The Challenge of Writing Part-time
There have been a few seasons in my writing life when I could devote one hundred percent of my working time to writing. The challenge for me now has been that I have various commitments that vastly limit my creative and writing time. Here is a glimpse into the challenge I face.
This is not a challenge that I take lightly. Time to devote to writing equals greater productivity because my mind is not under the same pressure that it is now. When I get up in the morning I want to give attention to my three wonderful children and to my wife. I want to sit down with them for breakfast, read the Bible with them, pray with them, go over the kids letters, help teach the kids to read. Then I head off to my day job. I work full-time in sales for one of the largest furniture store chains in the country. It is a good job. It pays well. I work under a good management team, and with some great colleagues. This job requires different disciplines than my home life. I must maintain a working list of potential and past clients, and generate new business. This job puts food on the table and the roof over our heads, and more. But it also requires working every weekend and most holidays and is straight commission, which equals higher stress because every week I must put the same drive into it that I have done in the weeks previous.
When I get home I am usually a bit tired. Not physically, for the most part, but mentally. I want to devote evening time again to family (though a few evenings per week I don’t get home until late).
I do not say this to complain, but rather to show you the challenge of being a writer. It requires commitment and vision. For now I chip away at big writing projects that before would have taken me a mere matter of months to complete. Often my writing time is after everyone is in bed. I should be sleeping now because I am tired, but if I don’t write, the books will never be written… and I love to write them. The stories are always building in my mind, urging me to share them.
For now I write part-time, out of necessity. But I am scheming to return to writing fulltime. It will happen again. I have faith that God has given me this drive for a reason and when the time is right He will open the necessary doors. For now my energies are divided in several directions… and it slows the process. The primary thing is to not lose sight of the dream, never give up on the goal, and always take the writing commitment seriously.
Question: What are your challenges in pursuing your dream?
I also write part time. I find that the time I actually spend writing is very productive because I spend the majority of my day thinking about what I am going to write. When I finally have time to write I am so charged up with ideas and excitement to get it all down on paper that it feels like a great rush. I wonder if I had the leisure of writing whenever I wanted to if I would struggle with motivation. Often it is the negative spaces in our lives that define the positive spaces and make them truly enjoyable.
Hi Carrie,
I’m sorry for taking so long to reply. Normally I am quick but getting back into routine after coming back from our family trip to the Carolinas has been slow.
In reference to your comment: Yes, sometimes I have experienced that surge of creative flow after spending a day away from the writing. However I will say that when I was writing full-time I learned the discipline of writing as work and the result was my fastest growth in my career and in my writing.
I think the greatest enhancer to our writing is the ability to take the experiences we have in life and translate that into meaningful stories. Sometimes when writers go full-time they rely too heavily on their introvert tendencies and the result is fewer experiences, less challenges, less conviction… weaker writing.