Here's what I learned writing fiction while launching my career as a business journalist

Book sabbaticals aren’t uncommon among journalists, but I found creative writing and reporting complementary.

After working as a business reporter for over a year, I self-published my second book, Life Between Moments: New York Stories in August 2022. Book sabbaticals aren’t uncommon among journalists, but I felt I’d get far more from keeping my day job while completing my creative writing outside of work hours.

I was able to finish the book in 11 months by writing 30 minutes a day after work and on weekends. No single session required a massive effort, but in never missing days, I was able to chip away enough to finish the book relatively fast, as I explained in my slideshow for Insider. 

This “small-bites” approach kept my book always top of mind, and also saved me from seeing it as an overwhelming burden. 

The discipline of reporting sharpened my creative writing

The daily, high-metabolism pace of markets and economics reporting has allowed me to improve through volume. On average, I write over 2,000 words a day at my job. That steep output helped me find my voice, sharpen my skills, and accelerate my writing speed. 

Since my book is fewer than 140 pages, that comes out to a little more than writing one page a day for 11 months — a fraction of my daily professional output. 

Additionally, the spare language that business journalism demands gave my creative writing more punch. It tamed my flowery language and minimized jargon. 

And with coaching from veteran editors at work, I became more competent in organizing a story in a logical, coherent way, which directly impacted my short stories.

Meanwhile, my job requires me to write granular, in-the-weeds stories about specific stocks or commodities. On other occasions, I’m tasked with explaining a big-picture concept or broader economic trend. 

I found that the ability to zoom in and out on a story can be a powerful literary device in fiction.

Those are two different skills. It’s like connecting the dots, versus writing individual dots.

Consider John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. In alternating chapters, he would switch between writing sections on the main characters’ stories, and then chapters framed as a pulled-back explanation of trends, themes, and history happening outside of the plot. 

Writing fiction helped me use more of my voice in journalism

In inventing fiction at night, my sense of narrative evolved and I use those skills at work. 

Think about how not all fiction starts at the beginning of a story. It’s a fantastic tool outside of fiction, too. In books and movies, it’s common for the first scene to show the ending, like in Japan-based journalist Jake Adelstein’s memoir (and HBO show), Tokyo Vice. 

The technique thrusts the reader directly into the heat of things, and conveys a sense of immediacy. Especially in fast-paced markets, some readers like starting as close to the end as possible. 

Fiction, as a creative outlet, lends itself to more experimental ways of writing. It gave me a canvas to practice varying my sentence structures and length. I learned the power of one-word sentences and sentence fragments. 

Like this.

More punch.

See?

And I’ve taken those ideas to my journalism, which makes my reporting sound less formal and more conversational — it put more of my own voice into my journalism. 

Something else I gleaned from writing as well as reading fiction is that readers attach themselves to characters. The most memorable ones mirror our own lives and problems and shortcomings. 

In the same way, readers of the news like to read about characters, too. When I report on character-driven business stories, like how one investor lost money on a bad bet, they always attract more readers than stories about vague, amorphous concepts, like “the economy” or “the blockchain.”

Keeping side projects outside work are key to personal growth

While the importance of a job are obvious, less talked about are the merits of voluntarily pursuing work outside of work.

Writing my book, for example, gave me purpose. It gave me an extensive project I was in charge of and responsible for, and it made me better at my job while upgrading skills I was interested in.

The book also has improved my standing as a writer and increased my professional marketability.

The fact I completed it voluntarily and on my own schedule, with no one telling me to do so, improved my sense of initiative, discipline, and ambition. Those same attributes accompany any side project, whether that's a book, blog, podcast, YouTube, or something else. Side projects are entrepreneurial in nature, and force you to view yourself as a stand-alone individual, rather than a cog within a larger company.

While it may seem like writing a book outside of work could add to a feeling of burnout, I found it energizing. I looked forward to writing every evening after work. It was something to call my own, and I also knew that sticking with it would bolster my journalism career.

Plus, I see my book as something that gives me more credibility in the realm of fiction — something that business reporting would never give me.

Writing my book also helped me scratch an itch that my job couldn't reach. It gave me an outlet for creativity and invention that the news doesn't facilitate.

My bestselling short story collection is available now on Amazon.

Complement this reading with how I built a writing habit over seven years, lessons from the brilliant Susan Sontag, and an article on why even your dream job won't be perfect.