One year! What did I learn?

Yesterday was the day of Vanderbilt University’s commencement, 364 days after the same event in 2012 that I count as my last day working at a day job, and one year + 364 days after I started this blog. We live close enough to campus that a lot of families park on our street, and all morning I watched young people in robes, carrying their mortarboards, striding down the sidewalk in the drizzle. I know how most of them were feeling—excited, eager to see what’s waiting for them, hoping they’re prepared for the next phase.

In my first, awkward post here, I wrote, “I know I’ll feel a sense of loss” when I’m no longer teaching. Well, I was wrong there. Maybe if I hadn’t been so busy, that sense of loss would have crept in, but . . . no.

So what else did I get wrong?

I think I underestimated the sense of isolation I’d feel. My husband the sailor goes away for weeks or a month at a time (note to burglars: large son, yappy dog, and alarm system are still here), since the sailing isn’t so great in Nashville. So I go a little squirrelly. I’m more sociable than I realized, I guess. I need to have face-to-face human contact every day; a friendly supermarket checker is fine, but lunch with a friend is better.

And the trials of being in business for myself have thrown me for a loop. I can’t go into details, but I’m having a little, um, payment issue. I’ve hired a lawyer, but they’re ignoring him as much as they’re ignoring me. I’m starting to think that I’ll never see the money that’s owed me. This burns me up, but I have to remind myself that these things happen in business.

I discovered, to my surprise, that I don’t have to be as regimented as I thought was necessary. If I don’t take Tuesday off, I can trust that I’ll take another day. If I don’t walk on the treadmill for the amount of time I set for myself, it won't break the habit to the point where I'll suddenly stop using it at all.

I’m still feeling out how to make myself and my writing more visible. Luckily, my new publisher is very proactive with publicity, and I’m hopeful that I’ll be doing more conferences and school visits when the pub date for that book is close.

I haven’t done many of the extra-curricular activities I had lined up. I did take a short photography course, but it was a dud. I’ve traveled a bit more than usual, and next fall will take a non-working vacation during the school year—a first since I was in kindergarten!

Everything else is working out just about as planned. And that’s the important thing—planning. If you’re contemplating leaving your day job, the best advice I can give you is to start a new file on your computer and every time you think of something that you wish you had time for—whether it’s associated with your writing or a new activity you’d like to try—and periodically update it. I bet you’ll find, as I did, that a pattern will emerge, and you’ll see a form and direction of your new life. You’ll be able to step out of the nine-to-five world and into being your own boss with a minimum of fuss.

Finding a Rhythm

It’s hard to break the habit of thinking in the pattern of the academic year, whose calendar ruled my life from when I was five years old until last May. When someone says “year,” my first thought will probably always be “August through May,” and although TGIF shouldn’t mean anything to me now, it’s still a relief when the weekend rolls around.

I have to get adjusted to a more fluid rhythm, one where neither the academic nor the solar calendar rules. Right now I’m in limbo on a few projects. My agents have sent out a manuscript, but so recently that there’s very little chance of hearing back about it any time soon. I’ve completed and revised (several times!) a nonfiction project, and now I have to leave it alone and try not even to think about it for as long as I can stand it, until I read it over one last time before declaring it ready to be read by someone I'm not related to. So I'm twiddling my thumbs.

This period of waiting isn't marked on my calendar. It's not a spring break I knew was coming and could plan for. Next year it might happen earlier or later, or not at all. And this is something to adjust to.

So I’ve written and scheduled a few posts for the blogs that I contribute to regularly. I’ve caught up on articles that looked interesting enough for me to bookmark them, but that I didn’t have time to read until now. I’ve read the most recent Newbery winner (meh) and skimmed some books about fairy tales, looking for nuggets I can use. I’ve started putting together PowerPoints and handouts for presentations I'm doing next month and this summer.

All of it is productive work, and I know I'll be glad to have those blog posts in the "bank" when their due dates roll around, not to mention the presentation materials. I just have to get used to grabbing these opportunities when I can and not think of them as time that I should have spent writing.

It Worked!

I’ve been itching to post this for a while, but couldn’t until it became official. This is from the deal section of today’s Publishers Marketplace:

Author of ANNA OF BYZANTIUM Tracy Barrett’s THE STEPSISTER’S TALE, a retelling of the classic Cinderella from the stepsister’s perspective, in which beauty, romance, and happily ever after aren’t quite what they seem, to Annie Stone at Harlequin Teen, in a two-book deal, by Lara Perkins and Laura Rennert at Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

(Yes, I have two agents—the Laura and Lara mentioned above. And they have an intern named Laura.)

I’ve been working on both The Stepsister’s Tale and the novel that went out on Friday for a long time. Both were basically complete but in serious need of revision, but what with the day job and my position at SCBWI, I couldn’t hunker down and do what was needed in any kind of concentrated fashion. Nor did I have the time to start anything new.

Well, as of May 11, I’ve had the time to do both. My agents sent out another manuscript on a submission round last Friday, and I have a non-fiction manuscript and another novel (my NaNoWriMo project) nearing completion.

Laura had given me some excellent editorial comments on an earlier draft of Stepsister, and before it went out on submission Lara went through it page by page with comments, suggestions, and queries that made all the difference. I dug in and revised over and over. I lost track of how many drafts I did—drafts that I would have loved to do before, if only I’d been able. And it has paid off.

Do I wish I’d gone to full-time writing earlier? Honestly, no. For most of my time at Vanderbilt, I loved my job. For the last few years, I liked it. I never hated it—never even disliked it. But when the time came, it was the right decision both personally and professionally.

Treadmill Desk Benefits

So I’ve been using my treadmill desk for about a week now (I’m typing this while walking). Here are some unexpected benefits, in addition to the ones I was expecting:

• It chains me to the computer, because it’s enough of a pain to get it stopped and started again that I’ll say, “Whatever, I’ll just go another 15 minutes before I quit for the morning.”
• It’s making me stick to a schedule. I decided that on the days I go to the gym (three days a week, when I can), I’ll do a two-hour session on the treadmill. On the days that I don’t—two two-hour sessions. There’s no way I’m going to do it in the evening, so I get it done early. At least so far.
• I get pleasantly tired but not exhausted, so I sleep better.

Am I being more productive? Yes, but I don’t know if that’s because of the aforementioned chaining to the computer, or to the neuroscience that seems to indicate that sitting clamps down the creative side of your brain. Think about it—lots or people pace when they think, right? Lecturers stand, and often move, when lecturing. Good teachers move around the room as they teach. OK, some of that is to make sure their students aren’t on Facebook, but it also seems to liberate the brain.

One scientist pointed out that our hunter-gatherer ancestors had to be creative the whole time they were moving in order to survive: “If the mastodon goes that way, Urk should go this way and head it off,” “Hey, this rotten milk tastes pretty good with that spoiled grape juice!” “The seeds under the bird’s nest grew better than the others—I’ll try putting bird poop on all of them next spring.” Once they could finally sit down at the campfire, their brains took the opportunity to grab some much-needed rest.

So it’s possible that we’re hard-wired to think better when we walk. It couldn’t hurt, anyway, so I’ll keep on doing it and let you know what happens.

Walking to Work

I’m writing this while walking at .5 mph. It’s taking a bit of getting used to, but after all, it’s my first attempt at using my brand-new treadmill desk.

This is something that’s intrigued me for a while. Over the space of a few months I downloaded various sets of instructions, wrote to people who used treadmill desks, and kept up with the research, the most recent of which (by the first promoter of the concept, Dr. James Levine of the Mayo Clinic) concludes that you shouldn’t try to do more than two hours on, two hours off. Phew.

(Hey, I just took my sweater off! Must be doing something, even at this speed!)

I wound up tossing out the plans I had downloaded since they were all based on desktop computers, and I no longer had one, a casualty of leaving the day job.

Not much room here

As I contemplated where the treadmill would fit in my already crowded study, I realized that no matter what configuration I came up with, it was going to be a pain to move the laptop and its cables and wires from one spot to another, and I'd probably find lots of excuses not to do it, so I decided to go remote instead. I purchased a wireless keyboard and mouse and resurrected a flat-screen monitor from the attic.

(I already forgot I was walking. According to the timer on the treadmill, that took nine minutes and twenty seconds.)

I bought a plain-vanilla treadmill at Play It Again Sports, which we brought home with a small trailer rented at U-Haul. A passing neighbor helped us get it in the house and we set it up next to the twin bed that serves as the emergency sleeping space for those escaping a snoring spouse.

Good help is hard to find

Then a trip to Home Depot, and we returned with a white shelf and some metal brackets. We (by which I mean Greg) attached the brackets to the shelf, which then rested on the handles of the treadmill, and we (by which I mean me) ran tie-wraps through the holes in the brackets to strap it down, inserted some shims to level it, and voilà—step one was complete.

(Just upped the speed to .6 mph without noticing any difference in ease of writing.)

Next came the monitor, which we hung on the bookcase I had purchased for practically nothing when Borders went out of business.

The last item was a book holder so if I’m not working on the computer I can walk and read.

Total cost: under $300.

If it works out, I might upgrade the monitor, and given what I paid for the treadmill, I imagine I might have to replace it at some point when it quits working. But for now, this is just fine.

(Now .7 mph.)

The New Year, For Real

I'm totally unprepared for the new year. Up to now, I've always made resolutions in the fall, because ever since I was in preschool, lo these many years ago, September (and then August) was the start of the year. A year ran from the fall to the spring. And now, I have to join most of Western humanity in recognizing January 1 as the first day of the year.

For the last two or so decades, my "new year" resolutions have mostly had to do with trying to sandwich writing and day-jobbing together: see more of my friends, take some time off, finish ms. X while making revisions on ms. Y.

Seeing the friends takes a bit more effort than it used to, but I think I'm doing okay. I've been pretty strict about the time off, even during NaNoWriMo. As for productivity--my agent has one project out; a second is close but might need another tweak or two, depending on said agent's thoughts after seeing the latest revision; I'm struggling with the last half-chapter of my NaNoWriMo project (it seems so obvious that it clunks); and I've made a good dent in a new non-fiction work. So that makes four in various stages of completion, and I think I'm doing okay here too.

All I can come up with is to get more of an on-line presence. So here I am, blogging, and I will do my best to tweet (still haven't warmed up to Twitter) at least once a day.

Seems kind of feeble, though. Any ideas?

Eggs in Two Baskets

It's been a while since I had a guest post, so I'm extra thrilled to have this one from Claudia Mills. We met at a children's book festival in Missouri and have been cyber-friends ever since.

The thing I like best about having a day job in addition to my writing career is the comfort of not having all my eggs in one basket. Here I’m thinking not so much of monetary eggs, but of the kind of eggs that entitle one to brag or boast or at the least to give oneself occasional comforting pats on the back. Because I am both a children’s book author and a philosophy professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, I can pat myself on the back as either one, especially if I’m slogging through discouragement in the other.

If I get a snarky review of one of my books, I can tell myself, “Well, I’m a tenured professor of philosophy, so there!” And if I get a snarky teaching evaluation from one of my students, I can tell myself, “Well, I’m the author of almost fifty children’s books, so there!” I always have an excuse at the ready for why I’m not more famous or successful in either profession. For although I’ve had a good double career, all things considered, I’m languishing in my academic career at the Associate Professor level (where Full Professor is the best), and in my writing career I’m definitely what’s known as a “midlist” author. No gold seals of major awards emblazon the front covers of my books; no bestseller lists carry my name. But, hey, for someone who has to balance the demands of two careers (plus, for a couple of decades, the demands of a family) I’m doing pretty darned well.

The thing I like least about having a day job is wondering if I could be more successful as an author if I devoted my whole heart to my writing. Would I win the Newbery then? Would my books be read by millions of children? I’ve written a heap of books while writing just an hour a day, so quantity hasn’t been a problem for me with a part-time writing schedule. But would I write better books if I had lovely meadow-like expanses of time stretching before me each day? I don’t know. I certainly don’t think I’ve ever cut any corners on a book, ever dashed something off just to get it done under a tight time constraint. My books have always been as good as I could possibly make them. But would I be able to make them better if I had more time to dream and “moodle” (as Brenda Ueland calls it in If You Want to Write)? Perhaps.

Yet, looking at the lives of my friends who write full time, I have to say that most of them are not luxuriating in lovely meadow-like days. With pressures to earn the money that my day job provides me, they spend much of their time at school visits, self-promotion, and other tasks of the writing life that are decidedly not dreaming or moodling, not to mention writing. Still, those activities – time spent with children, teachers, and librarians, time spent networking with other writers – might help me to grow as a writer. Plus, they can be fun activities in their own right.

So . . . if I thought I could write not more books but better books by quitting my day job, I’d be terribly tempted. But what if I gave my writing my all, and I was still a cheerful, striving midlist author and not the Next Great Thing? Without even a self-congratulatory excuse to make myself feel better?

I’d give up having eggs in two baskets if I could have better, fresher, altogether more gorgeous eggs in my writing basket. But would I? I know the only way to find out is to try it and see. Maybe, one of these days, I will.


Claudia Mills is the author of over 50 books for young readers, including picture books (Ziggy’s Blue-Ribbon Day), easy readers (the ten books of the Gus and Grandpa series), chapter books (Fractions = Trouble!, Being Teddy Roosevelt, How Oliver Olson Changed the World), and middle-grade novels (The Totally Made-Up Civil War Diary of Amanda MacLeish, One Square Inch).  Recently, How Oliver Olson Changed the World was named an ALA Notable Book of the Year, as well as a Blue Ribbon book by the Bulletin from the Center for Children’s Books and finalist for a Cybil Award. Claudia, who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University, also has a full-time position as a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and has published many scholarly articles on ethical and philosophical themes in children’s literature. Visit her website and her blog.