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How to Survive the Lean Years
Jennifer Bosveld
Part 3

Well over 70 percent of what I write and end up publishing has come directly out of a "job" experience. Writing about family and four walls has been done to death and, I think, is quite boring to all but homebodies. Likewise, I find it difficult to write about the environment because there is so little we can bring to the already grand gifts from Ma Nature.

Don't let there be lean years. Work jobs that put food on the table, but more importantly, put experience in your notebook.

The more ridiculous, hateful, generous, or talented the players in your work environment, the more interesting the characters in your poems, essays, short stories. Don't let them wear you out; let them feed your dialogue and your characters' behavior.

I can't imagine "quitting my job." Fortunately for me, running Pudding House for the past 12 years has provided full-time employment (and then some!), a real means of support. But that didn't and couldn't have started when I was in my 20s or 30s. It couldn't have started at all had I not benefitted from such a rich work experience over the years, including entry and mid-range positions. I still capitalize on having worked for Lazarus, temporary services, National City Bank, and all kinds of places as I added to my bag of tricks, my list of skills. The more you know, the more your characters know, because they can't possibly be any smarter than you are.

There are many ways to survive lean years if they do come your way. Keeping your day job that provides the characters and interactions that make for good storytelling is one way. Diversifying your writing activities is another. Applying a broad range of applications for your writing is another. For example, some of the same skills that make an effective poet make an effective copywriter, brochure developer, speechwriter, or media professional. Take jobs that allow you to write and begin to recognize how all these opportunities benefit each other.

I'm on ebay occasionally, selling things I no longer have use for, using writing skills to pump up interest. It brings in money, exercises my fingers, gives me some entertainment and white space between the heady and serious work of editing and publishing, and gives me one more place to publish poetry, really. They let you write as much as you want in those item descriptions! Now isn't that fun?

You are writer of your own life-script. Don't write it lean. Write your part rich and rewarding. Appreciate the work of re-inventing yourself each day, moving toward what you plan to become and what you will progress beyond, to your own great amazement. Do this and I promise, if ill health doesn't get in the way, you will be more successful than you'd ever dreamed.

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Jennifer Bosveld is the Director and founder, with her husband Jim, of the Pudding House Writers Innovation Center in Johnstown, Ohio. In addition to her writing, teaching and publishing activities, she is a community activitist and member of the Unitarian Universalist Church.