A lot of things change when you take writing-as-a-hobby and try to turn it into writing-as-a-career. Little things, big things, you name it, it’s different.

This isn’t altogether a bad thing.

Or at least, it doesn’t have to be.

It’s just that, when you’re writing for fun, and it’s fun, you got what you wanted out of it.

And when you write for fun, and it’s not fun, you can stop and do something that is fun, and not feel the least bit guilty, because again, you got what you wanted out of it.

Writing for a career, for money, for publication, whatever you want to call it, takes that and twists it around. On the outside, it still looks the same. But the “career”/”money”/”publication” addendum looms overhead, the veritable white elephant on a tightrope.

And when the elephant falls–as it so often does–doubt creeps in, and it’s no longer just about fun and writing for yourself. It’s about making money. Having a career. Hitting a bestseller list. Entertaining other people. Hitting deadlines. Selling a product. Being a professional.

There are a lot of–I won’t call them bad habits, let’s go with unsustainable habits instead–that suit hobbyists just fine. Like taking forever to finish a book, or hell, even not finishing them at all. Like writing when you feel like it and not writing when you don’t feel like it. Like writing fan-fiction.None of these things matter if your goal is to write for a hobby. But they’re unsustainable for career writers.

Hobbyist footballers can get away with a few games in the summer; professional footballers have to practice and work out every day. Hobbyist cooks can get away with mediocre dishes; but that won’t cut the mustard on Top Chef. I did a pretty damn good job tiling my kitchen floor. But no one is going to confuse it for a professional remodel. Because I’m not a contractor. I’m a writer. And there’s a limit to what I can do outside of my field of expertise.

So when people talk about writing as a job, it’s not about writing what sells or belonging to every writers organization under the sun. It’s more that they recognize that being “good” on a hobbyist level is not the same as being “good” on a professional one, that the habits of a hobbyist are unsustainable for a career writer.

Or as a friend put it years ago, “Even the best karaoke is still karaoke.”

They have at some point realized that in order to do this writing thing for more than shits and giggles, they’ll have to hold themselves accountable to a higher standard, a professional standard, because that’s the standard by which everyone else will measure them.

Here’s where this post forks off, because there are a couple of great posts by great writers whose posts say everything I can think of to be said about the treating-writing-as-a-job thing:

Jackie Ashenden on Getting Stuff Done

Maisey Yates on Writing as a Job

Go read those posts, and then come back here, because I want to follow it up with something I think is equally important (especially for those of you who are either workaholics or procrastinators, or even a weird combination of the two).

And that thing is, it’s not enough to be the person you would hire to work for you. You also have to be the kind of boss you would want to work for.

I think I’ve mentioned that a few years back, I had a wretched job in finance. It was a horrible, horrible job run by horrible, horrible people. Horrible. So horrible that I would come home after my shift and just break down and cry because I knew I had to go back in fifteen hours.

For the longest time, I thought that was the bottom of the barrel. The lowest it could possibly get.

And then I started working for me, and I realized two things right off the bat:

a) I was a shitty employee,

and b) I was an even shittier boss.

Shittier, even, than my boss at the finance job had been, because at least she hadn’t verbally abused me to my face.

(Er, well, mind. But you know what I mean.)

The combination of the two ended with me being so burnt out, it was years before I could write again. Before I could even think of writing again.

It took a lot of introspection and books on human resources and business management for me to crawl out of that hole and be someone I looked forward to working with every day.

Nowadays, I do things to strengthen (and even coddle) that relationship between my employee self (who just wants to play World of Warcraft and watch anime on Netflix all day) and my employer self (who wants everything done yesterday).

Most of these things came from sitting down and being honest with myself.

In terms of working conditions, what would my “dream job” entail? Would I want to work ten to twenty hours a day, seven days a week, like when I was freelancing? Or would six hours a day, five days a week, be more in my sweet spot?

If there was a problem with my performance, how would I want my boss to address the situation? Would I want her to scream and yell and rant and rave and tell me how expletiving stupid and worthless I was, and how I’d never amount to anything because I’m a piece of crap? Or would I want her to help me figure out a long-term plan to help me go from where I am to where I want to be?

And what kind of goals would I want set? The unreachable kind that leave me reeling panic attacks on a daily basis? Or the kind that require a steady pace and allow for bad days here and there?

There are other things, too. Like the fact that I get weekends off. And I get vacation and sick leave that I can take on those days I just really don’t feel like facing the Word document.

I still treat writing like a job, but now it’s a job I love. And because I’m not stressing myself out, like before, I find I’m more accountable (and way more productive) than I was five years ago.

Being productive and accountable to your writing doesn’t have to suck the fun out of it. Just find a way to strike the balance between working hard and playing hard.