying a book as I read it, trying to learn from that author’s techniques. And if a book is particularly good it can send my self confidence nose diving; what is the point in writing anything myself if I will never write anything that good? I don’t think anything could ever ruin reading for me but being an author adds an extra layer to what once was simply a happy and relaxing distraction from everyday life.
Ultimately, I think that if you want to make a career out of your hobby you have to hold onto what it was that made you start doing it in the first place.
When I’m struggling with aspects of being an author – like the pressure to stand out in an extremely crowded marketplace or thinking what readers might think of my next book – I try my best to focus on the act of writing. Because regardless of how my relationship with writing has changed over the years, when I am head down typing away a story that’s playing out in my head I still enjoy it as much as I did when it was just my hobby.
I also think that in order to produce my best work I have to hold on to that element of joy because it’s what sparks my creativity.
Books might be business and writing might be my job but it is still a creative endeavour, driven by what sometimes feels like a certain kind of magic.
I think it’s that love of writing that enables me to keep going when it feels hard. There might be downsides to turning your hobby into a career, but for me the fact that I get to do the thing I love every day definitely makes it all worth it.
What others have to say…
Katie Wagstaff, Founder of Oh Squirell, stationery and gift brand
Collecting things from old finds I’d ‘squirrelled away’ and making gifts for friends were big hobbies of mine from a very young age. After studying fashion at university I went on to work in buying for 5 years, however I never felt quite right in that role. I wanted to create and make things with my hands, so after years of making lists and filling sketchbooks with ideas, in 2012 I made it my new year's resolution to give it a go. Within a year, the business was looking promising enough to become my full-time job, and it has been ever since.
At first it was great because I got to do what I loved all the time... or so I thought.
When you run a creative business, creativity takes up a very small percentage of your time.
Especially as a business grows you have to think about things like VAT, supply chain issues, contracts etc. Thankfully, I really love the business side of things, but my relationship with creativity has been tough. A few years ago, everything was so busy that I barely had time to breathe, let alone put time aside to just work on making things for fun. I really struggled for a while with no longer having a hobby because it had become work, but now I've started to make time for new hobbies too.
I think there's something so special and beautiful in having a hobby just for hobby's sake and not as a 'side hustle' or thinking of ways to monetise it.
With experience, I'm a lot better at structuring my working week so there's time for everything now, and when I'm feeling my most creative I make time to lean into that.
There have been many times when I've googled 'how to close a company' or 'can I sell my business?' but I've never gotten very far! One of the biggest bits of feedback I get is being told that it's obvious how much I love what I do, which I suppose must be seen through the actual products as well as communication channels, so ten years on, I'm really glad it's still showing!
Ana Laura Gómez, music teacher and choir conductor
As I grew up, I realised that I enjoyed playing music and singing so much that I wanted to do it as a career. When I was in high school I enrolled in a music conservatory as a piano and voice student. From that moment on, things got more serious and it stopped being a hobby.
When I started working as a music teacher, besides the huge amount of bureaucracy I had to deal with, other challenges came in. I had to learn a lot of things I didn’t learn in college, like knowing how to deal with each student and their families, how each one of them learns, how to evaluate someone (which I hate), planning events regularly (which I love) and even how to survive to being exposed the whole time when you’re an introvert.
The saddest thing was that I didn’t have any time to practice so I only played the repertoire that I needed to use for my teaching.
In general, I know that now I have a bigger responsibility than when it was just a hobby, not only because I get paid for it, but because the more I grow, the more people will expect from me.
Despite all of it, I’m very grateful for my job and I still love it.
I absolutely love seeing my students grow, laugh and see them excited about music. Obviously it isn’t like that every day but learning to accept that with patience definitely helps.
I also love learning new things and every year I try to take at least one course or masterclass. My friends say I’m addicted to professional development but I think that in every field of work there are always new things to learn and I don’t want to keep doing the same things the whole time. That would be boring.
This year I also went back to two things I hadn’t done in a while: I started having flute lessons again and joined an amateur choir. The amateur part was on purpose because I didn’t want it to be work.
I told myself I would be doing both things for fun and just for the joy of making music again. And that was probably the best decision I took since my hobby became my job because it reminded me of that little girl that used to play in her school’s orchestra that loved music and didn’t care about competitions or being judged.
That’s what keeps me going on.
Do you do a job that started as your hobby? How have you found the shift from hobby to career? What are the best and worst parts of turning your hobby into a job?
Another interesting and thought-provoking post! Once again, I can see so many parallels between writing and designing for a living. I'm constantly screenshotting well-designed interfaces that I can later use as inspiration and I suppose you never feel you can truly switch off from your work. On the other hand I feel very fortunate to do something creative and that I enjoy. I guess it's all about balance and that's the biggest challenge!
I totally agree it's hard (but brilliant) when your writing hobby becomes your writing job! My main one is to listen to podcast interviews with other authors, which often leave me thinking 'god, I'm so lucky, and now I really want to write!'. That and reading other books in my genre, which spur me on to write too. And also reading newsletters like this one, so thank you!