It's been a good day for writing. A surprise snow day off from work can do that - a chance to sleep in, then get up and attend to Things That Need Doing (in my case, correcting papers that were building up), then... WRITING TIME!
It's not often that my muse cooperates with my schedule... in fact, I've gotten rather used to her abandoning me whenever I actually have a moment to sit down at the computer. Today, however, she stayed with me as I chugged through a first draft of a picture book and revisions of two others. Huzzah! For the first time in too long, I actually feel like a writer!
Now, to just find a way to replicate this miracle more often...
Christina Vrba ponders writing, daily life, and all the little fritters in between
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Not Feeling the Love
I'm not feeling the love for teaching at the moment.
Teaching is what I do to support my family and to support my writing. There was a time I considered it my calling - a time when I was on fire for teaching, wanted to teach, wanted it more than almost anything other than becoming a published writer. But that's not where I am in my heart right now.
I still want to teach. Why? Well, writing is a funny way to make a living, and precious few people CAN make a living at writing. Hence, a second job is necessary, and teaching is better than the alternative... a soulless office job, pushing papers around for some company nobody's ever heard of, jumping to some manager's every whim. Besides, if I have to work around people who act like children, as too many adults I've encountered do, I'm darn well going to work around actual children. At least they're acting their age.
But that's a far cry from having a fire in my belly for teaching, as I once did.
It makes me very, very sad to know that I don't love teaching right now. I don't want to become one of those awful deadwood teachers, marking time until retirement, taking up space, burned out long ago and refusing to leave. I truly don't. But I'm not sure how to rekindle my fire when I've lost my spark.
Teaching is what I do to support my family and to support my writing. There was a time I considered it my calling - a time when I was on fire for teaching, wanted to teach, wanted it more than almost anything other than becoming a published writer. But that's not where I am in my heart right now.
I still want to teach. Why? Well, writing is a funny way to make a living, and precious few people CAN make a living at writing. Hence, a second job is necessary, and teaching is better than the alternative... a soulless office job, pushing papers around for some company nobody's ever heard of, jumping to some manager's every whim. Besides, if I have to work around people who act like children, as too many adults I've encountered do, I'm darn well going to work around actual children. At least they're acting their age.
But that's a far cry from having a fire in my belly for teaching, as I once did.
It makes me very, very sad to know that I don't love teaching right now. I don't want to become one of those awful deadwood teachers, marking time until retirement, taking up space, burned out long ago and refusing to leave. I truly don't. But I'm not sure how to rekindle my fire when I've lost my spark.
Saturday, January 12, 2019
Building a Social Media Platform
My resolution for the new year was to get with the program, technology-wise, and start acting like a writer of the twenty first century. Specifically, I resolved to build my social media platform. That means Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, all that lovely stuff I have already joined but haven't spent a ton of time on, writer-wise. And frankly, shoring up my wobbly platform is just a bit intimidating.
The fact is, I've neglected my blog, ignored Twitter, and used my Facebook page for strictly personal use. It's not that I don't have much to say as a writer - sometimes, I've got too MUCH to say. It's just that in my head, there's this little voice warning me, "Don't say that. Don't put that down in words. For God's sake, don't WRITE that where other people can see it!"
You see, every year or so, the teaching staff at my school has to sit through a teeth-grittingly tedious and blood-pressure raisingly irritating staff meeting about the public face of teachers. Namely, that we are all teachers 24/7, that we are bound to our professional personas with chains of lead, and that anything that we say or do in our personal lives can and will be used against us if we're not careful. I get it, in a way... teachers who go out partying every weekend and post pictures all over Instagram of themselves getting wasted or teachers who loudly advocate on Facebook for the legalization of recreational marijuana are not really the role models we want teaching our children. But I get the heeby-jeebies at the thought that people might be watching ME, analyzing anything I post or tweet, just looking for an excuse to complain to my principal or superintendent about my unprofessional behavior.
This leads, of course, to the necessity of cultivating a professional face for the public... and that opens up an entirely new doorway leading down a hall I don't particularly want to walk. While I don't consider myself half the icon the fictional Atticus Finch was, I've always loved To Kill a Mockingbird and yearned to be, as Miss Maudie says of Atticus, the same person in my house as I am on the public streets. I don't want to cultivate a public face. I just want to be myself, and be enough in that self that I don't need to worry about what anyone says or thinks about me.
All of this makes shoring up my social media platform a challenge, to say the least. I can grit my teeth and post blandly on my Facebook author's page account, looking for inspirational quotes and pictures of kittens to fill that space; I can join Twitter, though I'm not sure I have the time right now to make it a worthwhile effort. And I can dust off this blog, and try to make an entry a week - or can this blog entirely and start afresh, maybe, since anyone looking at the frequency of my past posts will see that I'm not exactly a regular updater. But will I be able to be myself, as a writer? Is that desirable? Is it wise?
I guess I'll just have to try it and find out.
The fact is, I've neglected my blog, ignored Twitter, and used my Facebook page for strictly personal use. It's not that I don't have much to say as a writer - sometimes, I've got too MUCH to say. It's just that in my head, there's this little voice warning me, "Don't say that. Don't put that down in words. For God's sake, don't WRITE that where other people can see it!"
You see, every year or so, the teaching staff at my school has to sit through a teeth-grittingly tedious and blood-pressure raisingly irritating staff meeting about the public face of teachers. Namely, that we are all teachers 24/7, that we are bound to our professional personas with chains of lead, and that anything that we say or do in our personal lives can and will be used against us if we're not careful. I get it, in a way... teachers who go out partying every weekend and post pictures all over Instagram of themselves getting wasted or teachers who loudly advocate on Facebook for the legalization of recreational marijuana are not really the role models we want teaching our children. But I get the heeby-jeebies at the thought that people might be watching ME, analyzing anything I post or tweet, just looking for an excuse to complain to my principal or superintendent about my unprofessional behavior.
This leads, of course, to the necessity of cultivating a professional face for the public... and that opens up an entirely new doorway leading down a hall I don't particularly want to walk. While I don't consider myself half the icon the fictional Atticus Finch was, I've always loved To Kill a Mockingbird and yearned to be, as Miss Maudie says of Atticus, the same person in my house as I am on the public streets. I don't want to cultivate a public face. I just want to be myself, and be enough in that self that I don't need to worry about what anyone says or thinks about me.
All of this makes shoring up my social media platform a challenge, to say the least. I can grit my teeth and post blandly on my Facebook author's page account, looking for inspirational quotes and pictures of kittens to fill that space; I can join Twitter, though I'm not sure I have the time right now to make it a worthwhile effort. And I can dust off this blog, and try to make an entry a week - or can this blog entirely and start afresh, maybe, since anyone looking at the frequency of my past posts will see that I'm not exactly a regular updater. But will I be able to be myself, as a writer? Is that desirable? Is it wise?
I guess I'll just have to try it and find out.
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