We recently connected with Melissa Yi and have shared our conversation below.

Melissa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I wanted to write since I was six years old. But my parents wanted me to play it safe. I could become an engineer like my dad. A doctor was okay too.
Since I had zero desire to starve to death, and math was fine but physics seemed like a foreign language, I got down on my knees to pray to the gods of medicine. I could be useful in a zombie apocalypse! I could put a roof over my own head! And I could still write in my spare time, right?
Sure I could. And I did. Except …
Medicine keeps you hopping. Emergency medicine means literally working all night, often weekends and holidays. Hard to juggle that with a family, let alone writing for fun and not much profit.
I’m stubborn, though. I kept writing and doctoring and mothering and doing my best.
To some extent, it’s a symbiotic relationship. Medicine pared away the more lyrical aspects of my writing, but pushed me to become more direct and action-oriented in my storytelling.
Writing and mothering made me reflect on my medical practice and become a more compassionate physician.
Still, it’s a tripwire. Five years ago, I took a risk on my writing.
I didn’t want to abandon my patients, but I did need more space. So instead of working at two hospitals, I now work at one, part-time.
It’s not a big risk compared to some, but I feel responsible to my “day job.” I try to strike a balance between doctoring and creativity and my family, and some days, I succeed.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hello from Canada, but not from an igloo.

I juggle three main balls:

• Emergency medicine
• Writing
• Mothering

Some of my writing passions:

• Strong, kind women+
• Intelligent, kind men
• Brave kids
• The best dogs (which are all dogs). We have two rescue dogs, and every day I feel lucky to cuddle with Roxy, our 11-year-old Rottweiler mix
• Asian and other people of colour
• Laughter
• Food so good that you want to roll around on the floor
• Thrills
• Science
• Fairy tales
• Kissing
• Justice

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

“Why do you do it?” A man stopped by my book table and shook his head. He didn’t understand why I bothered. Hello, non-creative. I know to you, and to many concrete people, there is no point to my writing. Like one traveller said after I couldn’t tear myself away from the craft market in Botswana, “It’s all the same crap at every table.”
To you, my writing either has to make a ton of cash or leagues of prestige or I should stay home, eat Cheetos, and watch Netflix. My books have no value to you. Worse than no value, because I force you to process words, and paper books take up space. My books are a liability.
What to say to you?
Reading is good for you. Studies show that children who read before the age of ten are more compassionate than those who don’t. And what about your imagination? As George R.R. Martin pointed out, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
If you only want to live one life, mow your lawn, and go to sleep, then have at it.
But as Dead Poets Society put it, “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Sure. I already mentioned cutting back from two emergency rooms to one. I want to plug the FIRE movement (financial independence, retire early).

I know authors like Tanya Huff who find mortgage payments very motivating. I salute her and recommend her books. But for me, I find it hard to write on an empty stomach, wondering if I can afford bus fare for my kids’ field trips.

I also encountered ugly hospital politics and decided to pivot to FIRE.

In a nutshell, you need to work hard, keep your expenses low, and invest the difference in low cost funds. You don’t need a six figure job and a working spouse, but it definitely helps. Not gonna lie, my father was an early role model for investing, and I read enough early on to bet on index funds.

Now it’s easier than ever to learn about FIRE. You can search online and find people doing it with small incomes. The key is minimal expenses. As an environmentalist, I’ve never dropped a ton of cash on travel or things. I used to wear a T-shirt with a Mahatma Gandhi quote, “Live simply so others can simply live.”

I just want to live peacefully with my family, writing my stories on a healthy planet, including plants, animals, and homo sapiens.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.melissayuaninnes.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/melissa.yuaninnes
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MelissaYiYuanInnes/
• Linkedin: ca.linkedin.com/in/melissayuaninnes
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/dr_sassy
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MelissaYuanInnes
• Other: Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/melissayi/created Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/melissa-yi Goodreads: goodreads.com/author/show/4600856.Melissa_Yuan_Innes Author central: amazon.com/author/myi TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@myi_books Bluesky: @melissayi https://bsky.app/profile/melissayi.bsky.social

Image Credits
Andrew Alexander Jen Dupuis Holy Trinity librarian Alex Henkelman