The Gauntlet: The Busy Season

Sundry Sunday #1 – August 30

For my first Sundry Sunday, I felt at a loss for what to share. The last month has been busier than I expected, with a lot of ups and downs, some big feelings, some wins, and some setbacks. I don’t think I’ve managed to fit this much work-work, social time, and creative work into each day for a decade, and I’m really pleased with myself, but also really paranoid that a big crash is coming soon.

I am in the full swing of things with my full-time students and my part time teaching work is entering its second week. That has been an adventure! Learning a new platform, sorting out the schedule, trying to post enough resources for everyone to be successful, and then running my classroom through a little screen.

There was a lot of time for connecting with old friends this week as well. Some of my coworkers from my first ever job (Cave of the Winds) were in town for a Celebration of Life of a mutual friend, and it was so lovely and so odd to see faces I haven’t seen for 10, 15, or 20 years. We met at Village Inn for pie, as was the tradition after a caving trip back then, with decidedly less mud. I had a chance to connect one-on-one with one of my favorite former coworkers later in the week, and then the Celebration of Life for Mike was beautiful. Cave of the Winds opened up the use of their pavilion and Mike’s family and friends shared stories and music and photos from his life. I didn’t know Mike especially well, but he made an impression on everyone he met. He was adventurous, a unique thinker, playful and funny, and he was eager to share not just knowledge but opportunities with people new to caving or to the canyon. What stuck with me over the years was his sense of humor (filthy) and how he made me feel accepted and welcome—and like I could be a part of something—in the canyon and the grotto. And if you know me, it’s hard to make me feel like I’ve been accepted somewhere what with the RSD and anxiety.

On top of all of that, I managed to fit in some lounge time, mini-golf, coffee and Spirit Halloween with a friend, some birthday ink and birthday bows with another friend, and got my Week 2 module scheduled (successfully?) to post tomorrow. Now, I just have a short story to finish and probably some demons to kill (still on Diablo III).

For fun, and as an example, I setting myself the same writing task I set my students to start this semester: an essay evaluating the effectiveness of [blank] and how I measure up based on the criteria I’ve selected. This was the spontaneous first draft that I shared with them:

Of course, I’m going to evaluate what makes an effective writer. Because, well, what else have I been judging myself on the last three years if not my identity as a writer? Classifying what criteria make for an effective writer feels challenging because there are many different kinds of writer, and writing, out there. We could segment fiction writers from academic writers from journalists from corporate email-writers and so on down the line, but I want to measure all writers and their effectiveness, focusing on the things they share in common rather than the nuance across genre and purpose. All effective writers write, they make time for their craft and they put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), they think about writing when they aren’t doing it, and they read when they aren’t doing the first two.

So, all effective writers write. They write on a schedule, they write for ten minutes a day, they write 2,000 words a day, they write on fancy notebooks, on typewriters, and on the backs of grocery lists. In order to be effective at something, I think it’s important to practice with some regularity. Our muscles can atrophy if we don’t use them, and skills like writing work in much the same way: without keeping up the practice, the brain stops prioritizing those neural pathways and we start to lose the skill over time. I’ve known writers who write every day, no matter what, and others who have taken a long stretch of time away from writing, but plan to return. When I think of myself as a writer, this is a reassuring point for me. I do write, sometimes every day, and sometimes not for weeks and weeks at a time, but I always know I’m going to come back to the writing. There is a schedule that I strive to stick to, and when I’m not able to do the work, I know I have a path to get back in. It’s fair to allow for writers to get stuck, blocked, or to take time away from their writing, but they are effective when they never really stop.

Effective writers are still thinking about writing even when they aren’t doing it. The act of writing doesn’t always look like someone bent over a notebook, scribbling away, completely locked into the task in front of them. Writing looks like typing a quick note in the notes app on a phone, like staring off at the clouds during a particularly stormy monsoon evening, like rereading a writing prompt over again. In fact, writing rarely looks like someone actually sitting and writing, because a lot of the effective writer’s work is in thinking about the writing. I spend a lot of time thinking about the stories I want to tell, the events and the world and the characters, and most of that doesn’t look like adding words to a page. When I spend time thinking about the writing I want to do, taking little notes, imagining what I want to say, thinking about the topic, the end product is always better (and it’s more enjoyable to get there) than it would have been if I had forced myself to put the words down before I was ready. Thinking about writing is a process that can be continuously expansive.

When they’re not writing, or thinking about writing, effective writers read. Reading is one of the best ways to explore the nuance of language and way that humans tell stories. Every text can be an example and an inspiration. Every new book or article can open up new vocabulary or knowledge. Reading is the work of an effective writer. This is often a struggle for me, as when I’m writing a lot I tend to have less time for reading, and vice versa. I also feel worried sometimes that if I’m reading something too close to what I’m writing at that time, that another author’s voice might seep into my own story. To combat this, because I know it’s one of the best things I can do for my writing practice, I have lately taken to reading genres that are very different from my current writing projects and I try to select books that seem like they will either be quick reads for me, engaging and exciting enough to make me read them in a day or two, or like they are comforting enough to read in the window before sleep to pick away at over a couple of weeks. It’s immensely helpful for an effective writer who might be in doubt, or struggling, to turn back to reading.

Perhaps it’s too broad, perhaps the gate is being kept closely enough, but to me, effective writers are individuals who write, who think about writing, and who read. It took me a long time to claim writer as part of my identity. I thought to be a writer, I had to be published, I had to win contests or awards, I had to be doing nothing but writing, all of the time. But that was just me being in my own way. For anyone who writes, who thinks about writing, and who reads with some semblance of regularity, they are writers. No external judge can take that away because the identity exists in the action: writers write.

The rest of it:

• I turn a “big age” in just a couple days and I’m still undecided on how to feel. I don’t feel any different. Not really. I don’t feel older or wiser or more capable. I do feel like I know a lot more, and I feel a little less filtered, but that’s it. I don’t like the way the skin on my neck looks right now and I can’t tell if it’s from age or from being a little fluffier, weight wise. I’m also in danger of forming this permanent “what the fuck did you say?” line in between my eyebrows and I’m trying really hard to relax my face. But it’s hard to keep my face quiet. Even if it feels weird, I know getting older is a privilege, it’s an adventure, and it’s not something I was sure I would get to do.
• I’m trying my hand at caring for some houseplants again. I’m kind of guilty of plant neglect in the past, so the ones I have still are at least forged in fire, they’ve proved they can hang through the highs and lows, and I’m slowly, tentatively, bringing some other guys in. I need to name them again, so I’m less likely to forget about them.