A Quote by Chang-Rae Lee

My writing day follows my family's day. I get a good few hours in the mornings when the kids are out of the house. And I don't work at night any more. I like to see my family.
When I'm writing, which is 8-9 months out of the year, I'm in a concerted writing pace, where I work 5 days a week for at least a few hours a day, maybe a little bit more. But I won't work for more than 2 hours at a time. I'll work for a couple hours and take a break.
Most of the time is with the family. Most of the time, is all the time. When we work it's a very intensive chunk of time. We work for 12 hours a day, 14 hours a day is common. And we'll do that for a few months and then we get to relax a little bit.
Days were tough to pass. So, I used to work out in the mornings and sleep during the day. I turned day into night, night into day.
I work a lot in the summers. My family goes to Maine, where we have a little house. My wife's a writer, too, and we can write for six hours a day and then play with the kids.
I hate morning workout; I'm a night person more. But it's good to work out in the mornings because then you can have all day free.
While I have historically been a late worker, you know, sometimes I even like to get up early and see what's happened in the few hours of the night and then I often take a nap in the middle of the day just to sort of make up for stretching my day out.
I got a family house for everybody to live in - my mom, my sisters and I. And I made sure that it has a separate apartment downstairs for myself. Family is more important than anything. We don't come from any money. So once I get them settled in, in a nice house, then I'll branch out and see if I can get something else.
I moved to Hollywood when I was 22. I was married. I had a kid right away. And I had worked as a furniture mover amongst various other jobs, and I'd work eight, ten hours a day to support my family - and I'd come home and write for two hours a night or two and a half, or three hours a night.
A really good day for me is to write my book for about four hours, go to the writing room for about four hours and then maybe come back to the book to finish the day for a few more hours of it.
I tend to write during the day so I can see my children at night. But if my kids aren't with me and I have a chunk of time when I'm a single woman living in my house for a miraculous week, I will get to write at different hours.
[Late-night host] is not really a job for a woman. You can't have kids and be a late-night host.I mean Samantha Bee has children, but you're there all day and all night. No one has a life outside of it. I would never try to have a family. I care much more about a career anyway, than having a family, so that's my own prerogative. It's just not something that a woman.
I work every day hard. I put my body through hell. Let me tell you, every year, seven months of the year, I don't see my family. Year in, year out. I miss my kids. Kid's birthdays, anniversaries. I'll never be able to go back and be with my family.
Not everybody even gets to live with their own family because they have to go to L.A. or New York or wherever to work and find a job and leave their family back home. But every day, I get to work with my family - if I want to.
I used to work in kitchens, doing 12 or more hours a day of physical labor, so today, eight to 12 hours of cooking, chatting or filming feels like a vacation. When I have a scheduled 'day off,' I spend several hours writing, then I clean until I crash from fatigue. I don't relax well.
When it’s too good, you do it over again. Too good is too easy. If it’s too easy you have to worry. If you’re not lying awake at night worrying about it, the reader isn’t going to, either. I always know that when I get a good night’s sleep, the next day I’m not going to get any work done. Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It’s not all inspirational.
People will work eight hours a day for pay, 10 hours a day for a good boss, and 24 hours a day for a good cause!
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