I have a secret. Well, it's not a secret to you so much as it might be to a few other people: I have a full-time job. My employer knows that I am a writer, but a few years ago, expressed some concern that I don't have enough time to work and freelance. I felt that I did, but decided that he didn't need to know this and since then have kept my freelancing on the quiet.

How do I do it? Much of it is circumstantial. My job doesn't take that much time to complete, so I have free time to work during the day. I have my own office (with a door), so people aren't popping up behind me, seeing me working on various projects. I don't work with that many people, so not that many people know what I'm up to at any given moment (unlike at my old job, where I'd keep some random work-related Quark document on my desktop so I could automatically switch to that when people walked by my cubicle, which was often, as it was next to the bathrooms.) And above all, I get my day-job work done first so that my butt is covered.

Working full time can be a blessing and a curse. You don't have as much time to work on other freelance projects that you might like--in fact, you might not have much time at all. On the other hand, it's nice to have steady income and benefits.

Some writers choose to keep a full-time job, others don't have a choice. I spoke to other who work full-time or who have about how they juggled the tasks and how they kept their bosses happy.

"I am a full-time technical writer but am trying to develop a freelance business so that I can 'retire' from the 9-5 and work from home," says a writer I spoke with. "I am getting there slowly, laying groundwork and writing at home 20 hours a week or so. I try not to do too much of my "own thing" during work hours, but usuallly have something that I can work on during lunch, or times when I need a break. I occassionally do some research while I am at work as well. I try to give these people 40 hours a week and not take advantage of the situation, but when it is slow, I will work on a piece rather than just surf the net like everyone else does! I have a nice office set up at home and it is ready to be occupied by a full-time freelance writer. I am going to make this happen."

"When I worked at a full-time job, I would especially check my e-mail at work only so that I when I got back home, all I really had to do was reply to the important ones, and actually write," says another writer. "I'd also return calls to clients in my five minute breaks from my cellphone. That would ensure that they could talk to me in office hours, and I didn't have a backlog of phone calls to take care of when I got home. I also hear that there are a couple of software packages that let you create two desktops, letting you switch between the two, so that no one else can see what else you've been working on."

"I work full-time while I freelance," says another moonlighter. "Luckily, I have a 'results-oriented' supervisor, so as long as my 'work' work is done, she doesn't much care what I do the rest of the time. That motivates me (usually!) to get my work work done as quickly as possible, which leaves the remainder of the day for writing. The department director isn't quite as generous, however, so I do resort to some tricks. I am supposed to be working on a big website redesign, but it's an onerous project that I'm having trouble getting motivated to work on, so I usually have Dreamweaver minimized on my screen, and whenever the director heads my direction, I quickly maximize that window and squint at it, as if I'm beavering away on page design. Another thing I do is keep my desktop littered with papers. That way, I can always pick one up and appear to be studying it (frowning is an excellent way to keep people at bay because they're loath to interrupt you), while in reality I'm pondering how to restructure a sentence in my feature article that's due today. Phantom meetings are another way to carve writing time out of a regular job. I'm a middle manager, so none of my superiors truly knows how many committees and task forces I belong to. If I'm really feeling stressed about a deadline, I just grab my Handspring and say, 'I forgot I have that Network Implementation Task Force meeting today. I'll be back in a couple of hours.' Throwing in technical jargon (even nonsensical stuff) is one good way to avoid being questioned about these issues. Our director isn't too technically literate, so I usually add something like, 'We're discussing the roll-out of the new stasis alleviation platform which will impact our hub and router configuration, so I plan to be really involved with this committee in order to make sure they don't screw up our computers.' I have also been known to come down with a sudden illness when I was on deadline. Not so often as to show a pattern, but often enough to keep my editors happy."

Some two-timers manage to keep their gigs fairly separate. "For the most part, the only things I ever do at work are those that require a high-speed connection (usually sending and receiving large file attachments). Otherwise, the day job gets full attention during work hours. I'd never have the degree of peace and quiet I like to have for writing anyway, so it's not much trouble to keep them separate. Of course, my job usually requires me to work up to 60-hour weeks now and then, so I don't feel at all bad about skimming a little time for my own work. On average, they're still making out quite well for what I'm being paid."

As for technology to help you multi-task, another writer advises, "Windows XP pro has a feature called 'Remote Desktop'. I am not sure how to set it up, but it allows you to actually go over to your own computer's desktop. You have to leave your computer on, but this is pretty sweet for all you working types if you ask me."