The Only Thing You Have To Worry About Is Being Kicked Into A Well

Image by Kashif Mardani

In my head, the ideal life is writing when I want, on what I want, how I want. But you can’t be trusted to write that kind of thing. People have to know you before they trust you. You have to trust yourself. You have to know a lot before you can write a lot, I think. And I think you should know a lot.

I’ve been struggling recently with my class reading. I have a lot to read. For one class, we have 3 books, online readings, and handouts to get through and none of them are easy reads. Plus, I’m a slow reader. AND I’m not into the pedagogy side of what my major is teaching. Rhetoric and Writing seems to be for those who want to make a career out of teaching. A year ago that was totally me. But now, I want to be a writer who teaches. I only want to be a teacher because I know once I have that gig, I’ll have it for a little while–longer than a freelance job any way. I also hold two part time graduate assistant jobs, teach a dance class at the gym, and work the front desk. I’m a wee bit busy as it were. But all that reading! I need it for class and my projects, don’t I?

My professor said it was alright if we only got 80% of the reading done, but that makes me lazy and the next thing you know, I’ve only read ten of the fifty pages we had due. But at times like that, I get a lot of creative writing done to send out (and have rejected…)! I have to find a balance of what to get done. On the one hand, I need to write creative stuff (that bad stuff I mentioned in my last blog that is fun to do) so I can send it out and try to get something published outside of my school’s literary magazine. On the other, I need to know this rhetoric and digital stuff so I can do my school projects well and sound smart. And I mean, this is the stuff that will pay me later. Right?

I’ve decided to break it down the middle. I need this well of knowledge that is filling up from all this reading. I may never directly apply this stuff, but I need to know it. It gives me ideas, makes me think of media and literacy in a whole new way, and challenges me. All of this is good. I also am learning to take pleasure in writing book reviews, grants, technical writing–all that “boring” stuff (I’m a novelist and a fantasy writer at that, cut me some slack!) that will pay me sooner than a short story will. I need to abel to dip into this well of knowledge and use it for other kinds of writing. However, I have an addictive (and lazy…) personality. I could easily fall into this well and never get out again. I could be so caught up in writing academically that I never write “Once upon a time” again!

But that’s not what I want. So I warn myself thusly: “Alright, you have time at work to finish this chapter. Then, you will have your academic writing done by 3pm, no later because of class. Then, you will start a timer and you will 500 words of fun stuff.”
I don’t have just one “fun” project I’m working on and rather than stare at one that I can’t get my juices flowing for, I open up Write Or Die 2 and use the given prompt in there. Or I even go to seventhsanctum.com and get some nonsense from those generators. I save those little 500-word bits for later, just in case SOMETHING can come from them.

But the point is the balance it out. Yin and Yang. Jedi and Sith. Spock and Kirk. That kind of thing. I don’t want lose myself in that well (and then haunt some people). I want to stay the way I am and entwine my worlds. I never wanted academia to touch my creative writing, but I’m grateful for the lessons it’s taught me that I can apply to my creativity.