What If the Thing You’re Best at Is Something You Haven’t Tried Yet? | Tim Mulligan
What keeps you putting off something you’ve wanted to do for years?
Get To Know Tim Mulligan
Tim Mulligan, lawyer, published author, award-winning playwright and public speaker, returns to Adventures in Business with Amani Roberts and Mandi Graziano. He started writing plays in his 50s during the pandemic, hoping he could finish just one script. That script became Witchland, a play inspired by his hometown that reached stages in New York, Palm Springs and San Diego before becoming a graphic novel. Tim shares how he makes time to write while working as a chief HR officer, including weekends in Palm Springs where he clears his calendar and gets to work.
Finish the Thing Before You Decide Where It Can Go
Tim Mulligan didn’t sit down to write his first play with plans for a New York production. He wanted to find out whether he could finish a script.
He began writing plays during the pandemic, in his 50s, while continuing his career in HR. His hometown of Richland, Washington, gave him the setting for Witchland, a horror story inspired by life near a nuclear cleanup site and a woman who frightened him growing up.
“My goal was just to see if I could push myself and complete a script, just as a project.”
The play reached stages in New York, Palm Springs and San Diego. But none of that was guaranteed when he started. Finishing something he was happy with would have been an accomplishment on its own.
Tim’s advice for trying something creative is to:
Choose something you’ve wanted to do
Make time to work on it
Give yourself a project you can finish
See it through before deciding whether to continue
Recognize the accomplishment before judging the response
“Finish something, and then take a few steps back and assess and see if you want to continue doing it or not.”
You don’t have to know whether your first project will become a business, a second career or something you do again. Tim found out what was possible by finishing the script.
Make Room for the Way You Actually Work
Tim writes plays and graphic novels while serving as chief HR officer at California Coast Credit Union. Making room for both requires knowing when and where he does his best work. For him, that place is his home in Palm Springs.
He gets up around 6 a.m. on Saturdays and can spend hours writing. He looks forward to those weekends, but he has to protect them. When he plans to write for two days, he avoids filling those days with other commitments.
“It’s not like I can just grab a laptop and go to Starbucks and knock out a chapter. That’s not me.”
Tim needs a peaceful setting where he can put other responsibilities aside and concentrate. Knowing that helps him plan time he will actually use.
Making room for your own work can mean:
Finding the setting where you concentrate best
Blocking time before other commitments fill it
Being realistic about what you can accomplish
Giving your creative work regular attention
Choosing a routine you look forward to returning to
During the workday, Tim focuses on his HR responsibilities. His writing gets its own time and attention. He has built a schedule that lets him keep doing both.
Pay Attention to What Catches Your Interest
At a company strategic planning retreat, Tim listened to a presentation about bank fraud. The speaker began explaining pig butchering schemes, in which scammers build relationships with people before persuading them to send money.
Tim immediately saw the possibility for a play.
“I looked at the people around me and said, ‘This is my next play.’”
He went home that night and outlined it. A year later, Pig Butchered was preparing for its premiere. Other ideas have arrived the same way. An article about animal testing near his hometown inspired Ditchland. A documentary introduced him to Ghost Month, which became the subject of another play.
Tim follows those moments of interest by:
Noticing the details that make him curious
Researching the story behind them
Imagining how they could work on a stage or page
Getting an outline down while the idea is fresh
Staying open to ideas during his everyday work
Mandi Graziano describes this as developing a mental muscle. Once you begin creating, you start noticing possibilities you might have passed over before.
Tim’s friends have noticed it, too. When something unusual happens, someone will warn the group that Tim might write a play about it.
Give Finished Work Your Attention
After writing five graphic novels and completing his fourth play, Tim found himself wondering whether he should immediately start something else.
He gets restless without a project. But he also has finished work that needs his attention.
“There’s two big parts to this, sides to this coin. One is creating the thing. And the second is getting the thing out there.”
Publishing a book or finishing a script brings another set of questions. Who will read it? Who might stage it? How will people hear about it? Witchland became a graphic novel partly because people kept asking when they could see the play in their cities. Tim couldn’t easily arrange productions everywhere, but he could give them another way to experience the story.
Giving completed work more attention can include:
Returning to a project you haven’t promoted recently
Finding another format for the story
Planning time for marketing and outreach
Helping interested people find or buy the work
Taking a break from creating to support what you’ve finished
Tim decided to take a writing break and focus on that work. He still expects another idea to catch his attention. For now, he wants to give the stories he has already written a chance to reach more people.
Resources Mentioned
🔗 Explore Tim Mulligan's stories
🔗 Get Tickets for Pig Butchered
🔗 Find the Witchland on Instagram
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