Heh

[telophase]

ursulav linked to a quiz posted recently on the Horror Writers Association website, in order to point out how limiting and poisonous it is. Essentially, the author of the article and quiz is of that breed of writer who assumes that if your life is not 100% consumed with writing, to the detriment of your social life and your finances, then you are not a professional. You are, instead, a hobbyist. She came to write this quiz after dropping into an online discussion group for writers to discover that they were, horror! talking about subjects other than writing!

I don't need to add my voice the growing number of eye-rollers in the comments on ursulav's blog, but I thought it would be funny to change the questions from writing to librarianship to see if I, a professional librarian, meet her criteria for "professional."



You need to reach at least 80% Yes, to be professional, according to her criteria, preferably 100%.

1. Is your home/work place messy because that time you’d put into cleaning it is better spent writing performing library tasks?

Well, let's see...my desk at work is messy because I'd rather be doing anything other than cleaning it, so I guess that's a technical yes.

2. Do you routinely turn down evenings out with friends because you need to be home writing at the library instead?

Nope.

3. Do you turn off the television in order to write perform library tasks?

Technical yes, as I am working from home today and the television is not on.

4. Would you rather receive useful criticism than praise [about your library work]?

If I had to pick between one or the other, I'd pick the useful criticism, but I'd rather receive both. So, yes.

5. Do you plan vacations around writing library opportunites (either research or networking potential)?

Oh holy fuck no.

6. Would you rather be chatting about the business of writing librarianship with another writer librarian than exchanging small talk with a good friend?

Oh holy fuck no.

7. Have you ever taken a day job that paid less money because it would give you more time/energy/material to write library work?

Oh holy fuck no.

8. Are you willing to give up the nice home you know you could have if you devoted that time you spend writing working in libraries to a more lucrative career?

Um...no. Because one of the main reasons I'm in librarianship is because I cannot devote myselv to a more lucrative carrer, as they require tasks, long hours, and education I am not willing to commit myself to.

9. Have you done all these things for at least five years?

The above things I've done, I've done for at least five years, yes.

10. Are you willing to live knowing that you will likely never meet your ambitions, but you hold to those ambitions nonetheless?

Fuck you, I've already met them. I do not have to hold giant ambitions as regards my career to be a professional in it. My ambitions are: a job I like, with coworkers I like, and an income I can live with, that allows me to fund my hobbyist pursuits.

Final tally...40% Yes. 50% if you count #10 as a technical Yes. Apparently I'm not a professional librarian. I'm happy with that!

Comments

[yhlee]

Holy wow, Lisa Morton (the originator of the quiz) is a twit.

[telophase]

As someone else said in the comments on the LJ where I found it, she's exhibiting the symptoms of someone who doesn't understand work-life balance. And probably is the sort of person who buys into the idea that to be an artist of any ilk, you must be completely consumed by your passion.

[likeadeuce]

And also the idea that being busy matters more than getting things done. . .

[telophase]

Yup, probably so.

[likeadeuce]

I mean, turning down time with friends COULD mean you're devoted to your writing but it could also mean you don't manage your writing time all that well. As someone who has fallen victim to the idea that if I'm giving up something up that I want to do, my productivity will magically increase -- not so much.

[telophase]

Yeah. I've given up opportunities and socializing that I want to do to get something else accomplished, but they're all times when I've failed to manage my time properly, not because my passion for whatever it is I'm doing means more than my social life or other things.

[yhlee]

I've seen the opposite advice--that you should schedule your writing around your social time--on the grounds that staying sane is more important than writing yourself into an early grave, and I have to say that if I'm going to follow advice, that's the advice I'm going to take.

[metaphortunate]

Seriously! It's not a great thing!

[movingfinger]

I disagree. This is classic Gatekeeper Syndrome, more a manifestation of anxiety about one's own performance than an interest in anyone else's.

[lnhammer]

Agreed.

---L.

[owlectomy]

I score depressingly high on this quiz. I don't think it's because I have awful work-life balance. It's just because I'm a slow writer, and if I want to both hold down a day job and be reasonably productive as a writer, there's a lot of other stuff that has to go by the wayside.

As a writer, I'm stuck in that valley between "published" and "making enough money to write full-time," which means my life is full of deadlines for stuff that I'm not getting paid for yet. It sucks, and there's no moral virtue in choosing that over any other life. But I feel like I get where the original writer of the quiz is coming from.

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

Well, I managed to get 60%... but only because I didn't quit my job when they cut my hours.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

You're obviously 10-20% more professional than I am!

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

Or just hate the idea of moving (with 7 cats) that much, LOL.

[matildarose.livejournal.com]

Auuuggghhh I hate that insinuation of 'if you don't devote yourself 100% to your work/support yourself entirely to your work/make X amount of dollars/etc, you're a hobbyist, which is a codeword for 'you're not cool like we are'. It's something that's almost surreal to think, especially in today's economy (at least where I am). You can work your ass off, but if the clients aren't there for you, you're not going to get paid.

Besides, as often as I am guilty of doing this, no one wants to be around the friend who talks about nothing but their job.

I remember a guy who asked me to fill out a quiz he was going for his master's thesis. One of the questions implied that, by having a part-time job to help pay the bills, you weren't serious enough. I.... sort of took that question as a sort of sign that I needed to have a 'come to jesus' talk with the dude through my answer.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Apparently having kids prevents one from being a "professional" too.

[wyrdness.livejournal.com]

It took some time for me to discover that being happy and content beats anything and that's okay. I'm not sure why I'd ever want to choose to be "professional" at anything if it left me no time to actually enjoy living.