Have you ever thought about writing a novel? Do it! It’s totally possible. I’m a single mom with two boys and a puppy and I work full-time in a demanding career. If I can do it, lots of people can. Here’s some advice on how to make it work.
Time and Energy
The hardest thing about writing a novel as a side career isn’t time. It’s emotional energy. Your job as an author is to show who your characters are by putting them in stressful situations and seeing how they react. I write mysteries, so there’s always something awful that happens, and my beloved protagonist is frequently in danger.
In order to write well, it’s necessary to experience your characters’ emotions. In my newest book, Girl Ghosted, that includes heartbreak. Ouch.
Sure, it’s possible to carve out an hour here and there to work on a book, but when you have to take yourself fully into the story world and feel all the emotions, smell the smells and feel the damp ocean air, it’s really hard to snap in and out of worlds.
The way I manage the emotional energy challenge is to keep my eye on the scenes that will be most trying to write, and save them for a weekend when I have a big block of time. I do hard stuff in the morning because my brain is better then. Maybe you think well at night- whatever the case, know yourself and arrange the hardest writing for when you’re at your best.
The second hardest thing about writing a novel as a side career is time. My biggest secret for making time is that I don’t watch tv. Or movies. Or play video games. Or hang out on social media. The New York Times reported that the average American spends five hours per day watching tv. People could write a lot of novels in all that time! When I want to really crank away on writing, I turn off alerts for email, texts, etc. Interruptions are a killer. The time you lose is more than double the time you take to read or respond to the interruption because you have to shift gears to the new task, then back to writing. Our minds are much better at mono-tasking than multitasking, and particularly when interruptions pull you from the story world back into your day-to-day world, they’re bad for your work.
Managing Expectations
One of the wonderful things about writing as a side career is that you’re not dependent on your writing to pay the bills. That means you can be kind to yourself and not create unrealistic expectations. I expect it to take me about a year to get a book from idea to publication. There’s a lot of planning time and research, then the writing, followed by the re-writing and editorial process. Reasonable expectations allow you to follow your own natural rhythms, which I believe is the best way to write. If the momentum isn’t there to write the scenes I’ve planned one day, I may do some more research instead. I might pull out my spiral notebook and diagram story arcs or make notes. I might even put the project down and go have coffee with a friend instead. I believe that watching our own momentum in different areas of our lives provides us with invaluable information about where we should focus our energy. Writing is a prime example.
Getting Help
I have two editors that help me with each book, and have enlisted various experts to help me with research. I also belong to an online critique group where we read one-another’s drafts a chapter at a time. I’ve found that feedback to be incredibly helpful. Check out UpWork for editors and experts. My critique group is on a site called Inked Voices. There are others out there as well, or you may find an in-person writers group near you. I try not to enlist friends much because that can be awkward, but I do have one friend with whom I share ideas and developments as I write. He gets all the spoilers before the book is even written.
Final Thoughts
If you love writing and are doing it because of the joy it brings, then by all means pursue writing as a side career. If you try it and find it causes you stress or simply isn’t fun, then put it down. You can try again later, switch to a different genre, or go take a writing class instead. Exploration is important. I started writing a middle-grades book in the magical realism genre, and found it incredibly difficult. It’s now tucked away under a magic sleeping spell until I decide to try again.
Writing can be surprisingly rewarding. It allows you to experience new worlds and live other lives in someone else’s skin. It offers the opportunity to explore whatever interests you. My first book delved into the world of the gem trade, my second book featured street art, and the third shares the humor and pain of online dating. All three involved research that I enjoyed thoroughly.
When your book reaches readers, whole new dimensions of being an author surface. Readers reach out with their thoughts about your book. One of the checkers at my grocery store begs me to let my protagonist, Penny, finally find a good man. I love hearing her opinions about the men in Penny’s life and am delighted to see how my characters play out for readers.
Be patient with yourself and enjoy the writing journey.
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