When writing is the main hustle, the side hustle and the side-side hustle

How to find time to write when all you do is write? A mid-life crisis helps.

The odd thing about writing this book is that, three-ish years later, I have no idea HOW I wrote this book. It’s rather like having a baby. I remember pain, sleepless nights, crying — but all in a blurry, sideways sort of way.

I know I did this thing. I have the thing to prove it.

But srsly how?

And how can I do it again? (book not baby)

I have started to work on another book, and every time I take pen to paper (er, fingers to keyboard), it feels like the very first time. Like the last book was some magical accident and not weeks/months/years of hard work. Funny enough, I’m far less busy now, at least on paper, then I was in 2020 when I wrote most of “The Mango Tree.” Back then, I had a full-time job as a journalist. I also had side gigs writing content for websites and blogs. And I wrote a book.

When I wasn’t writing, I was writing. And I still found time to do more writing (see: pain, sleepless nights, crying). There were also kids to take care of, family obligations, friend obligations, life obligations. It was, looking back, a pretty manic time for me. Yet from it, came this book.

Photo by Ardi Evans on Unsplash

Back in 2020, I was in crisis mode. It was the pandemic, of course, and the year George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were killed by the police; the summer we (some of us) started to understand racial injustice and systemic inequities. We were all in crisis. 2020 was also the year I turned 40. The year I wondered: What the hell are you doing with your career? The year I understood I’d be tied to this hometown of mine for years to come. So, if I was staying put, how could I make my life feel less stagnant? How could I not lose my ever-loving mind?

This, I believe, is called a mid-life crisis.

My answer to this crisis, these crises: “The Mango Tree.” And honestly, it’s been a better answer than I ever dreamed it could be.

This time around, with Memoir 2, I thought things would be easier. I am not in crisis. I am a soon-to-be published author. I am genuinely happy, genuinely content. I am busy, yes, but busy with things that are my own.

Things should be easier. On paper and in reality.

Ten months ago, I let the full-time job go, thinking that would give me oh-so much more time to write. I would no longer be writing, and then writing, and then writing some more. Just writing … and writing. Easy peasy, right?

But really, leaving my day job was like widening the opening of a dam. That extra space, once occupied by restaurant roundups and expense reports, was quickly filled by the most pressing issues in my life — my mother and her ailing health, our kids and their escalating academic and athletic pursuits. Writing? I’m sure that’s somewhere in the reservoir of things-to-do, but it hasn’t come gushing through the dam’s gates. At least, not yet.

What has come gushing through are not just doctors appointments and soccer tryouts and swim practices, but also lunches with friends and book tours with friends and idle evenings splayed out in front of the television, half-watching shows. These things are not writing. But I’m starting to learn to appreciate them, to balance them.

I had a freakout moment early this summer. I’d come to my desk to write yet another outline for this new book, and once again I didn’t get far. I started to wonder if maybe I needed crises to write. What if I’m ONLY productive when everything around me is failing and falling apart? What if crisis is my muse? … And here I was, happy and lunching and Netflix-ing! No crises in sight.

Thankfully, it was a brief freakout. After several false starts, I’ve hit on a structure for Memoir 2 that I like. A lot. And the writing is happening. Slowly, yes, but also far less maniacally. In ways that align with the other writing I do. Ways that don’t require me to write, and then write, and then write more. Ways that allow for sleep and free evenings and even a leisurely lunch here and there.

“The Mango Tree” felt like a crisis. This new project feels like the opposite: a blessing, a breakthrough, a certitude (thanks thesaurus.com). I’m excited to see where it goes.