Writing while working a full time time career

It’s not easy juggling a demanding full time career and writing books at the same time.  Especially when thoughts of a blossoming writing career is a motivation.  I attended a writing seminar hosted by a publishing company and over 90% of the aspiring writers were in the retired age range.  In another words, it appears that they were working on their second career after having experienced a first one in varying degrees.  Undoubtedly, their age provides them a wealth of life experiences to inspire good writing in different genres.  But what about the rest of us that are still in our employment years and far away from retirement that want to write too?  How do we juggle this without compromising one or the other?  Let’s face it, I don’t want to be 95 years before I hit my first break.  So can we have it all?

So I decided in order to accomplish both, some things have to change or maybe perhaps rearranged since there are only 24 hours in a day.  Recently,  I’ve been adhering to a rather grueling schedule and I’m hoping it will stick.  I wake up at around 4AM on days that I need to work on my book which can be every day of the week or 3 days of the week depending on what needs to be done.  

  


I write and edit for about 2 hours before starting my day at my full time job as a real estate broker.  The house is dark and still and it gives me the peace and quiet I need to focus and let my creative juices flow. Since I write creative fiction, I need to tap into my imaginative wells.  At that stark early time in the morning, there’s an unleashing of my creative thoughts in quiet calmness that only gets masked or drowned from the insane stresses of my days. 

Currently, I’m working on the 4rth book of the Beijing Family book series – The Beijing Beauties.  It’s about 3 women from China looking for love in Los Angeles and in line with all the other books in the series, it’s filled with drama and comedy.  This morning, I spent over 2 hours editing a few chapters and will be continuing this process until it’s finished.  I find editing to be more tedious than writing in that the process requires not only editorial refining but the magic of literary magic unique to each writer.   To be in this mode, one needs to be focused and alert, diligent and in general peace and free of mental stresses  which the early morning hours provides for me in my schedule before the onset of my bustling menagerie also known as life. 

After a long day, I wind down by finishing up more editing.  Or sometimes I read which is a much easier task reserved for my later hours when I'm low on energy.  Currently, I’ve been marinating myself about the Silk Road from feeling inspired about this era for some time now and the nagging desire to write my next book increasing daily.  I’m slanting towards romance and drama spiced with tantalizing erotica for the Silk Road.  

It began with my first read about Marco Polo and his traverses through Central Asia.  What a fascinating book!  If Marco Polo had not been thrown in a Venice jail after his travels through Asia, he would never have met fellow jailmate and famous writer, Rustichello of Pisa, a favorite of King Edward I of England.  With an abundance of time on their hands now that they were imprisoned, the writer documented his travels and evolved into history today.  

Now, I'm reading Life Along the Silk Road. This book recounts life along the Silk Road from Samarkand to Chang'an through different individuals  - a merchant, a soldier, a horseman, a princess, a monk, a courtesan, a nun, a widow, an official and an artist. Another interesting read! 

With this arduous schedule, I find myself occasionally wafting between tired and sleepy on some days to keep up, but somehow I get through all three components – writing, working and reading, although I’ve caught myself falling asleep while reading at night here and there.   

My writing spawned in the middle of the Great Recession here in the US and as as real estate broker, I was struggling in a real estate industry that was imploding and melting.  At that time, I had less work and more time which allowed me to conceive The Beijing Family book series and its initial 3 books  – The Beijing Family, The Beijing Youths and The Beijing Ghosts.  I am currently renovating the entire book series to be republished at the end of 2017 with the addition of two more new books to the series - The Beijing Beauties and The Beijing Mummies. 

Mixed in were nubile efforts in marketing and the creation of this very blog but it didn’t last very long.  I began developing the concept of The Beijing Beauties and had begun writing it only to be sidestepped pleasantly in October of 2014 when I accepted a job offer with a nationwide builder and my work partner and I sold 37 homes in one year and I was awarded Sales Associate of the year in 2014.  Surely, the writing, reading, marketing and blogging were all put aside for over a year while I toiled away at work.  But in 2016, I was determined to finish Book 4 – The Beijing Beauties and get it published despite how busy I am now in comparison to before.  

Before I picked up my PC after some time lapse to write again, I wondered if I will be able to write like I did when I had more time and less work and the solace during the Great Recession now that I have an insidious schedule with a full time career.  I feared that my daily stresses would diminish my creativity.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it did not!  My creativity is always there.  I just needed to make time for it. It meant I had to carve out a time in my day that was calm and quiet and just simply write.  In doing just that, I finished the initial draft of The Beijing Beauties and am now working on further revisions.  So it can be done.  You just have to make time for it. Innate talents such as creativity are inherent and not situation specific.  Artistry will deliver when called upon, like dancing and singing whether it’s sunny or rainy, busy or alone.  It doesn't matter what time of day or where you are.  It doesn't matter if you're sitting in an airport with a room filled with people yacking away or in a corner by yourself in a library.  When you're creativity is called upon to deliver, let it sing, let it all out.  Get it all down, let it be you!    

Happy Writing!