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Wednesday’s WIP: Anniversaries

by Erika Dreifus on
4

Number7Seven years ago today, I returned to full-time (M-F, 9-5) employment, in a writing-intensive staff job at The City University of New York.

Happy anniversary to me!

This seems to be an appropriate moment to revisit a post from two years ago (day-job anniversary #5), in which I shared a list of day-job benefits that included–but went beyond–the stable paycheck, health insurance, and retirement account. So many of you commented so wonderfully on that post, so why not give it another look?

In other news, the February issue of The Practicing Writer went out at the end of last week, marking the conclusion of 10 full years of the newsletter’s publication and the beginning of Year 11. Happy anniversary to all of us on that one! And thank you all for being part of my writing practice!

P.S. Not an anniversary, but another highlight of this last week: my second book review for The Washington Post. See what I had to say about Elisabeth de Waal’s The Exiles Return.

Thursday’s Work-in-Progress: Five Years In, Five Things to Appreciate About Being a #Writerwithadayjob

by Erika Dreifus on
18

This week marks a small milestone in my working life: Five years ago, I left my full-time freelancing/adjuncting practice, which had itself followed a period in which I combined an academic appointment with freelancing and adjuncting. Five years ago, I returned to a desk job in an away-from-home office, Mondays through Fridays, 9 to 5.

In other words, five years ago this week, I became what I sometimes append to my tweets: a #writerwithadayjob.

And I’ve been really lucky. I landed in an environment where I work with smart, generous people, and I tend to agree with the policies and philosophies of the organization’s leadership. As I know from previous experiences, it’s not at all nice when you aren’t in that kind of congenial environment.

But as a writer with a day job, I’m also grateful for some aspects of my job that have particularly enriched and improved the quality of my writing life. Here are five of them. (more…)