Finished, Begun, In the Middle

It used to be that I'd finish a book, add the title to a list I kept online, and write some sort of review. I felt that there were good reasons to do these things. Finishing books is wonderful. Listing books I've read helps me remember. And reviewing books is fun and maybe of some use.

Then I stopped doing all that.

Some of it was just ebb and flow. Back then I was still in a teaching job, the misery of which seeped into every part of my life. I decided to quit that job though I had no plan for what was next. There was a period of some unknowing.

That unknowing was bearable. The joy of quitting my job crowded out the anxiety of the unknowing. That and I found more time and energy for writing.

I considered writing as a job to replace teaching. To try that out, I wrote everything in my life, including what books I finished, to see if I could build an audience.

Turns out that writing for a living is a real work. I knew that, but trying showed me what I didn't know. I might have gone on with that effort, but a good job came along and I took it. Then a great job came along and I pretty much stopped writing and reading.

Though I'm nearly two years in, I still feel new to the job and put into it most of the energy I used to reserve for writing and reading. I've been waiting for that point at which I can come back into balance. Maybe soon? Maybe now?

Yesterday I wrote and posted a piece. Last night, I wrote a note for another. And there's this about finishing a book, coming out of one thing, perhaps returning to another, and alwasy being in the middle of all these things.

I finished John Green's The Anthropocene Reviewed and liked it. Now I've finished this and I like that too.

Weekend

I'm considering the trap of working twenty-four-seven because I can't keep my mind on the book I'm trying to read.

It's Saturday afternoon. I've been trying to read a book about writing but find my attention turned toward writing notes for an upcoming meeting, working on a budgeting question, and having to hire a replacement for an important position.

Early this morning, I took myself out for a run. Heading out, I wasn't sure where I'd go. I like to let each step down the road decide these things the way that writing each word of this informs the next words. I write to learn what I have to say. I run to see where I go.

Turns out, I ran across town, past my office. I didn't bring keys, so there was no going inside to see what I had left there to do. Instead, I looked at the place and smiled, knowing that it is my building, my organizations, my happy home.

Then I jogged back to my other happy home where, hours later, I'm thinking about working non-stop. I know better than to do that, know not to check or send email, know something about balance. It's not work-life balance I hope to demonstrate to my staff so much as life-work balance, with family and self primary.

I know people who work twenty-four-seven. That's their choice and may work for them, but it's no way to get the best for and out of the people who have entrust me to lead them, so, rather than obsessing about work, I've written a few words about it, metaphorically passing the office by, smiling at it, and heading back toward home, which, in this case, is inside the pages of a book about something unrelated to the work I do Monday through Friday.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

A Given Hour

Last night we continued the ridiculous tradition of setting clocks back when we should leave the damn things alone. Still, I feel better for having an extra hour impossibly inserted the night. I'll pay for it next spring, but would rather not dwell on that this morning.

Instead, I'm feeling how that extra hour provided a little relief, something in short supply. There's a global pandemic raging (if you hadn't noticed). There's politics, work, and life at home. There are friends for whom I can't make enough time and friends who never call. There are people who depend on me even as I feel drained and wonder who will care for me.

One hour doesn't fix all that, but I feel at least one hour better. The Syracuse sky is blue and that's no small miracle in early November. Blue sky won't fix everything either, but blessings leads to blessings if I choose to walk the right path.

Today is a twenty-five hour day, but I won't be 4.167% more productive. I'm trying to be unproductive and instead notice things like blue sky, an extra hour, my own breathing, and how words come out of my fingers onto the page and screen. I'm taking an extra hour just to notice that when I wish, more often than not the universe showers me with just what I need.

Enjoy the extra hour.

First Draft, Finished Draft, and the Hoi Polloi

My friend has to stop bringing his writer's notebook to his classroom because there's an internet meme prompting kids to steal from teachers and share their stuff on video. The last thing any writer needs is their writer's notebook and first drafts mocked online.

As a teacher, I worried people would read my writer's notebook. I wrote some unpleasant stuff about kids and a shit-ton of bad stuff about admins, working through things in there. I keep that first-draft thinking private because writing must be revised to be worth sharing.

Non-writers don't get that.

I once shared a finished piece with students about them swearing and cursing at me. One kid, eager to get me in trouble, shared it with my admin. In the piece, I used the term hoi polloi and wrote:

Hoi polloi. I like that term because students who abuse their teachers won’t know what it means and won’t bother to look it up.

I got called into a disciplinary meeting where HR read the paragraph aloud, a paperback dictionary next to him with a sticky note sticking out of what I guessed was the _H_ section. "Hoi polloi?" he asked. "What does that even mean?" He waited for my answer. I pointed at the dictionary and said, "you know exactly what it means." He read the definition at me, hoping I'd be ashamed, but I kept thinking, "assholes who think I'm impressed by a fucking paperback dictionary, that's the hoi polloi."

(I own a shirt that reads "People say I'm condescending. That means I talk down to people.")

I didn't feel badly about that piece. I had revised until it said exactly what I wanted to say exactly how I wanted to say it. That piece taught kids something. Even if it hadn't, my admins' reactions entertained the hell out of me. Four years later, I'm still entertained. That's good writing.

Writing often starts out personal, raw, undisciplined. Most good writers let that out onto the page then go back through. My revision process is mostly cutting, rewording, hearing the words as if someone else had written them, making each piece say what I want it to say. There's almost no better work.

I want to tell my friend's students to leave his writer's notebook alone. Him having it there, writing in it during class is the best thing that could happen to them in school. It's a gift, having a writer as an English teacher. Treat it like a gift.

I want to tell them, go steal HR's shitty paperback dictionary instead. Use your powers for good, not evil.