All The Things I Misunderstood (With Thanks)
About three months after I signed the contract to write The Beer Bible—and nine months before the first half was due—I started to get anxious. I had written very little. There was so much research to do, but sitting down with a pile of books didn’t seem like writing. In my mind, the year was divided into 12 neat parts, each one containing 25 pages of manuscript wanting to be born. Each month they weren’t getting written, the number jumped. I was right to think the end was going to be a slog—but wrong in thinking that research wasn’t part of the job. It was just one of long list of things I didn’t understand about writing full-time.
Today marks a personal milestone. Ten years ago I finished my last day as a researcher at Portland State University, my job for the previous fourteen years, in order to devote all my time to writing. I began that adventure blind, knowing it would be very hard to pull off (correct!), but entirely misunderstanding what my life would look like. I have managed to carve out a living this way, but the job an entirely different from the one I thought I’d signed up for. If you’ll indulge an over-sharing blogger on this anniversary, I’d like to tell you about it.
The first big lesson: the life of a freelance writer involves surprisingly little writing. Even with book projects, so much of the time is spent thinking of the next book, getting a proposal together, and pitching it, then researching the book, emailing, scheduling, traveling, touring breweries, interviewing people (and then transcription! 😝), tasting beer—and I know this isn’t a complete list. The writing happens pretty quickly at the end, and more quickly still if all the prep was done properly.
A (beer) writer cannot live on books alone, it turns out. I’d foolishly assumed that were I to find publishers to print my books, the interlacing streams of royalties and advances would largely keep me afloat. Getting books published would be the hard part, I figured. Well, that was hard, and I was extremely lucky to immediately stumble onto The Beer Bible. What I learned instead is that the population of readers in beer just isn’t big enough to generate that kind of income—even if you managed to get the books out there.
Thus began a series of side-hustles. I wrote columns and a smattering of articles; I found a sponsor to support the work of this blog, which couldn’t continue to take time but generate no income. (A huge thank-you to Guinness, whose support was critical in lean years); I consulted with breweries about their stories and messaging; I started teaching a course at PSU; I did some paid speaking. All of that took a bunch of time to schedule and coordinate and pitch and invoice and track in my taxes and so on. There were a few time-consuming side hustles that didn’t amount to anything, which I also learned is part of the job.
I also discovered that it was important to do things that would never bring in any money. Some of it helps keep me engaged and visible, and some of it one does as a part of being in this community. Social media, doing interviews, and the podcast, which actually takes quite a bit of time, are all part of that first group. It helps build my audience and credibility, which in turn bolster my efforts to score all those other those side-hustles.
But there’s the stuff you do because people ask you to. I learned how critically important this was from the other side—as a writer constantly asking people to give me their time and wisdom so I could do my work. I meet with people trying to figure out how to write a book. I read proposals. I feel a strong connection to those other folks toiling as writers, so I always want to help promote a book or offer a foreword or blurb if it will help people find those books. I try to connect people who don’t know each other. I get an assortment of emails throughout the week from folks who’ve read books or articles or heard the podcast and have a question or thought. I reply always, if not always immediately.
I made the decision a decade ago to go into this work—and I have basically everything wrong about what it would actually look like. I have worked harder and for more hours over the past decade than any other time in my life, and I spend way less of my time writing than I’d like. But it has been exhilarating and fulfilling in ways I never imagined. I’ve enjoyed national and international travel, been inside some of the world’s great breweries, drunk beer with some of the world’s great brewers, seen and done so much. In being able to spend all my time focused on this one subject, I’ve learned so much more about the world of beer—history, culture, national traditions, brewing techniques, business—than I ever could have as a part-time freelancer.
And, in what is retrospectively the most surprising part, I’ve figured out a life that allows me to keep doing what I’m doing, even if it’s not what I expected. I feel so deeply grateful: few people have the luxury and opportunity to write full-time for a decade. Of course, I have all of you to thank—without your eyes and ears, none of this would have been possible. Thanks for reading and listening, folks. I hope to see you around for another decade—