"Breaking up is hard to do," as the old song says, but sometimes it's necessary. A recent article suggests that your career relationship may not be so different from any other, even a romantic one. You may go through good times and bad times together, try to compromise and make it work, but in the end it just isn't any good. Maybe you only need a vacation. Or maybe you need to let go, say goodbye, and start over.
Easier said than done, I think, for the vast majority. Especially in tough economic times. Unless you are independently wealthy, or about to retire anyway, you need a job. And recent studies have shown that many jobs lost in this recession are not coming back when it's over -- or ever. Fewer workers in manufacturing will be needed, as might be expected, but fewer in the arts and services sectors are predicted as well. Interior designers, people in advertising, sales, and public relations, for example.
Some of us aren't in a job for the money alone. A lucky few simply like doing what they do. Bob Newhart, after a 50-year career of making people laugh, says he keeps on performing because he starts "crawling up walls" when he isn't working. I can relate to that. I retired from my last "real" job twenty years ago and started writing, which is what I always wanted to do anyway. Without it, I'd be "crawling up walls," too.
But writers can suffer career conflicts, too, and the signs for "breaking up with your (writing) job" are similar to any other:
(1) If you don't really love to write, it's drudgery.
(2) If you can't take rejection and/or criticism, it can be painful.
(3) If you don't feel that your work is appreciated -- you crave celebrity, but no one has ever heard of you -- it's frustrating.
And I would add that a failing relationship with a publisher is a clear sign that you are headed in the wrong direction. Just as in a failing marriage, you may be sick of him/her (and the feeling may be mutual), you are constantly at odds about money (royalties and advances), and in the end you feel trapped. (Where are you going to find another publisher?)
So, all things considered, is it time to tear up the contract? It could be, if the other party has not lived up to the terms you both agreed on, and the situation has become intolerable. By that time the contract is virtually in shreds anyway, and you both know it, so you might as well finish the job. Maybe something good will come from a settlement.
I have recently torn up the contract with the publisher of my novel,"Boardinghouse Stew." Now, with my bridges burned, I'm wondering who will publish the sequel, which is already written, and more works in progress. Will I be considered "box office poison" by other publishers, once the dust has settled?
Stay tuned!
