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I might have been one of the creative types who knows how to structure her own time, to make herself make something on a regular basis. Instead, I am the sort who requires a career to contrast with my calling; in other words, I need a day job to butt up against my writing time, and drive me to be efficient and productive in both pursuits.

I’m a video game producer by day, and an aspiring author by ridiculously early morning. I cozy up to the solitude found in the dead of night. Being adjacent to visual artists, narrative designers, and marketing managers during work hours provides a bit of playful spark and sparkle, yet my duties as the adult in the room ultimately drain my social reservoirs. So I rest for a spell before sitting down at my laptop to let the flow state buoy my spirits. Being “on” for ten hours a day is difficult for an introvert like me, but I know that writing rebuilds my ability to be fit for human consumption. If I skip a day, I grow unfocused and irritable. What’s bottled up inside bubbles up and spills out in the stickiest of ways.

So I do write most days. I judge myself by word count rather than duration because I write in long sentences and short snatches. I am not a prolific composer; I tend to indulge my inner editor, who hovers over every key on the keyboard, but none so heavily as “delete.”

Still, it works for me: I have a chick lit novel I am revising to resubmit to two agents interested in representing me, and I am drafting a memoir about my six years employed on “Call of Duty,” the ultraviolent, male-dominated, first-person shooter franchise that also happens to be the largest entertainment IP in the world. I make progress in fits and starts (mostly fits). Eventually, I wind up printing out stacks of pages and carrying the unbound manuscript around the house hugged close to my chest like the child it is to me.

What could have been had I embraced writing like a profession? I suppose I’ll never know because the tension between obligation and freedom keeps me tilting and leaning, ducking and dancing, in an attempt to balance professional and personal achievement. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.