Secrets of a Part-time Author

by Pam Jenoff

“I’m too busy to write,” or “I can’t find time,” are two of the most common complaints I hear from aspiring authors. The statement is usually followed by an explanation: a demanding day job, kids home from college, house renovations, office being used as a spare guest room, etc.

Me too, I want to say. I decided to get serious about writing a novel following the events of September 11, 2001 and the epiphany that I didn’t necessarily have forever to make my dreams come true. It wasn’t the most ideal time to take on the challenge — I had started working as an attorney just weeks prior and had a demanding job working sixty hour weeks as an associate at a large law firm, not to mention almost a hundred thousand dollars in student loans to repay. So I devised a plan whereby I would write every morning from 5-7 am. It wasn’t pretty. I was tired and overwhelmed and many days as I dragged myself to the computer I had no idea what I was going to say. But a year later, I had my manuscript.

Since then, I’ve written in all manner of places, from a beautiful chalet in Salzburg and a writer’s cabin in Banff National Park to a tiny desk shared with my husband in our cluttered city apartment. I’ve written with morning sickness and no sleep or caffeine. Last year, when my son was born three weeks early, I finished my fourth novel lying down with an infant sleeping on my chest and a laptop plunked behind his tiny feet (something that is getting harder to do now that he is a year old and huge.)

So to everyone reading this who has a drawer full of, “yes buts,” standing between her and finishing that manuscript, I’d like to offer the following suggestions: Figure out when you can carve out that hour or two of writing time a day, then protect it zealously. You must pay yourself first and schedule that time or life’s commitments will run over it. You must make hard choices – when I got serious about my writing, I had to eliminate lots of other activities like board memberships etc. If it wasn’t family time, eating, sleeping, working or writing, it didn’t happen. Indeed, I’m notorious for turning down social engagements that will keep me up late and not let me write the next morning, or as I say, I’m boring and grumpy and go to bed by ten.

You also must stop coming up with reasons and excuses not to write (e.g., “I can’t write in short blocks of time.” If you have an hour, use the hour.) I used to say I couldn’t write unless I was well-rested, a rule which went out the window when my son was born. Don’t listen to others who tell you that you should be doing other things with that writing time. Let the phone ring and the house be dirty and accept whatever help is offered.

Finally, forgive yourself the days that this plan doesn’t work, and reward yourself the days that it does.

If all of this sounds hard and exhausting, it is. But when you hold that finished manuscript in your hands or with any luck see it on the shelf in your local bookstore, it will all be worth it. And in the more immediate term, you can start the rest of the day after writing (or go to bed, for you night writers) with the satisfaction of knowing that you have created a world while others only dreamt it, and enjoy the company of the characters that dance in your head, waiting for you to return tomorrow.
I’m no longer at the law firm, but I still have the day job and growing family commitments, and I still fit in the writing in the hour or two in between. It isn’t always easy or pretty and there are certainly days when I fail, but I always come back to it and that’s what has kept me in this game.

So sit down and start writing. And (I say this with love and respect) don’t let the full-time writers tell you they’re busy ☺