"If you do want to get into creative work, you’re going to have to see it as a side hustle. Not your main gig. That’s just the way it is.  It could become your main gig — if you’re very, very lucky — but the chances are slim. It’s hard to make it work."

"We don’t make decisions based on our experiences.  We make them based on the stories of our experiences.  And we don’t form our stories based on an accurate reflection of experience.  We form them like novelists, and we look for a good ending."

"Writing is often balanced with dozens of other obligations. Like working, cooking, cleaning, exercising, and picking up the kids from school. Nobody has the time to dedicate an entire day to just this activity. ... There is a popular misconception that successful writers have more time than the average person. That the only reason they do well is because they can spend hours each day on their books. That they don’t have to worry about pesky chores and errands like everyone else."

"With creative people strongly gifted ... [your natural self] is very prominent, no matter what you do. It therefore strongly resents any basically meaningless constraints placed about its experience. It knows, for example, how to enjoy each day, how to collect creative insights from each and every encounter, how to enrich itself physically through household chores or other activities. It dislikes being told that it must work thus and so at command of unreasonable restraints."

"Trying to fit the great thrust of creativity into assembly-line time is in itself bound to lead to conflicts, dissatisfactions, and frustrations."

"Untalented writers may feel cheated and lied-to if they can't get published, if they don't have good lives as writers.  Which is why you have to tell everybody at the outset that no creative writing program can guarantee a career, or publications, or anything except for some close readings and guidance."

"We tell the story we want to tell, and we live out those stories every day."

"Today, there is an over-sharing of our lives. ... I'm not on Facebook and Twitter, and I'm actually a private person.  I don't engage in any social media.  To me, it's really interesting how we negotiate the private life, the private self, and what we make public.  For me, it's easier to make 'art' public than just the day-to-day, blow-by-blow ad nauseam of every day life."

"[You] tried to use an assembly-line kind of time for your creative productivity. This may work when manuscripts are being typed, and so much physical labor is involved, but overall you are using the 'wrong' approach to time, particularly for any creative artist."

"I'm constantly taking risks to move forward.  I believe that you have to go for what you want and figure the rest out later.  That's a good way of looking at the world: do what you feel is the best thing to move you forward, and don't let potential future pitfalls hold you back.  You can cross those bridges when you get there—everything will work itself out."

"It's easy to be fooled into thinking there's a magic program, a specific path that only others know about, or a unique but mysterious road that you should take with a set number of steps to reach your dreams.  Nonsense.  You decide when.  You decide how."

"That doesn't mean I'll just do whatever it takes to be paid. Especially not something like abandoning my professional standards, because that would throw the rest of my life out of balance."

"Throw away your television. ... Okay, don't throw away your television. You'll miss it when the tornado's on the way. But, at least, like, unsubscribe from premium cable. ... No, seriously, step away from the remote. You'll never know how much free time you actually have until you give up TV. ... Don't even. If you're watching Game of Thrones, you have time to write. ... Okay, so there are some really good shows on HBO, especially The Wire, but you really, really have to be careful. ... Okay, Six Feet Under as well, but, seriously, that's it. And no more than one episode per day. ... Better yet, do throw away your television."

"The [creative] work I'm doing now, and the work I will do, is why I left corporate America.  If I can't remember to embrace the craziness with a smile, then I've made a terrible mistake."

Happy

"Understand that, from this point forward, in order to be successful in any one area of your life, you will need to neglect one or more other areas of your life. This means that, at all times, you will be either a bad parent, a bad writer, or a bad employee. Get used to being one of these things.  The trick is to make sure you're not being all three of these things all at once."

"Think back to our artisans, arranging their days to their personal satisfaction rather than the demands of the system."

"There are many factors that create a writer and the most significant is need.  I often joke, when talking at literary conferences and events, that if we, the writers, could choose to stop, we would.  For most of us, the need to make sense of and organize life through story, particularly its traumatic moments, was born many years before we penned our first title."

The Crossroads of Should and Must

Design Your Life - Prioritize the Things that Really Matter

Off Balance