For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer. I wrote poems in elementary school, entered literary contests in middle school, and was a part-time contributor (what they called a “stringer”) for the local newspaper in high school.

Yet, somehow, I ended up with a degree in Computer Science and a career in software development.

Software is easier. It is objective: the code you create either works or it doesn’t. You keep iterating until it does. It also pays very well. Or at least it did. AI seems to be shaking some of that up.

But the inner call to write never let up. If anything, it became louder over the years.

In theory, there was never anything stopping me from writing even if it wasn’t my day job. Aside from the heaviest of schedules during child raising, I’ve had plenty of free hours that could be spent doing something other watching television or surfing the internet.

My experience, though, is that writing isn’t something I can just turn on and off like a faucet. There’s a “zone” that I can’t seem to access unless I tune out all other distractions, the noisiest of which are in my own head.

I would often wake up in the morning, getting prepared for a day of meetings and problem solving, wishing that, instead, I had freedom of that day stretched before me—-time where I could silence the noise, greet my inner muse, and produce what I hoped would be works of art, beauty and insight.

My wishes eventually manifested into reality when I found myself—partially voluntary and involuntary—with all the time in the world. I was without a job and with enough savings to float me for a while.

A dream come true.

So what happened?

I was still struggling just as much as before. The only difference was that I had more free hours to fill. I found lots of ways to fill them other than writing—mostly through traveling.

It turns out it wasn’t my job that kept me from writing.

It was me.

So I still got in my own way, but with less income.

Slowly but surely, I’m finding my footing though.

The travel bug is wearing thin. I feel the urge to be more settled again.

I’ve written 40K words towards my first novel. The one I’ve always wanted to write.

And now I’ve created a substack.

I did need the time—not so much in order to do the writing, but to find my way to the writer.