Artists Who Had Full Time Jobs: Khaled Hosseini

In Grade 10 English, our assigned novel was Khaled Hosseini’s, The Kite Runner. The book captivated our class. I remember one of my friends, J, saying that he doesn’t usually read books but he couldn’t put this one down. It’s a book that left a mark on me and I still think about it to this day. 

Khaled Hosseini was born in Afghanistan when his family moved to the US when he was a teenager. He studied medicine in school and became a doctor for more than a decade. While still a doctor, he woke up at 4:30am every day and wrote for three hours:

Through most of 2001, while still a practicing physician, I woke at 4:30 a.m. daily and spent three hours alone in the early morning darkness with Amir, Hassan, Baba, and the rest of the souls populating The Kite Runner. Then I showered, dressed, and drove to the clinic to treat ailing hearts and aching joints and dormant thyroids. I listened to wheezing lungs and injected cortisone into frozen shoulders. But Amir never strayed far. I had a foot in his world every waking hour, and he in mine.

Sometimes it’s easy to make the excuse that I don’t have the time or energy to work on my creative projects with a full time job. Yet, there are so many examples of artists who also had full-time jobs and worked on their projects in their free time. 

Hearing about Hosseini’s journey is an inspiration to see.

If he can do it, then I can too.