James Van Pelt teaches and writes in western Colorado. His short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. He blogs at jimvanpelt.livejournal.com. His latest novel, Summer of the Apocalypse, was released from Fairwood Press in November ‘06.

“I started thinking about The Day Job the first time I really contemplated what someone meant when they said to young writers, ‘Don’t quit your day job.’

On one level, of course, the advice is good. So few fiction writers make enough money selling their novels that the idea of giving up a nine to five grind truly is science fiction or fantasy. For short story writers, the situation is even worse. Who was the last pure short story writer to make it on the dint of writing alone?

Still, ‘Don’t quit your day job’ has a ring of falseness to it. At some point in most writers’ lives, when they have focused on craft and art for so long, when they are steadily producing work in the nooks and crannies of their day, in between work hours and raising families and the host of other distractions that fills their time, writing permeates all of it.

No matter what they do to bring home their daily bread, writing has become the day job.”