I just read the post on the MFA/MFYou blog about setting priorities in one's life, which is an issue I've been pondering a lot recently. As I get closer to landing a full-time teaching job, I've been daydreaming a lot about what my life will be like once I'm in that position. I had an interview a few days ago, and questions came up about my view of the term "professional development" and job duties outside of the classroom. I think I was able to answer those questions satisfactorily. I expressed interest in a variety of possibilities, such as serving on committees, working with student organizations, developing podcasts to supplement my coursework, attending professional development seminars, evaluating Advanced Placement exams, and so forth. Since the interview, I've thought even more about these things and have played out various scenarios for the future in which I take additional classes at the local university and complete an advanced writing teacher certification program or maybe another degree. I think of how I can make myself as attractive as possible for advancement and tenure or for other full time jobs down the road.
Now those are all good possibilities, but those are also things that take a lot of time and effort. So the question is whether I want to devote myself to those things at the possible expense of my writing. And this is really tough to evaluate.
One particular issue I've been considering is how I should best use my summers if I get a full-time job. It turns out that at the school I just interviewed, all full-timers are contracted for the regular school year, and any summer teaching is done for additional pay as adjuncts. This means that I could simply decide not to teach during the summer and take that time completely for my own writing. Or I could teach additional classes that perhaps I don't have the opportunity to do during the regular school year. Teaching extra classes would be a great way to expand my experience as well as make more money. The extra cash could go straight toward paying down my student loans or into savings. Choosing to teach extra classes would certainly have a lot of benefits. But I know it will be tough to write much during the school year when I'm teaching full time, so that extra time during the summer could be my primary way of maintaining an investment in my writing. But how do I weigh the various options against each other?
Part of me kind of feels like I need to reevaluate my writing goals significantly, that I need to sort of step back from how I think about writing and myself as a writer. I don't mean that I'm planning on giving up writing, but I sometimes feel like I let it dominate my thoughts too much. I think of myself as a writer. It's a major part of my identity. Therefore, when I don't find time or can't muster the effort to write, I feel like I'm unsure who I am, like I've lost part of myself and am living somebody else's life. Also, when I continue to get rejected when I send out my stories, I have trouble reconciling that failure with my image of myself as a writer, and rather than simply undermining my confidence in my abilities to do an activity I enjoy, it undermines my entire sense of self.
I'm mostly able to counter doubts and fears and whatever else by reminding myself that I'm still awfully young. It's unusual for writers to achieve success by my age. So I often think that the best plan is to allow myself the extra time to continue developing my craft and hope that I can break through in the next decade or so. In general, I think this is a good attitude to take. But the difficulty I face is that in the past, so much of my dreams about the future and where my life will go have hinged on being successful as a writer. This isn't to indicate that I planned on making a living as a novelist (which I know is highly unlikely), but I figured that if I could publish enough to establish myself a bit in the literary world, then I could teach creative writing and likely teach a lighter load as a university professor than the five-five load of a community college teacher and, thus, have more time to write. The teaching and writing would go together and feed back on each other.
Recently I've been facing the notion that such a dream may never come about or that it could be years or decades before it does. And in the mean time, I still need a job. But do I want to have "just a job" or do I want to have a career? I'd like to be paid to do something I care about. That is one of the great things about teaching. Even as an adjunct, I get to do something that makes a difference. And the reality is that I would love to do it full time while making more money and having health insurance and so on. Yet the sacrifice that comes with full-time employment will be less time to write. But that is something I'm willing to trade, I think. I still hope to pursue my writing, but I know that, especially in the first years of a full-time position, it will be hard to find time for anything else. But I think that's a necessary trade off. And more and more, I'm thinking that it might be that I'll really have to set my writing goals aside for a few years, or relegate them more to hobby or side interest status.
I don't know. It's tough to accept that I might not realistically be able to write much while pursuing a teaching career, but I do suspect that that's pretty much the way things will work out. Part of the problem is really the issue of priorities. If I'm willing to slack as a teacher, then I can probably find more time to write, but I don't think that's fair to my students or the school that pays me. I think I should really make teaching a priority, even if it means downgrading writing. But I'm awfully conflicted about it.
Maybe it's still premature to fret over such things. I don't actually have a job offer on the table right now anyway. It's possible that the end result of all my stressing over applications and interviews will be that next fall I'll be doing the same adjuncting I've been doing for the past two years. If I don't get a full-time job, then much of what I've been obsessing over is moot. And maybe that will be truly beneficial. After having thought through the implications of full-time employment, perhaps I can take better advantage of a part-time situation for another year and spend as much extra time as possible writing. At the moment, I've only been offered three classes as an adjunct for the fall, which will mean a much tighter budget but more time to write. Then when the day comes that I have to shift my priorities further toward teaching, I at least will have had more time to work on my writing between now and then.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Submissions
I keep track of my submissions in a handy Excel file. I have the story, the journal I've submitted it to, when I submitted it, any other notes, and the date it's rejected or accepted. I think something along these lines is a must for anybody who is seriously trying to get published. It's easy enough to keep track of submissions this way, and I can quickly glance at it to see how many pieces I have currently making the rounds.
Right now, I have two stories that I'm sending out to journals. One I've been submitting for a few years. The other I've been submitting for less time. Both of these pieces have received personal responses from readers at various journals, ranging from the somewhat generic "the writing is good, but this isn't right for us right now" to more detailed critiques with explanations for why the journal doesn't want the piece. Both of these stories have undergone substantial revisions over a period of years, and both are, I feel, in pretty solid shape. Yet both also are still being submitted because they have not been accepted anywhere.
Ordinarily, I like to have each piece at about ten places. When I get a few rejections, I resubmit to a few more places so I have a steady flow of submissions and responses coming and going. But lately, I've been really bad about sending out new submissions. The rejections keep coming in every so often, and without new copies going out, my overall submission numbers keep going down. I got a rejection the other day, and when I logged it in the file, I noticed that I'm down to only a few places still considering my work.
It occurred to me, obviously, that I should send out a new batch of envelopes, but I didn't. Sometimes when I've received several rejections in a row, I think it's probably a good idea to review my work again and see if I might want to revise further. I think that's a good idea right now, since it's been several months with the current drafts, and still nobody has accepted these stories. But there's another reason I'm delaying submitting right now, and that has to do with the uncertainty of my future.
I don't know where I'll be living a few months from now. I might be in the same place I am now, or I might be living on the other side of the country. Of course, the post office can forward mail, and there are e-mails as well, but I still think it's easier to submit work with an accurate address. Plus, there are a lot of places that shut down or slow down during the summer months since they are affiliated with schools. So until I know where I'm going to be, I've decided not to submit anything new.
This is a practical decision, but it also has the benefit of allowing me time to go back over my pieces once more and do that additional revision. Clearly, the current drafts are not quite doing it, despite the positive feedback I've already received. So maybe more dramatic changes are in order. For instance, one story has a protagonist who is an English teacher. I've been thinking that perhaps this detail might work against the story's success since many writers are also English teachers, and it's likely that a lot of stories are written by wannabe writers featuring English teacher characters. So maybe making the character another type of teacher would help. He could be a physics teacher, perhaps, or a math teacher. And maybe something as small as that change could lift the story out of the slush where it's spent so much time in the past few years.
Waiting a few months to send out a new big batch of submissions also means that when I start submitting again next fall, I will (I hope) have a new piece or two to send out along with the old pieces. Unfortunately, I've really been slacking the past few months. I had great plans for this semester. I'm teaching four classes, which is a lot, but this is the first time since I've been adjuncting when I didn't have a second job on top of my teaching, so I figured I'd have plenty of extra writing time. I did make some decent use of that time early in the semester. I wrote regularly and made some decent progress on a short story rewrite. Then I left the story behind to work on a writing sample from my novel for a fellowship application. But then by the time I was ready to get back to the story, I was in the midst of the job application process, having been contacted about interviews.
I can't honestly say that preparing for interviews and going through the interview process took all of my extra time, but the anxiety surrounding those interviews sucked a lot of my energy and left with little ability to concentrate the past several weeks. So, basically, I've barely done any writing since February. But my hope is that in a few weeks, I'll know whether I've got a job lined up for the fall, and I can either plan a move or settle back into the life I've been living the past couple of years. And at that point, when the nerves have settled down, I'll return to that story that I haven't touched in weeks. And maybe by September, it will be ready to send out.
Right now, I have two stories that I'm sending out to journals. One I've been submitting for a few years. The other I've been submitting for less time. Both of these pieces have received personal responses from readers at various journals, ranging from the somewhat generic "the writing is good, but this isn't right for us right now" to more detailed critiques with explanations for why the journal doesn't want the piece. Both of these stories have undergone substantial revisions over a period of years, and both are, I feel, in pretty solid shape. Yet both also are still being submitted because they have not been accepted anywhere.
Ordinarily, I like to have each piece at about ten places. When I get a few rejections, I resubmit to a few more places so I have a steady flow of submissions and responses coming and going. But lately, I've been really bad about sending out new submissions. The rejections keep coming in every so often, and without new copies going out, my overall submission numbers keep going down. I got a rejection the other day, and when I logged it in the file, I noticed that I'm down to only a few places still considering my work.
It occurred to me, obviously, that I should send out a new batch of envelopes, but I didn't. Sometimes when I've received several rejections in a row, I think it's probably a good idea to review my work again and see if I might want to revise further. I think that's a good idea right now, since it's been several months with the current drafts, and still nobody has accepted these stories. But there's another reason I'm delaying submitting right now, and that has to do with the uncertainty of my future.
I don't know where I'll be living a few months from now. I might be in the same place I am now, or I might be living on the other side of the country. Of course, the post office can forward mail, and there are e-mails as well, but I still think it's easier to submit work with an accurate address. Plus, there are a lot of places that shut down or slow down during the summer months since they are affiliated with schools. So until I know where I'm going to be, I've decided not to submit anything new.
This is a practical decision, but it also has the benefit of allowing me time to go back over my pieces once more and do that additional revision. Clearly, the current drafts are not quite doing it, despite the positive feedback I've already received. So maybe more dramatic changes are in order. For instance, one story has a protagonist who is an English teacher. I've been thinking that perhaps this detail might work against the story's success since many writers are also English teachers, and it's likely that a lot of stories are written by wannabe writers featuring English teacher characters. So maybe making the character another type of teacher would help. He could be a physics teacher, perhaps, or a math teacher. And maybe something as small as that change could lift the story out of the slush where it's spent so much time in the past few years.
Waiting a few months to send out a new big batch of submissions also means that when I start submitting again next fall, I will (I hope) have a new piece or two to send out along with the old pieces. Unfortunately, I've really been slacking the past few months. I had great plans for this semester. I'm teaching four classes, which is a lot, but this is the first time since I've been adjuncting when I didn't have a second job on top of my teaching, so I figured I'd have plenty of extra writing time. I did make some decent use of that time early in the semester. I wrote regularly and made some decent progress on a short story rewrite. Then I left the story behind to work on a writing sample from my novel for a fellowship application. But then by the time I was ready to get back to the story, I was in the midst of the job application process, having been contacted about interviews.
I can't honestly say that preparing for interviews and going through the interview process took all of my extra time, but the anxiety surrounding those interviews sucked a lot of my energy and left with little ability to concentrate the past several weeks. So, basically, I've barely done any writing since February. But my hope is that in a few weeks, I'll know whether I've got a job lined up for the fall, and I can either plan a move or settle back into the life I've been living the past couple of years. And at that point, when the nerves have settled down, I'll return to that story that I haven't touched in weeks. And maybe by September, it will be ready to send out.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Making a Living II
I've been thinking a lot about money recently. Primarily this is because I've been going through the job hunting process. This is the third year in a row I've sent out applications in the hopes of finding a full-time college teaching job. Each time I apply, I think about the difference a full-time position will make to my financial life, and I hope and dream while trying to keep those dreams reasonably in check. This year, however, is different from the past two since I've actually made it beyond the paperwork stage to the interview portion of the process. I take this as a good sign, so I've been letting my daydreams wander a bit further.
And here's the thing: people talk about how little teachers get paid and how worthless a master's degree is. And there's something to be said for those positions. Considering the education required to teach at the college level (comparable to lawyers and doctors), it is not necessarily the best gig in the world. Adjuncts in particular have a tough situation. Depending on the school, they might make two or three thousand dollars per class or only a bit above minimum wage, which is hardly what one would expect for a profession requiring an advanced degree. However, it is still possible to make a fairly nice living as a teacher.
If I land one of the full time positions I'm up for, my income will increase significantly over what I made last year working two part time jobs (a difference of at least ten thousand dollars, plus benefits). In fact, if I get offered the best paying of the jobs, my new income could be close to double what I made last year. So I've been fantasizing about what it will be like to have that much more money coming in. Last year I made more than any year before, but considering I have debts to pay off from grad school, I'm still just getting by. But if I'm offered the best paying job I'm up for, then I will suddenly have enough money to start making considerably higher payments on my loans. In fact, I suspect that instead of taking about a decade to pay off my loans, I could be debt free in four or five years. At that point, I would be making far more money than I would need to just get by. I could then start thinking about larger purchases like a new car or a down payment on a house or laser eye surgery to correct my poor vision.
In the past few years I haven't fantasized much about big expensive things like those. I figured I'd probably live in a small apartment throughout my whole adult life and basically get by comfortably enough but always have to be careful with my spending and always wish I had a little bit more. I figured that without a family to take care of, I'll always do fine compared to those around me trying to support kids, but, still, I'll never be wealthy. But the truth is that even if I don't land a full time job this year, I probably will land one next year or the year after, and by the time I hit forty, I will likely be making quite a nice living. I won't be able to buy a mansion or anything, but I will be relatively wealthy in the sense that I could afford things like nice vacations or a decent car or retirement savings.
Furthermore, teaching has decent job security. When I moved to Pennsylvania a couple years ago, I moved here because I wanted a cheap place to live, not because I actually had a job here. Within a few days of arrival, however, I was offered two classes at the local community college. If I did not have my degrees, I might have spent weeks or months looking for some random office job or a retail position paying minimum wage, but instead I was hired right away. Even though the job isn't secure in the sense of having a long term contract (I don't know semester to semester how many classes I'll be offered or whether those classes will get enough students to go or might get canceled a week before they begin), it's still secure in the sense that there will always be a need for English teachers. And, of course, once I'm a full timer, I'll have one year contract with a high likelihood of having the contract renewed year to year or landing tenure down the road.
Again, compared with doctors and lawyers, teachers are not incredibly well paid, but compared with a lot of other jobs, they are. In addition to teaching, I worked at a bookstore until it closed a few months ago. I'm fairly certain that even as a part-time teacher, I made more than the manager of that store. I know a few people who work office jobs that don't require a college degree, and they make enough money to get by on those jobs, but not as much as I'll probably make teaching college. The truth is that teaching makes a lot of sense as a career not only because it's rewarding and challenging and keeps one thinking about the basics of writing on a regular basis and all those other reasons, but it also makes sense from a purely financial standpoint. I'm thirty-one years old, and the most I've ever made in a single calendar year is about $27,000 (which is still about twelve thousand more than one could earn making minimum wage, assuming one could ever actually get a full-time minimum wage job). But I expect I will make more than that this year and more again next year, and there's a pretty good chance that by the time I retire, I'll make six figures (that's counting on raises and promotions and the ever decreasing value of the dollar). But without my degrees, I would probably be doing the same kind of random office job I had when I finished college, which paid eleven dollars an hour about a decade ago and I'm guessing wouldn't pay much more than that today.
And here's the thing: people talk about how little teachers get paid and how worthless a master's degree is. And there's something to be said for those positions. Considering the education required to teach at the college level (comparable to lawyers and doctors), it is not necessarily the best gig in the world. Adjuncts in particular have a tough situation. Depending on the school, they might make two or three thousand dollars per class or only a bit above minimum wage, which is hardly what one would expect for a profession requiring an advanced degree. However, it is still possible to make a fairly nice living as a teacher.
If I land one of the full time positions I'm up for, my income will increase significantly over what I made last year working two part time jobs (a difference of at least ten thousand dollars, plus benefits). In fact, if I get offered the best paying of the jobs, my new income could be close to double what I made last year. So I've been fantasizing about what it will be like to have that much more money coming in. Last year I made more than any year before, but considering I have debts to pay off from grad school, I'm still just getting by. But if I'm offered the best paying job I'm up for, then I will suddenly have enough money to start making considerably higher payments on my loans. In fact, I suspect that instead of taking about a decade to pay off my loans, I could be debt free in four or five years. At that point, I would be making far more money than I would need to just get by. I could then start thinking about larger purchases like a new car or a down payment on a house or laser eye surgery to correct my poor vision.
In the past few years I haven't fantasized much about big expensive things like those. I figured I'd probably live in a small apartment throughout my whole adult life and basically get by comfortably enough but always have to be careful with my spending and always wish I had a little bit more. I figured that without a family to take care of, I'll always do fine compared to those around me trying to support kids, but, still, I'll never be wealthy. But the truth is that even if I don't land a full time job this year, I probably will land one next year or the year after, and by the time I hit forty, I will likely be making quite a nice living. I won't be able to buy a mansion or anything, but I will be relatively wealthy in the sense that I could afford things like nice vacations or a decent car or retirement savings.
Furthermore, teaching has decent job security. When I moved to Pennsylvania a couple years ago, I moved here because I wanted a cheap place to live, not because I actually had a job here. Within a few days of arrival, however, I was offered two classes at the local community college. If I did not have my degrees, I might have spent weeks or months looking for some random office job or a retail position paying minimum wage, but instead I was hired right away. Even though the job isn't secure in the sense of having a long term contract (I don't know semester to semester how many classes I'll be offered or whether those classes will get enough students to go or might get canceled a week before they begin), it's still secure in the sense that there will always be a need for English teachers. And, of course, once I'm a full timer, I'll have one year contract with a high likelihood of having the contract renewed year to year or landing tenure down the road.
Again, compared with doctors and lawyers, teachers are not incredibly well paid, but compared with a lot of other jobs, they are. In addition to teaching, I worked at a bookstore until it closed a few months ago. I'm fairly certain that even as a part-time teacher, I made more than the manager of that store. I know a few people who work office jobs that don't require a college degree, and they make enough money to get by on those jobs, but not as much as I'll probably make teaching college. The truth is that teaching makes a lot of sense as a career not only because it's rewarding and challenging and keeps one thinking about the basics of writing on a regular basis and all those other reasons, but it also makes sense from a purely financial standpoint. I'm thirty-one years old, and the most I've ever made in a single calendar year is about $27,000 (which is still about twelve thousand more than one could earn making minimum wage, assuming one could ever actually get a full-time minimum wage job). But I expect I will make more than that this year and more again next year, and there's a pretty good chance that by the time I retire, I'll make six figures (that's counting on raises and promotions and the ever decreasing value of the dollar). But without my degrees, I would probably be doing the same kind of random office job I had when I finished college, which paid eleven dollars an hour about a decade ago and I'm guessing wouldn't pay much more than that today.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Living Life
I've been thinking again about the old issue of writers needing something to write about. A friend and fellow writer has touched on this issue recently in her blog and sparked my thinking. She thinks that it's important for writers to live full lives rather than hole up and live in front of the computer screen. This is certainly an issue I've thought about over the years, and it's one I struggle with. The reason I struggle with it is because I fear that if she is right, then I may be doomed to never be a great writer because I'm not a very good liver (I'm a better kidney, ba-dum-bum).
I have a mind that won't quit spinning. I think through various outcomes for situations. I plan out possibilities and analyze things to no end. I have a strong desire to understand the world around me, and my inclination is to believe that if I ponder things enough, I'll improve my understanding. This can, of course, be great for a writer since I can come up with various possibilities for how a story might unfold and what characters might do and what it all means. But this tendency certainly has a downside. I'm not good with a lot of basic interaction. Chitchat is something I struggle with because my mind runs through various possibilities or tries to interpret what somebody is REALLY saying so I can respond appropriately, and by the time I think of something to say, along the lines of "yes, you're right; it was hot today," the appropriate time for a response has passed and the person I'm chatting with has wandered away or the conversation among a group has moved on and I'm still standing quietly in the back. Another facet of my social skills is that I don't pick up on various social clues. I take things literally and misunderstand what somebody is asking or saying. Anyway, the end result is that I don't make friends easily, and most of my social life consists of either communicating via internet with friends I knew from years ago or with people who are related to me by blood or marriage.
When it comes down to what most people think of as "having a life," I don't have one. I go to work. I come home and work. It's not unusual for me to go days at a time without leaving the house because if I'm not going to work, I really have no place to go. I don't understand how or where people meet other people and make new friends. It was a tough thing to do back when I was in school and was among a group of people of similar ages and interests, but now that I'm out in the adult world, it strikes me as a nearly impossible task.
I was in another city this weekend for a job interview, and while I was there I managed to get together with one of my old college roommates, one of my best friends from my early twenties. We have managed to keep in touch a bit over the years, but we tried to figure out when we last saw each other in person and, as far as we could recall, it was seven years ago. So we asked about various issues like what had changed in our lives in that time. He asked me if there were any major developments he'd missed, and I had to tell him that there really weren't as far as my personal life went. Since I last saw him I earned two masters degrees and became a teacher. I put on a bunch of weight and lost it again. I wrote a lot. Much has changed, but when he asked about my social life, there was not much to report. He asked if I missed that, and I had to say that I didn't really miss it. I have had so little experience with that kind of thing that I don't know what I'm missing.
(Also, this weekend of going through an extensive interview process--including a teaching demonstration and interviews with a search committee as well as several campus deans, presidents, and vice presidents--was one of the most stressful things I've ever done. I felt sick with nerves for much of the past couple of weeks, and what it most reminded me of was my dating experience years ago. I've really only had one girlfriend. We dated for about two months right at the end of my senior year of college. And the major thing I remember about that experience was the constant anxiety I felt. I was stressed and nervous and sick to my stomach and just generally pretty miserable. When I think back on it today, I have trouble figuring out why I put up with it. There are some pleasant memories as well I have of that girl. We had some good times, I'm sure. But whatever good times we had are completely overshadowed by my memories of anxiety and stress. If I had it to do over again, I don't think I would repeat that experience. And when I sometimes envy my coupled friends and family, I remember how unpleasant my attempt at such a coupling was and recognize that a life like that just doesn't seem to be a fit for me.)
What I don't understand is what is at the heart of good stories. Stories are about conflict, about drama, about interactions between people, about relationships. And those are things I don't have a great understanding of. Sometimes I hope that will change in my life. I see people around me who are very social or who have close bonds with romantic partners, and I have some envy for those individuals. My siblings are all married, and those relationships seem to bring them a lot of happiness. But I don't foresee anything like that in my life. I think somehow when I was a kid or a teenager or whenever, I missed out on learning some of the basic things about life that most people just pick up on their own. Or maybe I lack some instinct that others have about how to interact with others. So if I lack that understanding, will I ever be able to write stories that people respond to? Or will my pieces always seem odd, the characters unnatural and robotic?
My hope is that through reading widely I can further my understanding of human life, that I will vicariously experience the world. I think that's one of the great joys of reading. But is that enough? Can one learn what one needs to know to be a writer solely through holing up with books? Or am I doomed to be somebody who understands words and sentences and paragraphs and structural elements, who can evaluate a story and write a nice facsimile of life, but, lacking that spark that others have that makes life life, will never be able to produce that spark in my own writing?
I have a mind that won't quit spinning. I think through various outcomes for situations. I plan out possibilities and analyze things to no end. I have a strong desire to understand the world around me, and my inclination is to believe that if I ponder things enough, I'll improve my understanding. This can, of course, be great for a writer since I can come up with various possibilities for how a story might unfold and what characters might do and what it all means. But this tendency certainly has a downside. I'm not good with a lot of basic interaction. Chitchat is something I struggle with because my mind runs through various possibilities or tries to interpret what somebody is REALLY saying so I can respond appropriately, and by the time I think of something to say, along the lines of "yes, you're right; it was hot today," the appropriate time for a response has passed and the person I'm chatting with has wandered away or the conversation among a group has moved on and I'm still standing quietly in the back. Another facet of my social skills is that I don't pick up on various social clues. I take things literally and misunderstand what somebody is asking or saying. Anyway, the end result is that I don't make friends easily, and most of my social life consists of either communicating via internet with friends I knew from years ago or with people who are related to me by blood or marriage.
When it comes down to what most people think of as "having a life," I don't have one. I go to work. I come home and work. It's not unusual for me to go days at a time without leaving the house because if I'm not going to work, I really have no place to go. I don't understand how or where people meet other people and make new friends. It was a tough thing to do back when I was in school and was among a group of people of similar ages and interests, but now that I'm out in the adult world, it strikes me as a nearly impossible task.
I was in another city this weekend for a job interview, and while I was there I managed to get together with one of my old college roommates, one of my best friends from my early twenties. We have managed to keep in touch a bit over the years, but we tried to figure out when we last saw each other in person and, as far as we could recall, it was seven years ago. So we asked about various issues like what had changed in our lives in that time. He asked me if there were any major developments he'd missed, and I had to tell him that there really weren't as far as my personal life went. Since I last saw him I earned two masters degrees and became a teacher. I put on a bunch of weight and lost it again. I wrote a lot. Much has changed, but when he asked about my social life, there was not much to report. He asked if I missed that, and I had to say that I didn't really miss it. I have had so little experience with that kind of thing that I don't know what I'm missing.
(Also, this weekend of going through an extensive interview process--including a teaching demonstration and interviews with a search committee as well as several campus deans, presidents, and vice presidents--was one of the most stressful things I've ever done. I felt sick with nerves for much of the past couple of weeks, and what it most reminded me of was my dating experience years ago. I've really only had one girlfriend. We dated for about two months right at the end of my senior year of college. And the major thing I remember about that experience was the constant anxiety I felt. I was stressed and nervous and sick to my stomach and just generally pretty miserable. When I think back on it today, I have trouble figuring out why I put up with it. There are some pleasant memories as well I have of that girl. We had some good times, I'm sure. But whatever good times we had are completely overshadowed by my memories of anxiety and stress. If I had it to do over again, I don't think I would repeat that experience. And when I sometimes envy my coupled friends and family, I remember how unpleasant my attempt at such a coupling was and recognize that a life like that just doesn't seem to be a fit for me.)
What I don't understand is what is at the heart of good stories. Stories are about conflict, about drama, about interactions between people, about relationships. And those are things I don't have a great understanding of. Sometimes I hope that will change in my life. I see people around me who are very social or who have close bonds with romantic partners, and I have some envy for those individuals. My siblings are all married, and those relationships seem to bring them a lot of happiness. But I don't foresee anything like that in my life. I think somehow when I was a kid or a teenager or whenever, I missed out on learning some of the basic things about life that most people just pick up on their own. Or maybe I lack some instinct that others have about how to interact with others. So if I lack that understanding, will I ever be able to write stories that people respond to? Or will my pieces always seem odd, the characters unnatural and robotic?
My hope is that through reading widely I can further my understanding of human life, that I will vicariously experience the world. I think that's one of the great joys of reading. But is that enough? Can one learn what one needs to know to be a writer solely through holing up with books? Or am I doomed to be somebody who understands words and sentences and paragraphs and structural elements, who can evaluate a story and write a nice facsimile of life, but, lacking that spark that others have that makes life life, will never be able to produce that spark in my own writing?
Friday, February 26, 2010
Writing Sample II
I sent off my fellowship application for the Wisconsin fellowship today. It's amazing how long it takes to put together a packet like that. I wanted to make sure my writing sample was as strong as possible, obviously, so I spent many hours over the past couple of weeks working on it. I got some feedback from trusted early readers to help me decide which sample to use. I was leaning toward the current beginning of my novel, which I feel is some of the strongest writing I've ever done, but I knew that I was way too close to it to evaluate it properly, so a couple of other people looked it over and, sure enough, agreed with me that the new beginning to the novel is in good shape. I got that feedback several days ago, but I still wanted to go over the material a couple more times. Plus, I wanted to include the second chapter as well, which still needed a bit of tweaking.
So I continued editing and polishing the sample. Yesterday I typed changes into the second chapter off of a marked up hard copy and then read over the entire thing today. Just this week I lectured my classes on the importance of polishing their work before turning it in, doing that final read through (preferably aloud and preferably off a hard copy instead of just on the computer) before declaring their work complete. So I did that today, and sure enough found a bunch more little things I wanted to tweak: a phrase here, a preposition there. I read the whole piece out loud, marked with my trusty red pen, typed up those final changes and then printed everything out. I've probably spent twenty-some hours on this writing sample in the past couple weeks. But I got it in the mail today, and I feel really good about it.
As I did the final read-through today, I couldn't help feeling that my work is at a great place. I've grown so much in the past few years that I think I'm either reaching or on the edge of reaching a new level. If I keep producing work at the quality that I'm currently producing, then I think it's really only a matter of time before I break into some significant journals with some stories and maybe even wind up finding a place (a small press or contest perhaps) for my novel in the next few years. Or if not this novel, then maybe the next one.
It's nice to be at a point where I feel genuinely positive about what I'm doing and confident that I am actually moving forward and not merely spinning my wheels or deluding myself.
So I continued editing and polishing the sample. Yesterday I typed changes into the second chapter off of a marked up hard copy and then read over the entire thing today. Just this week I lectured my classes on the importance of polishing their work before turning it in, doing that final read through (preferably aloud and preferably off a hard copy instead of just on the computer) before declaring their work complete. So I did that today, and sure enough found a bunch more little things I wanted to tweak: a phrase here, a preposition there. I read the whole piece out loud, marked with my trusty red pen, typed up those final changes and then printed everything out. I've probably spent twenty-some hours on this writing sample in the past couple weeks. But I got it in the mail today, and I feel really good about it.
As I did the final read-through today, I couldn't help feeling that my work is at a great place. I've grown so much in the past few years that I think I'm either reaching or on the edge of reaching a new level. If I keep producing work at the quality that I'm currently producing, then I think it's really only a matter of time before I break into some significant journals with some stories and maybe even wind up finding a place (a small press or contest perhaps) for my novel in the next few years. Or if not this novel, then maybe the next one.
It's nice to be at a point where I feel genuinely positive about what I'm doing and confident that I am actually moving forward and not merely spinning my wheels or deluding myself.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Writing Sample
Lately, I've been working on multiple projects at the same time, or rather I'm going back and forth between projects. I've got a story I'm working on that I started last summer. I wrote the rough draft and then have been tossing it about in my head and jotting down notes on where I want to go with it for months. Now I'm writing the next draft of it. Then I'm also in the process of revising my MFA novel again. That's a similar situation. I wrote it years ago, of course. I defended it as my thesis, continued to revise for months afterward, thought I was done, did more revision, really thought I was done, started into the query process, thought maybe I wasn't done, and so on and so forth. I've been jotting down additional notes and planning out a revised structure for the novel for a while now and slowly sitting down to rewrite. I'm tackling the opening of the book first because that's where the most substantial changes are coming in. Some of the new beginning is coming from previous drafts and simply being shifted from later in the book to earlier, but some of it is brand new. So, anyway, I had been working on the novel for a while and then felt more like tackling the story, and I worked on that for several days, but then I felt obligated to work on the novel again.
Obligated is not the right word there. It's not that I feel like I should work on the novel and it's a hassle or something like that. I want to work on the novel. But at the moment I'm thinking about a fellowship I'm going to apply for. I have to get my application packet in this month, and, of course, a writing sample is the major component of the application. And I'm stuck on what to include as my writing sample. If I land the fellowship, this novel is the primary project I want to work on during the fellowship year, so I think it would make sense to include an excerpt from it as my writing sample. Yet which part should I excerpt? The obvious answer is the beginning, but that's the section of the book that is in the most disarray right now because I'm completely reworking it. But if I send a later section, that might indicate to those evaluating the applications that I don't feel confident in the beginning of my book. I've read several places that when querying agents and such and including sample pages, one should include the opening of the book rather than a section from the middle for that very reason. However, applying for a fellowship is not the same as querying an agent; the assumption here is that I have a project that I will continue to work on, not that I have a finished manuscript ready for publication.
Another option is to forget about including an excerpt from the novel as my writing sample and just use a short story (the application doesn't indicate that the writing sample has to be from the project I would be working on). That would show what my writing is like as well as be a complete piece. That might be to my advantage because it's often difficult to judge a part of something by itself. I used to bring in chapters of my novel to workshops in grad school, and a good deal of the time it seemed like my peers didn't know how to comment on it because they had no idea how this one section fit in with the larger story or really what that larger story was. Sometimes when I read the fiction published in the New Yorker I have that problem. They publish short stories, but they also publish excerpts from forthcoming novels, but they don't clearly identify which a given piece is, and sometimes I'll read it and then feel a bit baffled because it was well written but doesn't feel complete at all; then, later I discover that it was the first chapter that wasn't supposed to work on its own. So, for a fellowship application, would it be wise to try to entice them with a slice of something larger or to give them something complete so they can get a better sense of my ability to not just write a nice sequence but to write an entire story?
Anyway, what I've been doing the past few days is working on the beginning section. I figure that if that comes together really well and I feel confident in it, then that would be the best thing to send. But I only have a couple of weeks before I need to send the application off, which is not much time to get a new piece of writing into polished form. So in the likelihood that the opening isn't ready, I have to decide what else to send. I'm leaning toward an excerpt from the novel that works on its own as a story. But that leads to one more question. Do I refer to it as a novel excerpt or as a story? If sending a novel excerpt, I can include up to thirty pages, which would be about two chapters. If sending a story, I can only include one story. I think maybe I'd be better off sending one story by itself (again, that way there are no issues of trying to figure out how the excerpt works in terms of the larger piece), but that means I'd only be using half the amount of space available to represent myself. Would they look down on my application if they only get fifteen pages instead of thirty? Or do they really know after two pages whether they like the writing?
I'm probably over thinking this and would be better off just picking a piece I think is good and representative of my abilities and sending off the application already.
Obligated is not the right word there. It's not that I feel like I should work on the novel and it's a hassle or something like that. I want to work on the novel. But at the moment I'm thinking about a fellowship I'm going to apply for. I have to get my application packet in this month, and, of course, a writing sample is the major component of the application. And I'm stuck on what to include as my writing sample. If I land the fellowship, this novel is the primary project I want to work on during the fellowship year, so I think it would make sense to include an excerpt from it as my writing sample. Yet which part should I excerpt? The obvious answer is the beginning, but that's the section of the book that is in the most disarray right now because I'm completely reworking it. But if I send a later section, that might indicate to those evaluating the applications that I don't feel confident in the beginning of my book. I've read several places that when querying agents and such and including sample pages, one should include the opening of the book rather than a section from the middle for that very reason. However, applying for a fellowship is not the same as querying an agent; the assumption here is that I have a project that I will continue to work on, not that I have a finished manuscript ready for publication.
Another option is to forget about including an excerpt from the novel as my writing sample and just use a short story (the application doesn't indicate that the writing sample has to be from the project I would be working on). That would show what my writing is like as well as be a complete piece. That might be to my advantage because it's often difficult to judge a part of something by itself. I used to bring in chapters of my novel to workshops in grad school, and a good deal of the time it seemed like my peers didn't know how to comment on it because they had no idea how this one section fit in with the larger story or really what that larger story was. Sometimes when I read the fiction published in the New Yorker I have that problem. They publish short stories, but they also publish excerpts from forthcoming novels, but they don't clearly identify which a given piece is, and sometimes I'll read it and then feel a bit baffled because it was well written but doesn't feel complete at all; then, later I discover that it was the first chapter that wasn't supposed to work on its own. So, for a fellowship application, would it be wise to try to entice them with a slice of something larger or to give them something complete so they can get a better sense of my ability to not just write a nice sequence but to write an entire story?
Anyway, what I've been doing the past few days is working on the beginning section. I figure that if that comes together really well and I feel confident in it, then that would be the best thing to send. But I only have a couple of weeks before I need to send the application off, which is not much time to get a new piece of writing into polished form. So in the likelihood that the opening isn't ready, I have to decide what else to send. I'm leaning toward an excerpt from the novel that works on its own as a story. But that leads to one more question. Do I refer to it as a novel excerpt or as a story? If sending a novel excerpt, I can include up to thirty pages, which would be about two chapters. If sending a story, I can only include one story. I think maybe I'd be better off sending one story by itself (again, that way there are no issues of trying to figure out how the excerpt works in terms of the larger piece), but that means I'd only be using half the amount of space available to represent myself. Would they look down on my application if they only get fifteen pages instead of thirty? Or do they really know after two pages whether they like the writing?
I'm probably over thinking this and would be better off just picking a piece I think is good and representative of my abilities and sending off the application already.
Routine II
The past couple of weeks have been kind of lovely. I now only work one job, and I'm finding the additional time to be fantastic. I only have to go to campus to teach two days a week, and the rest of the week I can do prep work and grading from home. So that means most of the time I have a very flexible schedule. I wouldn't go so far as to say I've developed a solid routine yet, though. It's really too early in the semester to declare that, but I have managed to get some good writing in.
Mondays and Wednesdays I leave the house about six in the morning and get home about six in the evening. Waking up early, driving a long commute, and then teaching four classes back to back wears me out and by the time I'm home in the evening, I'm pretty much ready to just watch a movie or something, so not much writing happens on those days. But the other days, I've been managing to get some writing done first thing in the morning. I get my coffee going and sit down and write for a couple of hours. Then later in the day I prepare for classes and do grading and so forth. It's been working out really well so far.
There are a couple of issues that could throw a wrench into the gears, however. One is that it's simply too early to declare this officially a routine at this point. It's been a nice couple of weeks; that's all I can really call it now. But a bigger issue is that I'm at the point in the semester now where I'm going to start collecting papers to grade, so that will take up much more of my time. In the early weeks of the semester (especially this semester when classes have been canceled a couple of times due to weather), the prep is pretty straightforward and there's little yet to grade. But in the coming week I'll have stacks of rough drafts to go over and comment on. I'm hoping that I'll still manage to develop my routine. I think I can still devote mornings to writing and then worry about grading later in the day, but we'll see how it works out.
Mondays and Wednesdays I leave the house about six in the morning and get home about six in the evening. Waking up early, driving a long commute, and then teaching four classes back to back wears me out and by the time I'm home in the evening, I'm pretty much ready to just watch a movie or something, so not much writing happens on those days. But the other days, I've been managing to get some writing done first thing in the morning. I get my coffee going and sit down and write for a couple of hours. Then later in the day I prepare for classes and do grading and so forth. It's been working out really well so far.
There are a couple of issues that could throw a wrench into the gears, however. One is that it's simply too early to declare this officially a routine at this point. It's been a nice couple of weeks; that's all I can really call it now. But a bigger issue is that I'm at the point in the semester now where I'm going to start collecting papers to grade, so that will take up much more of my time. In the early weeks of the semester (especially this semester when classes have been canceled a couple of times due to weather), the prep is pretty straightforward and there's little yet to grade. But in the coming week I'll have stacks of rough drafts to go over and comment on. I'm hoping that I'll still manage to develop my routine. I think I can still devote mornings to writing and then worry about grading later in the day, but we'll see how it works out.
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