Prioritizing Your Passions, with Mary Sutton – TPW350
This week's episode features my conversation with multi-published mystery author and full-time technical writer Mary Sutton about committing to your passions and finding time for “your” stuff amidst the things you “have” to do. Making time for your passions is an important part of making a life that matters Writing under the pen name Liz Milliron, Mary Sutton is the author of the Laurel Highlands mystery series, starring a Pennsylvania State Trooper and a Fayette County public defender in the scenic Laurel Highlands of southwest Pennsylvania. She is also the author of the Homefront Mysteries, set in Buffalo, NY in the early years of WWII. The series features Betty Ahern, a young woman doing her part for the war effort working at Bell Airplane while she nurses fantasies of being a private detective. Mary is a past president of the Pittsburgh Chapter of Sisters in Crime, as well as a member of International Thriller Writers and Pennwriters. In addition to all of that, she also works as a technical writer, which is a busy career in and of itself. Now an empty-nester, she lives outside Pittsburgh with her husband and a very spoiled retired-racer greyhound. In college, Mary was an English major and always thought she'd write the "great American novel". But then she got married, had children, and started a career, and the novel took a back seat to other priorities. At the time, she thought she was being productive but looking back on things, maybe not as productive as she could have been. For the last 10 years, she has finally been able to figure out what real productivity means to her, and how to go about achieving it. Mary's children are now grown so she more has time to do things she didn't have time for in the past. How Mary balances her technical writing career with writing novels It was initially difficult for Mary to switch back and forth between her career as a technical writer and her passion for writing mystery novels. Over time, though, Mary has learned how to compartmentalize the two and decide, this is the time to write the novel and this is the time to focus on the technical writing. Mary had a former editor who introduced her to the concept of the sacred writing hour. This is time that is dedicated to only working on her novel. She doesn't answer the phone, surf the internet, or let anything else distract her. Working on fiction is her sole focus. This hour is completed during Mary's most productive time of the day, which is between 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm. After the hour is up, Mary returns to her technical writing. This habit and mindset has been the key to balancing the two types of writing. A typical day Mary's most typical days often start with her dog waking her up at 6:30 am (he's the best alarm clock). She feeds the dog and then has some breakfast herself. After that, Mary tries to spend some time doing mindful reading to get her in the right frame of mind for the day. Right now she is reading a book of essays by G.K. Chesterton. She also enjoys reading biographies and other non-fiction books. From 7:00 am to noon, Mary focuses on her day job as a technical writer, which she does from home, thinking only about the tasks she needs to complete for work and nothing else. At noon she puts away her work computer, gets out her personal computer, and begins her sacred writing hour. She may also have her lunch during this time. After that, it's back to her job from 1:00 until about 3:30. In the afternoon, she might decompress by reading for pleasure, sit in her backyard and enjoy the quiet, or maybe attend to some personal business. When her husband comes home from work, they have dinner and spend time together. During the evenings, Mary says her only priority is her husband and she deliberately does not work.