Salieri

I did a little detective work yesterday to find out who got the job I interviewed for back at the beginning of April. I knew that the school's board of governors had to approve new hires, so I looked up the agenda for their May meeting. There were three positions at the school, and all three went to current faculty. They have all been adjuncts there for six or seven years, and one has a Ph.D. With that competition, I completely understand why I didn't get the job. The school already knows those people, and they have more experience (and one has more education) than I do. When I looked up that information, I was hoping to find what I did. The odds were against me to start with, and I figure I would have had to completely blow them away with my interview and teaching demonstration in order for them to decide to hire me instead of their local folks, so it doesn't mean much against me that I wasn't hired.

If anything, it's a good sign that I was interviewed at all since I also found out that they had ninety-seven applications. I don't know exactly how many people were interviewed, but I doubt it was more than ten or twelve. So the fact that I made it to the top few out of nearly a hundred seems like a really good sign. They spent several hundred dollars to fly me out there, so they were at least considering me somewhat seriously even if they ultimately decided to go with people they already knew. So the good news is that my application materials must look decent since I'm getting interviews, and I don't feel like I'm doing something major to shoot myself in the foot when I interview (although, obviously, I could have done something better to impress them enough that they would hire me instead of their local folks).

But the bad news is that this experience reiterates how hard it is to actually land a full-time job. After all, the people who got the job had been adjuncts for four or five years longer than I have been before they finally managed to land full-time jobs. For one job posting, there were ninety-seven applications. For another recent job for which I got a phone interview but not an in-person interview, there were 125 applications. (And for the Wisconsin fellowship I didn't get, there were five hundred applications for six fellowships). To actually land a job, I need to be the top choice, not merely qualified or pretty good or in the top ten. I need to be in the top one percent or fraction of one percent. And that's tough.

Growing up, I was a top student. According to GPA, I graduated in the top three percent of my high school class. I'm a member of Mensa, which means I test in the top two percent of the population for IQ. I made it to grad school twice. I had a 4.0 GPA for my time in my MFA program and nearly that for all my other schooling. According to standard measurements, I'm very intelligent and capable, and I'll be a top candidate for various positions throughout life. But my guess is that I look pretty much the same as the other applicants for any of these jobs. One doesn't get into or through grad school in the first place unless one is highly intelligent and capable. Obviously, the school chose to interview me, so maybe I looked better than eighty-five of the applicants. But it's quite possible that I'm never going to be the number one guy, and with this kind of competition, even if I'm number two, I don't get the job.

The same thing is true for publishing. It's not enough to be good or decent. One has to be the absolute top in order to get published. One's story has to be better than the other hundred or five hundred or thousand stories that the magazine is considering. The odds are stacked against ever breaking through. It's not impossible, of course. People get published. People get jobs. And certainly there is the possibility to get lucky. Maybe a magazine will need to fill a few more pages before going to print, so they'll accept something halfway decent just to finish up. Or a school might have their first few choices turn down job offers and hire somebody they aren't quite as impressed with. But to really succeed it's not enough to be in the top ten percent or five percent or two percent or maybe even one percent.

And, of course, the reality is disheartening. When it comes to writing, I feel confident that my writing is good. The fact that I get personal feedback from journals is enough to indicate that I'm not completely deluding myself that my stories are well written. But that's not enough. I'm clearly not the top one in a thousand. Maybe I'm in the top five in a hundred, but so are thousands of other writers, who are also getting rejected. When it comes to teaching, I suspect that if I just keep at it long enough, I'll someday be the top candidate; eventually my experience will build up to the tipping point. But it's tough to think about continuing to work part time and make so little money and have no benefits for another five years.

Routine

One of the things I've found is effective for me as a writer, and just in life in general, is having a routine. The most productive I've ever been was a couple years ago, shortly after grad school before I started teaching as an adjunct. Two major things I had going on at that time were getting into shape and writing. And I was able to develop a routine for both, exercising regularly, reading, and writing each day. I think my ideal day would go something like this: get up around eight or nine, drink coffee and read for two to four hours, eat, read some more, exercise, write, eat again, and then write or read or maybe watch a movie later in the evening, and in bed by midnight or so. What a life that would be. And I pretty much had that for a few months, and in that time I lost about thirty-five pounds of extra fat, did substantial rewrites on a novel, worked on some stories, worked a bit on a screenplay, and wrote an entire rough draft of a children's novel. It was a fantastic life. But, of course, the need to actually pay rent, to buy food, and to pay back the debt I acquired while in grad school required that I get a job.

For the past year and a half, I've had a much different life. I've been working two jobs, teaching and retail. Some days I would work both jobs back to back, leaving at seven in the morning and getting home at ten at night. Other days I would grade papers at home before going to the store in the evening. And while my classes were on the same schedule for a semester at a time, my retail job required me to work a variety of hours each week. I still somehow found some writing time, but not nearly as much as I'd like, and I could never develop a solid routine. If I wanted to make Friday a writing day, that might work one week, but then the next week I'd be at the store all day. Often I worked seven days a week and then when I'd get a day off I just wanted to completely zone out in front of the TV. The lack of a consistent routine really makes finding time to write a challenge.

But I'm beginning a new stage right now. The bookstore is closing down. Tuesday is the last day it will be open, and by Thursday, it will be completely empty. Although I'm sad for the people who are losing their jobs, this works out perfectly for me. I had been considering quitting for a while since I started teaching more classes and making more money from the college. This semester I got a raise and will now make about as much just from teaching as I made last semester from the two jobs combined. And the thing I'm most looking forward to about only having the one job is that I can now develop a steady routine.

I will only be teaching two days a week this semester, Mondays and Wednesdays. I have four classes back to back and then office hours as well as my hour-plus commute to campus, so they will be long days. Then, of course, I'll have to prep for classes and grade papers at home during the rest of the week. But I can now schedule my time much more accurately since there won't be an unpredictable variable anymore. So I plan on devoting the extra time each week when I had been working at the bookstore to writing. I can schedule my time myself and set aside the same regular hours. I can develop my own routine. Of course, it takes a while to get into a groove with a routine. The store is only now closing, and I plan on visiting family soon before I'm too bogged down in the semester to take a weekend off. But starting in a couple of weeks, I plan on instituting a new routine, setting specific goals for my time, and using this semester to full advantage.

One final thought on this subject: I found out recently that I'm going to get to go to the Advanced Placement English Reading this summer to evaluate AP English exams. It's one week in June and pays an honorarium equivalent to one of my regular teaching paychecks. That extra money, on top of what I intend to save throughout the semester, should be plenty to get me through the summer and up to the point where I'm paid again in September even if I have no other source of summer income. So that means that if I don't teach a summer class or get another part time summer job, I could devote about three months this summer to writing. I could have the ideal life once again, get a solid routine in place, and be incredibly productive. What a lovely thought that is.

Making a Living

One thing that I suspect many of us don't fully appreciate when we head off to grad school to study writing is how difficult it can be to actually make a living. I knew that it would be tough or unlikely that I would manage to pay rent and buy food and essentials solely from writing, but I more or less assumed that once I completed my graduate degrees I would be able to land a full time teaching job. Even when I was directly told that wasn't necessarily the case, I don't think it fully sunk in. Now I realize just how difficult it is. I've read statistics that even a majority of folks with Ph.D.s in English cannot find full time professorships. As I look for jobs, I realize that I don't even meet the minimum requirements for most full time positions.

At the university level, they want substantial publication credits, which I don't have yet, or a Ph.D., which I don't have. Many universities require a Ph.D. even to teach the basic composition courses. At the community college level, they want experience. I'm currently in my seventh year of teaching, but the first five years were in grad school, which I've come to understand doesn't count for much. The key number at the community college level seems to be three to five years, and I'm in my second year at the community college. The notion that I will someday have a full time job is not unrealistic. I suspect it's within the next five years. But that's much longer than I expected it would take when I was in grad school.

I remember a professor in grad school who was talking about being a professor and what a noble calling it was and how nobody should pursue that life just for the money because there are so many other jobs out there where one can make much more money. I thought at the time he was full of it, and I still do. Those of us who spend years in grad school essentially don't have other marketable skills. Sure, I can work retail, but that pays far worse than teaching. It's not like my MFA qualifies me to work on Wall Street. The reality is that many of us who earn MFAs need to teach for a living because we don't really have other reasonable options.

But the nice thing is that even though I don't have a full time job and adjunct teaching doesn't really pay a professional wage in proportion to my level of education and experience, it's still a decent paying part time job, or at least it can be (I guess I'm lucky enough to have landed a position that pays toward the high end of the adjunct scale). For 2009, I will have made more money than I've ever made in my life. My taxable income will be about double what it's ever previously been. So that's not all bad (of course, I've essentially been on or below the poverty line my entire adult life). But even so, it still feels like I'm getting a bit ripped off. I teach four classes a semester. Full timers at my school teach five. If I had a full time position, I'd make close to double what I make now, plus I'd have benefits like insurance. That's a ridiculous difference. Plus, there's the factor that I'm technically part time, but teaching isn't like other part time jobs. I have to take my work home with me. I'm emotionally invested in the progress of my students. I work weekends. I stay up late at night grading papers. But the reality is this: what other choice do I have?

I think there are a couple of ways to think about this pickle. One is to realize that my efforts now will (I hope) pay off in a few years. It often sucks to be an adjunct. But in a few years, when I land a full time job, I'll be in a much better position. If I were to abandon teaching in favor of a better paying low-level office job, I could do that and probably make more money right now. But there wouldn't be much future in that. If I were to get a $10 an hour job filing paperwork or answering phones, I'd be okay, but ten years from now, I'd still only be making $11 an hour or something. But if I put up with the hassles of being an adjunct for a couple more years, I could be making double what I make now, maybe triple or quadruple. My professor was totally wrong: it does make sense to get into teaching for the money. Although the money isn't great now, I'm sowing the seeds that will grow in the future.

The second thing I think I have to consider is that it might be useful to reevaluate my efforts. I'm working a part time job. A full time professor at my school is expected to teach five classes, advise students, attend faculty meetings and so forth. I'm only expected to teach four classes. So if a full time position is forty hours per week, then my job should be less than thirty. I'm at school in the classroom or office hours about eighteen hours a week. So I shouldn't reasonably spend more than about ten additional hours grading papers or doing prep work. If I spend more time than that, then I'm really a bit of a sucker, working on my own time rather than the time I get paid for. But that is how I've regularly worked. I ordinarily spend much more time than that because I care about my students and I want them to succeed, and how much they get out of my class depends on how much work I put into the class. But is that fair? Should I care? Is it reasonable to expect me to put out that much effort for the amount I'm being compensated? I honestly think I should do less work. Maybe what this means is that I should collect fewer drafts of papers so I have less work to do at home. I should write fewer notes on students' work and adopt a simpler rubric for grading, where all I have to do is check a few boxes. The advantage to me would be obvious, yet I feel like my students would suffer. But then again, If I reduced my efforts I think my students would probably get a comparable experience to what they get from other teachers. I've often had grateful students say how nice it is to get such detailed feedback from me, which leads me to believe they aren't getting that elsewhere, and I've had students say that in their other writing courses, the teacher's expectations seem to be nothing more than that a student hand in a paper that is typed, that the quality of thought and skill are not full evaluated. If I lowered my standards and made my life easier, I think I would then be a fairly average teacher. Maybe being average is fine. After all, I'm not being paid to be above average.

I don't know. I can probably do some of that, streamline my process a bit to make my life easier. But I don't know if I could ever fully detach myself from my students. I really wish I could. It would be nice not to think or care about them. But I do care.

Anyway, back to the main point. The need to make a living is a giant obstacle that has to be overcome. The greatest thing a writer needs is time to write, but when one is trying to pay bills, it becomes tough to find enough time. Maybe the issue really is just that I have to put up with the unfortunate situation now and things will be easier down the line. If I can manage to publish enough in the next few years, then maybe I'll actually land a full time creative writing professorship some day. And then I'll be able to teach fewer classes, make enough money just from teaching where I won't have to worry about additional income in the breaks between semesters, and basically it will feel like I've got tons of time to write. But actually reaching that point is tough.

I think one of the toughest things for me to accept about the dreaded real world that we all must enter when we leave school is how hard it is at the beginning. I always figured it would be easier at the start and would get harder as one went throughout life, but I actually think it's the opposite. When one is young, one still has all the expenses of an adult life, but one has less ability to make an income that will fully cover those expenses. I figure my basic needs won't substantially change in the next ten or twenty years, except that I have loans to pay off now that will be paid off then, so basically I need more money now than I will need in ten years. Yet my earning ability will likely be far higher in the future than it is now. Right now I'm barely scraping by, but if I have a full time professorship in ten years, I'll have more money than I need. It just seems unfair that I can't swap out my situations and make that money now and then comfortably live on less then.

Finding Time

As I'm sure any amateur writer can relate, it's tough to find time to write. Not to suggest that my situation is tougher than other people's, but my situation is tougher than other people's. Just joshing. Actually, I think it's in some ways easier to find time to write now than it was back in grad school. It's weird. In grad school, I was there to write. That was the whole point, and yet there were so many other things going on. I was teaching and tutoring, reading and studying for classes, reading and studying for the comps exam, reading and commenting on other writers' work for workshop, grading papers, preparing for classes. With all of that going on at once, it often became a struggle to find spare moments to actually do the thing that supposedly was the point of being there. I mean I still did. I wrote a whole novel and rewrote it and workshopped parts of it and revised and showed it to faculty and revised and defended it as my thesis. I did a lot of writing, more than many of my fellow students in fact. But it still felt hard.

Now I'm in a situation that could also be described as tough to find writing time. I teach as adjunct faculty at a community college, and I work at a bookstore. I'm either in class or in office hours about eight hours a week, plus I spend probably another ten or so at home doing prep work, and that's when I don't have papers to grade or in class assignments to read over, which most of the time I do. So my teaching job is probably somewhere in the range of a twenty t0 thirty hour a week part time position. Then I also work at a bookstore twenty to thirty hours a week. So basically, although I don't have a full time job with the better pay and benefits that come with such employment, I work at least forty hours a week, usually more like fifty or sixty hours a week. Plus, both jobs require a half hour plus commute from home. I sometimes manage to have one day a week where I don't actually have to GO to work, but then even if I stay home, there's teaching stuff to take care of, so it's not really the same as a real day off.

Yet, despite all this, as I wrote above, I feel like I have more time to write. The trick seems to be in using the time I have. For instance, today I taught in the morning, had office hours, and then I have a couple hours before working an eight hour shift at the bookstore. So in that break, I'm obviously writing this blog, but then when I'm done I'm going to sit and go over my novel with a red pen. I've been squeezing in a bit of revising on the computer in the evenings or on afternoons before or after teaching, whenever I have some spare moments and I'm actually at home. Then I print those revised pages and take them with me so I can do even just a few pages at a time on my half hour lunch break. When I take advantage of that free minutes, even when they're few, I can still get work done.

I set the goal for myself to have my novel revised once more by the end of the month. I'm more than two thirds of the way through now, so I think I'll meet that goal in the next few days. It's a tough life, but whose life isn't? Part of what helps me plow through is the thought that time spent writing isn't merely something fun I do for myself (although it is), and it's not only a dream of achieving something that might connect with people (although it's that too), but on a pure practical level, it's a way to advance my career. Right now I'm working this hard because I don't have much option in the way of full time employment. I can't get a steady job, so I have to do what I'm doing. But if I work hard on my writing and get published, new doors will open for me, and I'll be able to land a good full time teaching job that currently I'm not qualified for. So it can be hard to sit down after a long day of working two jobs, or after spending hours grading freshman essays, or simply after sitting in my car driving through freeway traffic, but if I want to be in a position in the future where I don't have to do those things, I have to sit down and do the extra work now. So far I'm doing it. Here's hoping I can keep it up as long as it takes.