Appreciating the Job

My oldest son is a teacher and coach, following in the my path as well as that of his father. He coaches high school football and we love watching him at his job. He loves the sport and his players and you can see they love him back. It makes fall very enjoyable. When asking him about his coaching schedule for this week, he reminded me that he has two days of inservice. Inservice days are those hours teachers spend at meetings where hopefully planning and learning take place. As most teachers know, they're generally dreadful days. And I'm so grateful that I don't teach anymore or have to go to inservice. This September will mark the start of my fourth year as a full time writer. And I still love it.

My first year of full time writing, I wrote pretty fast. I've slowed down a little but I'm doing more in the business of writing and more with writing groups. My current WIP is taking me FOREVER. But a few plot lines clicked into place this past week and I figured something out that was bothering me about one of my characters. I expect the pace to pick up from here on.

"Be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid of standing still." Chinese Proverb

Did you notice the Halloween candy and fall decorations in the stores? No! Summer is still here. I'm so bored with TV, that I'm looking forward to the start of the fall season. I'm not looking forward to

all the election crap that will also be on TV and the ridiculous things that will be said.  Last weekend, my daughter and I binge-watched the extended versions of The Lord of the Rings. Still cried when Frodo said goodbye at the end.

Last time I asked for suggestions on what to watch, you wacky readers turned my onto Stranger Things. I then talked my children into watching it. My 25 year old son said he's had some really bad dreams about it. I'm not into watching scary movies or shows but Stranger Things was different enough that I really liked it. So nothing scary, but what should I watch next?

This is the first September for me when I have no children attending school or college. I don't miss those tuition payments. For those of you with younger children who you hope to send to college ... good luck. But what I do miss is shopping for all those cool school thingies. New pens, pencils, clips, notebooks and all that lovely stuff that is so cheap this time of year. And I don't need any of it.

Are you getting ready for back to school or getting a child ready? Have a show for me to binge on Netflix or even a good movie I might have missed? Are you in love with your job? Anything you're looking forward to with the coming of fall?

So You Call Yourself a Writer

I've mentioned before that I'm not above cruising the writing magazines in the bookstore and skimming articles before I decide to invest. There are lots of them out there, just check out the links on the Publication Page of IWSG. But I also gather ideas for my blog during those peeks between the covers.

Recently I skimmed an article about a man who had quit his teaching job, took off for a remote village in Europe and sat down to write the next bestseller. Should you quit your day job? Check out what others say about quitting the bill paying job.

I don't remember the genre or even the author's name, but he lived in a falling down cottage for six months until his money ran out. He was so proud of the 100 pages he wrote during that time, what he consider a great start to his book. Really!

Now that I'm a full time writer, I spend lots more hours in my comfy office than when I held my full time teaching job. I still have lots of things that keep my busy. We have a six bedroom house and lots of outside area that needs care. My husband and I, now that our children have or are preparing to take flight from the nest, are fixing up here and there in preparation of selling the homestead. I'm glad I have time for that and to visit my elderly mother, but I still consider myself to have a full time job. Would I feel that way if I wrote one hundred pages in six months?

If one is working at a full time job, writing in the evenings and on weekends, one hundred pages could be pretty good. If one is in the midst of child rearing, one hundred pages is quite an accomplishment. If you think you're busy when they're infants, wait until the teen years. But if I left everything behind and had nothing to do except feed myself, do occasional laundry and walk on the seaside, would I be thrilled with one hundred pages in six months? I don't think so.

Are writing retreats good ways to get the creative juices flowing? Is surrounding oneself with nothing but the book the way to get that novel done? I'm sure it is for some people. I've read other stories of writers who retreated to quiet and isolation when creating their jewels. As NaNo approaches for many people, not me, I'm sure lots of the participants will be pounding the keyboards at lunch breaks, while fixing dinner, in between loads of laundry and perhaps even while working on the treadmill. And some of them will produce jewels, maybe still unpolished, but rich just the same.

If you had the chance to isolate yourself and write without any distractions, how much would you expect yourself to produce? Have you ever taken a writing retreat? Where did you go and how much did you get done? Have you ever considered taking the plunge, quitting the day job and trying to make it as a writer?

Insecure Writers Support Group

I hope I have a chance to visit lots of blogs today. I've become much more efficient in my visiting and commenting. Today is the November installment of The Insecure Writer's Support Group, a monthly blogfest started and hosted by Alex Cavanaugh. Visit his blog and find an entire list of wonderful writers sharing their woes, worries and best of all, giving encouragement and advice.

Time for me to share something that I'm not worried about but do have a growing concern about. As I remind you nearly every week, I'm retiring from teaching in June of next year. From that date on, I'm going to call myself not a retired teacher, but a full time writer. But will I have the will power to sit for hours and tap on the old keyboard? Can I avoid all the temptations of a zillion other things I like to do? Will I be able to increase my production of one or two books per year to four or five? Can I do that? Will the ideas keep coming? Will I still love it? I imagine it, daydream about it, but will the reality be too much less than the fantasy?

What challenges do you think I might face in trying to become a full time writer? What is your biggest distraction during your writing time? Are you visiting other insecure writers today and sharing your own concerns?

First Day of the Last Year

Yesterday I attended an inservice day at school. I may have mentioned I'm retiring from my teaching job at the end of this school year. One day down and 189 days to go. Not that I'm counting. As I worked on my desk in my office, I looked at my familiar pencil cup, the old metal desk I've used for over thirty years and the big, old heavy laptop issued to me by the school. Would I miss it?

I'll miss the students. I love teenagers. They have so much in front of them, so many things to experience, so many paths to chose from, and bright hopes for the future. But I won't miss that desk, or that laptop, or those inservice days. I won't miss the decisions made by politicians that leave programs unfunded and punish schools that need the money the most. Oops, no politics on this blog.

I won't miss getting up early in the mornings. I won't miss going out in the cold. I won't miss duties like study hall coverage or hall monitoring. I only miss teaching those kids.

Next year at this time, I will feel like a full time writer. I currently can finish about two books per year with each book having 80K to 120K words. How many will I be able to write when I'm done with the day job? Will I have the discipline to write twice that many? Three times? Will I spend some of those extra hours doing some effective promotion?

I hope so. I hope the next twelve months is when my career gets really rolling instead of going forward with fits and sputters.

If you didn't have a day job, would you have the discipline to write full time, forty hours per week? Have you had the opportunity to try that? Did it work for you? Would you even want to do it?