I was a sound engineer. That was my day job when I started writing.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Out of grad school, I worked as a tech writer for a while before going into computer coding for a living.
I never was one to go into an office and write. For one thing, I had a job. I was cleaning the ashtrays and setting up the studios at Columbia for a couple of years and working every other week down in the Gulf of Mexico flying helicopters. I didn't really get to just write songs for about five years.
I worked full time jobs, basically doing manual labor until I could make enough money supporting myself as a musician.
I worked at all kinds of jobs, mostly commercial editing.
After university, I got a job sub-editing and for years I was a literary editor.
Before I began concentrating on writing, in my free time I was an artist, making and selling etchings illustrating stories based on my readings in classical literature.
It was just me in my basement honing my skills, hearing songs on the radio and trying to manipulate them and then writing over those, and I started with local artists in Boston, writing records for them.
I studied audio engineering at university. The background I am from, music was never seen as a viable career; it was always a hobby.
I write a tiny fraction of what I used to write. My only job used to be to just write songs, and that was a really nice job to have, but only a tiny amount of people heard those songs, and I didn't make a living from it, and eventually I begged my parents to let me move back into my room.
I've been working since I was a child. I worked cutting lawns, delivering newspapers; I was a telephone salesperson; I was a guitar repairman.