Writing A Crime Series Around A Working Life
Writing a book series while holding a day job requires a different idea of progress. The manuscript is built in fragments: before the commute, during a lunch break, after dinner, or across a quiet Sunday morning. Paid work provides stability, yet it also claims the freshest hours and the mental energy needed for plotting, character development, and revision.
For Australian writers, the arrangement can involve long commutes in Sydney, shift work in regional Queensland, or a crowded household in Melbourne. A series also has commercial realities: a relatively small domestic market, strong independent booksellers, festival appearances, and the need to reach readers through international rights and translations. Heine Bakkeid’s Thorkild Aske novels offer a useful lens for considering how sustained fiction develops over time.
The Split Between Paycheque And Page
A day job creates a firm boundary around creative time. That boundary can be frustrating, but it can also prevent writing from expanding into an endless, guilt-filled obligation. When an author knows that only forty minutes are available after the train home, the session may become more focused than an entire unstructured day.
The difficulty is cognitive rather than purely practical. A worker may spend the day handling clients, machinery, reports, classrooms, or emergency decisions, then arrive at the page with little emotional bandwidth left. Crime fiction adds another demand: clues must remain coherent, motives must feel credible, and tension must rise without making the plot seem forced.
Small routines help preserve continuity. A writer might keep a scene map on a phone, dictate an observation while walking from a station, or use an early-morning session before the household wakes. The aim is not an impressive daily word count. It is maintaining contact with the fictional world often enough that the next session does not begin from zero.
A Series Needs A Long View
A standalone novel can be treated as a contained project. A series carries memory. The writer must remember what a protagonist has lost, which relationships remain damaged, what information the reader knows, and how earlier decisions limit later choices. A character such as Thorkild Aske has to develop across books without losing the qualities that made readers care about him in the first place.
This long view is particularly important when writing happens around employment. A single novel may take several years, and the author’s job, family circumstances, location, and available time can all change during that period. Notes therefore become part of the writing practice. A series bible can hold timelines, ages, locations, unresolved questions, and details that would otherwise disappear between sessions.
Planning also reduces the risk of drafting scenes that cannot be used. Before beginning a new instalment, it helps to identify the central crime, the emotional question, the turning points, and the ending. The outline can remain flexible, but it gives each short writing session a destination. This is valuable whether the next scene is written in a Brisbane café or at a kitchen table in Hobart.
Protecting Attention After Hours
The best use of limited time is often revision rather than raw production. On a tired weekday evening, an author may be able to tighten dialogue, check a timeline, or remove repetition even when inventing a new chapter feels impossible. Separating tasks by energy level creates a practical workflow: imaginative drafting for the weekend, structural work for a quiet morning, and line editing for the end of a long day.
Reading remains part of the job, too. Crime writers need to study voice, pacing, suspense, and the way other authors handle violence and aftermath. Bakkeid’s discussion of what I read shows how a reading life can extend beyond a single genre, giving a writer fresh forms, rhythms, and ideas to bring back to the manuscript.
Attention also needs protection from constant publishing noise. Checking sales rankings, social media, reviews, and industry news can consume the small amount of time available for actual writing. A day-job author may need a simple rule: create first, administer later. Even two uninterrupted sessions each week can be more productive than many distracted attempts.
| Working reality | Common effect | Useful response |
|---|---|---|
| Long commute or irregular shifts | Fragmented attention | Keep portable notes and audio ideas |
| Family and household duties | Unpredictable sessions | Set a minimum weekly writing target |
| Several books in development | Continuity errors | Maintain a series bible |
| Limited Australian market | Pressure for immediate sales | Build readership over multiple releases |
| International rights activity | Extra correspondence and deadlines | Reserve separate administrative blocks |
The Commercial Life Between Drafts
Completing a manuscript is only one stage of a series. Editing, cover decisions, publicity, bookseller relationships, reviews, translation arrangements, and rights discussions all require time. For an author with another job, these tasks can arrive just when the next book needs attention.
Australia’s publishing geography adds its own complications. An author based outside Sydney or Melbourne may need to manage events remotely or plan carefully around flights. Appearances at Adelaide Writers’ Week, a local library festival, or a regional bookstore can build meaningful connections, yet each event may require annual leave, travel costs, and preparation. Even the friendly promise to “catch up for a coffee” can become a major logistical commitment when distances are measured in hours.
The domestic market rewards patience. Australian readers support local crime fiction, independent bookshops, libraries, and festivals, but the population is smaller than those of the United States or the United Kingdom. International editions can therefore be important to a series’ reach. A professional author website that records publication details, reviews, translations, and press coverage gives readers, journalists, and rights professionals a dependable reference point.
Making The Work Sustainable
A sustainable writing life accepts that output will vary. There may be a productive winter when the commute is manageable, followed by a demanding quarter at work when only notes can be made. Treating every interruption as failure creates unnecessary pressure and can make the series feel like a second employer.
Health and emotional boundaries matter especially in crime fiction. Research into addiction, trauma, policing, grief, or violence can affect the writer’s mood long after a session ends. Bakkeid’s reflections on writing addiction illustrate why difficult subject matter benefits from thoughtfulness rather than sensational treatment. The author needs space to step away from the fictional darkness and return to ordinary life.
The most reliable system is modest: decide when writing happens, record each session’s next step, protect a manageable weekly target, and review progress by completed scenes rather than daily fantasies of productivity. For a writer balancing employment and a long-running crime series, the practical takeaway is simple: preserve continuity, protect attention, and let steady work accumulate into the next book.