SF writer Gary Gibson

Time to find a new day job; they have someone new in the old place, so time to find a new place to do the old job now that I'm not crawling around on all fours anymore. I'm thinking along new lines, though ... Phil pointed out to me there's a lot of classes with names like 'Novels: how to write them and how to finish them' running at local colleges, and it's occurred to me I could think of worse things to do than teach creative writing, depending on how much it actually pays (not much, I suspect). Exactly how on Earth you go about finding out about this kind of thing - or if there's any required, official qualifications (outside of having written and sold books, obviously) that are mandatory - is beyond me. It has occurred to me, however, that I know one or two people who do things like teach classes and so forth, so I might ask about and see whether this is a realistic proposition or a (typically) woolly-headed pipe dream.

One other reason for thinking about this is that I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about continuing doing graphic design in the way that I have; to be frank, there's a point where most graphic designers either end up working for a large company or newspaper fulltime, or running their own agency and letting other people do the actual designing. The design and layout stuff for me, however, has never been anything more than a way of supporting my writing; and it's further occurred to me that if my primary skill is indeed writing, then perhaps I should consider avenues for making money that tie into it.

More than likely though I'll wind up with some design gig; my only worry is whether it's full time or part-time. The former tends to leave me not really feeling up to writing when I get home. The latter leaves me relatively relaxed, and benefits the writing. But finding a part-time gig ain't so easy; full-time might be my only option.