If the Salary Was the Same, I’d Be a Writer

Daily writing prompt

If the salary was the same, what job would you be doing right now and why?

If the salary was the same, I’d stay home and write.

That one’s easy.

I enjoy teaching, and I enjoy officiating, but both come with limits. Teaching is a full-time job whether the school day is over or not, and officiating works best for me as a side hustle. If I somehow replaced teaching with officiating, I’d actually lose the extra officiating income, because teaching isn’t exactly something I can pick up on Tuesday nights for a few extra bucks.

Writing is different.

If someone told me tomorrow that I could make exactly what I make teaching while staying home and writing all day, I’d probably ask where to sign.

Some of the day would be spent writing online—the devotionals, stories, bourbon pieces and whatever other rabbit trail catches my attention. The rest would go toward novels and longer projects, the kind of writing that always seems to get pushed into whatever time is left after everything else is finished.

And there’s the real appeal.

I wouldn’t be trying to squeeze writing into the margins of my life. Writing would be the work.

Coffee nearby. Dog somewhere in the room. No bell schedule. No faculty meeting. No stack of papers waiting to be graded. Just a blank page and enough hours in the day to see where it goes.

Golden.

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About Douglas Blaine

Capnpen is a writer who was a newspaper and magazine journalist in a previous life. A college journalism major, he now works as an English teacher, but gets his writing fix by blogging about a variety of topics, including politics, religion, movies and television. When he's not working or blogging, Capnpen spends time with his family, plays a little golf (badly) and loves to learn about virtually anything.

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