After Tina Gollings gets her kids off to school, she comes home to a quiet house and opens her laptop.

As a fiction writer and novelist, she wear a lot of hats. She has to be a marketer, an editor, a writer and a networker.

“So, each day looks a little different, depending on which ‘hat’ is most urgent,” Gollings explained of her work. “Currently, my days largely consist of rewriting the last chapters of the science fiction novel I’ve been working on. Usually, my writing day ends when my kids get home from school.”

The Mirror asked the Federal Way resident the following questions about her work and message to girls who aspire to be in her field, as the Mirror highlights women in the community in recognition of International Women’s Day and Women’s History month.

Q: How long have you worked in this field?

A: I became serious about writing as a career in 2015.

Q: How did you get into this type of work?

A: I have known I wanted to be an author since I was 7. Writing has always been a passion, and sometimes a compulsion. However, I didn’t realize that writing novels was something I could and should pursue seriously until I entered my 30s.

Q: Why do you enjoy your job?

A: My mind naturally creates story. It’s not something I can help. The joy is translating those stories onto paper as closely as possible to the way I see and feel them in my mind. Finding the perfect metaphor or a particularly beautiful sentence makes all the striving worth it. There is also joy in the process. Writing a novel is difficult, and so every small success and every evidence of growth is a satisfying victory. Last year my novel took first place in a writing contest. Successes like that are exhilarating and keep me motivated to press on.

Q: What is your message to young girls who hope to be in this field one day?

A: There is always room for you. No one can write the stories that you can write. People will tell you how hard it is to be a writer in this era, and they’re right. But don’t let that be your reason for not trying. Of course writing is difficult, everything worth anything is difficult in some way. If you have a story to tell, the goal is achievable and the work is worth it. But, do keep your day job — just in case it turns out you’re not the next J. K. Rowling.