I am Climaxing Right Now...

We've all heard the jokes about getting an English degree. The difference from a large pizza? The pizza can feed a family of four. Why is the president calling? To get a new analysis of Hamlet, obviously. And so on. As such, when I was nearing the end of my undergrad, I needed a plan for skipping the starving part of starving artist.

I did the whole rigmarole with quizzes about interests and skills. I was not surprised by the suggestion to become a teacher. That’s an English major mainstay. Librarian, though, was an eye-catcher. So I did some preliminary labour market searches (Google, nothing fancy) and reached out to professionals in the field. Some worked at my campus. Others were part of the local public library system. I met up with some and emailed a few. I even contacted librarians from the universities whose Masters programs interested me.

I was intrigued. First, the labour market was on wheels. Hiring managers were scheduling interviews with prospective librarians and those applicants got jobs elsewhere before the interview even happened. Second, there were many more kinds of jobs related to librarianship than I ever would have guessed. Third, the field offered a plethora of opportunities and resources that would have served my writing ambitions quite well indeed.

I narrowed down the universities that would work best for me. Which was easy: three of them offered co-op work terms as part of the degree. One of them guaranteed these work terms would be paid.

So I had one option.

Also, there were scholarships to apply for.

The program would only take one year.

I would get access to programs and institutions for all kinds of stuff: skillbuilding, networking opportunities, conventions, research resources, and much more. To meet and buddy-up with publishers would be easy. I could learn the ropes of swinging with the pros.

Getting a sweet job on the other end of the degree was mandatory, of course. That was the most important step. I'd make bank, have a solid suite of benefits, and take writing sabbaticals.

Everything was coming up Milhouse.

There was no way this plan wouldn't work out.

I’ve talked elsewhere about the heartbreak, dismay, horror, and befuddlement I experienced when I went out into the workforce with my big fancy degree and got a whole lot of nothing. What’s important is that I’m now climaxing (as a writer).

After graduation, my writing came in fits and starts. Most of my time and energy went into the job search. As that gruelling struggle went on (and on and on), I found that I just didn’t have it in me to write much. Even when I did, I was trying to “catch up” with the success that I was “supposed” to have by that point in my life. I aimed for prestigious publication platforms, high-paying prizes, and the big leagues in general.

This meant every word I wrote had to be a sparkling example of the language. Every word had to connect with practically every other word in a magnificent web of intricately-wrought artistry. Theme, symbolism, social commentary, and all the rest. It would take me many months to craft a single short story.

And all those months were joyless.

For many years, I subjected myself and my writing to unfair pressure, unrealistic expectations, and unyielding purpose. I had to dig myself out of financial destitution the long way: full-time, exhausting drudgery. When I reached the top of my position’s pay scale, the plan was to step down to part-time work. It would require a tightened belt, but I’d be able to live off my day job and finally carve out real writing time.

Covid hit.

I delayed the “voluntary demotion” until I was sure the pandemic wouldn’t leave me stranded. Which only took a few months. Then I was part-time and the results were immediate. I started pumping out books that had been taking forever before, due to how little writing time I could wrangle out of my work schedule. It was time to take off!

…so I had an existential crisis.

The amount of time and energy it was costing me to craft my stories was far in excess of what it should have been. Not that writing is easy – no art is easy – but there’s a difference between happily working hard and miserably slaving away. The extra time wasn’t the answer to my woes. Not by itself, at any rate.

All the heavy questions started crashing down on me. Would I ever get anywhere with this writing business? Was it worth all the effort? Is any of it any good? How much longer do I have to toil away to get the life I want? Should I give up? Can I give up? What will it take to succeed? What does success even look like?

There was – and is – a lot of guilt surrounding the fact that I finally had my life in order, I had available time, I didn’t have children or other commitments beyond the ones I wanted, and yet I could not write. I’m committed to my Knives of Engen series with Engen Books. I have novels languishing in the wings. But no time or energy could go into them until I had myself figured out.

So I spent two years, as I described here, taking a hard look at my art and my life.

It’s been difficult to pass up submission opportunities, let my novels warm the bench, and eat up time doing what felt like nothing.

But I needed that two years.

I needed to work out the fact that effort doesn’t have to translate to measurable influence in the real world. That I need to be happy with what I write, even if it never sees the light of day. Because if I don’t get any joy from my own writing, if it’s just a chore and I’m not interested, then how can I expect anyone else to care? More than that, what’s in it for me? Money can’t be the only answer, no matter how high my sales take off.

I’m now in the midst of the biggest transformation I’ve experienced since moving out of a small town to go to university. In fact, it might be the biggest one yet. I’ve always believed that a person had to have a purpose in life. That work had to produce results. That suffering, hardship, and adversity don’t “count” if people’s lives don’t improve after whatever you’ve been through. And those beliefs permeated my every move.

You can’t decide what other people will think, say, or do because of your art. You can’t control social forces with cultural impact. All you can do is put your voice out there – be Vocal, as it were – and hope there are enough people on the same page that you can be part of a bigger movement.

In librarian circles, we don’t talk about searchability. We talk about findability. You can search forever. Like browsing. There’s something to be said for that, but if you need something in particular, you don’t want to wander – you want to get there and get on with things. I've reached my climax (heh) by making a change in what my art means to me.

This is the middle of my life story because I’m shedding most of the assumptions that weighed me down in my youth. I don’t say all, because it’s possible I’ve overlooked some. And some of my assumptions are valid. I knew, for instance, that reaching full-time writer status was going to take outstanding effort, time, and luck.

I’ve found that I don’t need to have all the answers. Not right now, anyway. Even the great minds did a certain amount of mucking around. I’ve found that success to me is just about connecting with a community. Vocal is giving me some of that. But I’ll feel like a successful writer when someone tells me my stories helped them. Or at least resonated. Success can’t be about numbers, because those can always be higher. It has to be about something that doesn’t fit numbers well. Like making a difference in someone’s life. Sure, you can add more people you’ve impacted, but that misses the point. Making a difference – a real, authentic, heartfelt impact – is specific to that individual. If you’re reaching more than one person, then you’ve struck on something relatable. Something human.

I’m in the middle of my story – the climax, or turning point – because I’ve found a new light to write by. I’m becoming more interested in the play-by-play of plot movement and the grounded experience of characters who give a gut response to readers and to myself. This has meant less of the ivory tower stuff; the application of highfalutin critical theory is great and all, but it’s pulling me out of what’s human. And what’s fun.

I love academia, and I won’t entirely give up the theoretical and analytical stuff. It gives me its own fulfilment. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with my English degree or with approaching stories with the “literary” lens, whatever you think that word means. What I am saying is, I’ve found my art has to be something meaningful to me as a thing in itself. Not as a call to action, part of a course syllabus, source of income, or anything else.

Writing comes easier to me now. It’s less stressful and I produce far more words. I’m more comfortable with them being less than Nobel Prize material. More importantly, I look forward to the future. With this difficult turning point worked out, I hope to experience the creation of art in a fuller way. That’s been a process, of course; it’s not a light switch. But as I get more comfortable with this worldview, my writing and the life it explores are becoming better balanced. More free and less bound by something outside myself.

And now for the most important part: moving forward.