Unless you’re fortunate enough to be independently wealthy, you’re probably going to have to get some form of day job to support your writing efforts. But what kind of job best suits a writer, and how do you balance its demands with the demands of your creative life?

Part time

You may consider part time work, in order to have as much free time as possible to devote to your next novel. But can you afford to work part time, or do you have a mortgage and four kids to support?

Freelance

You may decide to try working freelance, but beware: finding clients and completing projects will eat into your free time and, if you’re not careful, you may find yourself working longer hours than you would in an office.

Full time

A full time job will probably pay better than part time or freelance, and it’ll come with better benefits, such as health insurance and a pension. The regular salary will pay your bills and mean you won’t have to rely on your writing in order to make money, thereby taking some of the pressure off and giving you time to rewrite and edit your stories until you’re 100% happy with the, rather than rushing them out of the door because you’re desperate for whatever income they can generate. On the downside, long hours and a daily commute leave little time for actual writing, and if you want to start racking up serious word counts you may have to give up little luxuries such as watching TV and sleeping.

Level of engagement

Do you take a repetitive manual job that bores the pants off you, giving you time to think about your writing; or one that challenges you but leaves you too exhausted to pick up a pen in the evenings? Somehow, you need to find a balance. A boring job quickly becomes soul destroying, whereas a demanding job will drain your energy and creativity.

Some dos and don’ts

Assuming you find the right day job for your needs, you’re still going to have to find ways to juggle its demands with your desire to write. To help you, I present this list of dos and don’ts:

• Don’t write at work unless you’re really sure you can get away with it. And if you do, don’t use the PC on your office desk. Don’t leave any traces of your extra-curricular activity. Getting paid while you write may seem like a win-win situation, but its hard to mask the drop in productivity and concentration that will result; and if you get caught printing out your 400 page opus on the company’s printer, you’re going to find yourself in a whole heap of trouble.

• Do keep the story ticking over in the back of your mind. Think about it on the bus, or while you’re waiting for the photocopier. Let your unconcious mind pick away at the plot while your conscious mind gets on with putting bread on the table. Many writers will tell you that they have their best ideas while busy doing other things.

• Do keep a notebook handy. Keep one in your pocket or bag. If you have a sudden flash of inspiration, you can jot it down. If you hear a snatch of dialogue on the Tube, or want to record the way the sun shines in through the office window, you can scribble it down in note form and write it up properly in your lunch break.

• Don’t try to do too much. Accept the fact that you’ll be tired when you come home from work. Make sure you factor in some relaxation time, or you’re going to get too tired and your writing and work will both end up suffering. Not to mention your health.

• Do make time to write. In a previous post, I discussed my top 3 ways to make the most of your free time in order to increase the time you have available for writing. If you’d like to read the post (and I think you should), the link is here.

• Do keep plugging away. Stick to it and you’ll get there eventually. If you have a dream, work hard at it each and every day. Take small, positive steps. Don’t end up as one of those people who look back in later life and wish they’d tried harder.

As of five minutes ago, I’ve completed the first draft of The Recollection.

• 80,000 words
• 46 chapters and an epilogue.

Tonight, I’m going to celebrate. I’ve cracked open the gin. It’s been a hard slog. It’s been exhilaration and heartbreak all the way. I couldn’t have done it without the support of my most excellent wife.

There were times I was sure I’d never finish, and times my fingers hurt because I couldn’t move them fast enough to keep up with the story unfolding in my head. But now it’s done, the hard part’s out of the way. Everything after this is polishing; editing; refining.

And of course, there’s the possibility of sequels…

I’ve just seen the preliminary sketches that artist Neil Roberts has done for the cover of my forthcoming novel, The Recollection. He’s produced three views of the story’s main spaceship in flight, and they look excellent.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, it’s a strange and gratifying experience to see an artist render something that has hitherto existed only in your imagination.

I still have 30k words of the novel to write, and these pictures have certainly given me a boost.

At around 4.30pm this afternoon, The Recollection‘s word count total cruised past that of my first novel, Silversands, to make this new novel the longest single work I have yet written – and there’s still at least another 30k to go.

Sorry posts have been a bit sparse around here recently. I’ve been busy trying to produce as much writing as possible in the time I have. I’ve now passed the halfway point with The Recollection, the novel I’m writing for Solaris. The target is 80,000 words.

I’m delighted to tell you that I’ve just signed a novel contract with Solaris books, for a book due to be published in September 2011.

Here’s the official announcement from editor-in-chief, Jon Oliver:

I’m pleased to be able to announce that I have just commissioned a new SF novel from author Gareth L. Powell called The Recollection, due for release in September 2011 in the UK and US. Gareth is a brilliant new writer and I know that you’re going to blown away by his mix of SF, Space-Opera and contemporary fiction. This is a writer worth watching and we’re very proud to welcome him to the Solaris fold. Once we have a cover for Gareth’s title, we will of course let you all have a look.

I’ve just received confirmation from Christopher Teague at Pendragon Press that following a twelve month delay, my novel Silversands will be published in April next year.

The book will be available in a hard cover designed by award-winning artist Vincent Chong (see picture).

On his website, Christopher writes:

“Gareth is rapidly becoming a name to watch, and I forsee good things being said about this novel… which means when it eventually comes available to pre-order you’d better be quick to snap it up.”

Keep an eye on www.pendragonpress.net for more information over the next few months.

Tonight I passed the ten thousand word mark on the new novel. This is a tenth of the way to my target of a hundred thousand words, and something of a personal milestone, as it means this work-in-progress is now longer than any individual story I have ever written, aside from my first novel, Silversands, which I expect it to soon overtake.

If you’re a sci-fi writer or reader, it can be extremely frustrating and difficult to explain the genre’s appeal to colleagues, friends and loved ones who just “don’t get it”. Take my wife and my mother, for example. While they’ve both been incredibly supportive of my writing career to date, neither can honestly see the appeal of science fiction and I get the feeling both secretly wish I’d write something more “mainstream”.

So, if you have people in your life like this, what can you do to convert them?

The temptation is to shower them with the books you enjoyed when you first started reading sci-fi, way back when – books by writers such as Asimov, Clarke, Niven and Dick – in the hope they’ll see whatever it was you saw first time you read it, and become hooked on the genre the same way you did.

This is not a good idea.

Don’t use the classics. In most cases, the technology, sociology and sexual politics have dated so badly you’ll end up totally alienating your potential convert, despite your fond memories of the book. Better, I think, to start with something modern, something with which they can feel a connection. To this end, I’ve knocked together the list below -  a list of books which manage to combine science fiction tropes and themes with modern storytelling techniques and sensibilities.

In much the same way as Life on Mars and the new Battlestar Galactica attracted non-sci-fi audiences through their gritty storylines and examination of contemporary issues of terrorism and freedom, so these books may be capable of drawing in readers who wouldn’t normally expect to enjoy a sci-fi novel:

1. 9Tail Fox by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. For viewers of Life on Mars and The Wire, this is an intriguing blend of crime drama and medical speculation, in which Sergeant Bobby Zha of the SFPD has to work out not only who murdered him, but also why he’s woken up in the body of a coma patient from New York.
2. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.  Written as an educational young adult novel, Little Brother shows a group of computer-savvy school children caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack on San Francisco, and tells how they fight to regain their civil liberties following a government crack-down.
3. Nova Swing by M John Harrison. A generation ago, part of the mysterious Kefahuchi Tract fell to earth in the coastal city of Saudade. Now, years later, Vic Serotonin makes his living guiding tourists into the event site – a place where the laws of geometry and causality have assumed a dream-like elasticity. To Vic, the event site is a puzzle and an obsession – one that literally spills over into the external world when he illegally smuggles an unstable artefact out of the zone.
4. Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. Morgan takes Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep and projects it several hundred years into the future, delivering a violent and absorbing mystery set on the streets of Bay City.
5. Jennifer Government by Max Barry. A no-holds-barred satire on multinational big business, Jennifer Government starts with marketing executives shooting teenagers in order to give their new line of trainers some “street cred”.

This isn’t an exhaustive list. There are other “gateway” books out there that could lure the unsuspecting into an appreciation of science fiction – books like The Time Traveller’s Wife or The Road, which use the tools of sci-fi to add spice to apparently “mainstream” novels.

But what do you think? Which books have I missed? Drop your suggestions in the comments below…

I have written a detailed 3000 word synopsis for my new novel.