2020 has been an interesting balance of both good and bad. On the bad hand (do I even need to say it?), we have the global pandemic that has wrought immeasurable destruction and hardship, irreversibly changed the world of education forever, and this year my wife lost both her job and her grandmother. On a good hand, we got engaged, got married, and have been able to spend more time with each other in the first six months of our marriage than we would have normally.
So, too, has this year been an interesting balance of both my teaching profession and, what I hope to someday call a profession but at this point is still more of a hobby, my writing.
Some Background
While I have considered myself a writer since I was in high school, the reality is that my writing slowed to a near-halt when I began teaching right after college. I went from writing a whole heck of a lot all through high school and college to suddenly not having the energy to write a single thing. I probably went three or four years without actually writing creatively.
Then, a few years ago, I got inspiration to write properly again, and in a year and a half I wrote a novel: Up the Water Spout. It was an arduous process – I would go months without working on it, and then suddenly have a writing sprint and write 20K words in a week. It wasn’t the best writing process, I’ll admit, but I got it done in June of 2019 and began my querying journey for the first time.
By early 2020, I was burnt out. I had been doing editing on UtWS, but querying was unsuccessful and there were plenty of other things arresting my attention.
Then the pandemic hit.
Pandemic Writing
In early March when the pandemic first hit, schools actually shut down to prevent infection spread (what a concept!). This meant that I was working from home, and suddenly had a lot more free time than I did previously. Granted, my wife and I filled that mostly with Animal Crossing (as did the rest of the world, it seemed at the time), but I also started doing a lot more writing. I began my Leticia Lunetti fanfiction, edited UtWS again, started writing a whole new draft of UtWS that I ultimately scrapped, had some fun working on some really old stories I had written in high school, wrote a few short stories, and began writing semi-regularly again on my website.
At the end of June, I started working on Legend of Samantha Torres, and by the time school started back up in August I had completed a second draft. Even then, teaching was entirely virtual, and so there was more free time to be had (it’s amazing how much free time you have when you don’t have to spend over an hour driving to and from work every day).
When schools started returning to in-person classes, however, a balance needed to be found.
Teaching and Side-Gigs
It’s not uncommon for teachers to have side-gigs. Heck, so many of us have to have second jobs and such in order to pay the bills. However, there is a golden rule that every teacher must follow:
Your side-gig can’t come into the classroom.
What this means is that you can’t use district resources to make money elsewhere. Running a small business? Better not try to sell stuff to fellow teachers or (heaven forbid) students. Writing a blog that you get ad money from? Don’t even think about that post on a school computer. Most districts that I know of would fire you over that sort of thing, so it’s always best to just keep that at home.
Even though I’m not making money off my blog posts or actually published yet, that doesn’t mean I’m not mindful of that golden rule. Honestly, I love teaching too much (and quite like having a regular paycheck, especially in the pandemic) to risk losing it.
So what happened when I was back teaching in the classroom? Do I go back to my “on-again, off-again” style of writing that had worked so poorly in the past? Do I try to fervently write from my phone during my off-periods, when all the grading and planning is done? How do I find that fine balance?
Well, the truth is: teaching comes first. Not only is it the job and profession I love, but this year especially it became crucially important for me to be truly present in the classroom. My students are dealing with enough – if I wasn’t focused on their needs and trying to help them, my role as their teacher would be inconsequential, and even more students would be unsuccessful this year. So no matter what, I had to prioritize that.
Initially, this meant that I went cold-turkey, so to speak. For the first 3-4 weeks of in-person teaching, I wrote next to nothing. Blog posts, fanfiction chapters, LoST editing, all of it temporarily thrown to the wayside. And that was a good thing – I connected with my students, focused on adapting to this strange new teaching methodology, and tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to manage the anxiety and stress that came from returning to the classroom amidst a worsening pandemic.
Balance Found
Eventually, I found some time when I could actually work on writing: mornings.
In order to mitigate the risk of catching COVID, I started getting to campus 2 hours before I was contracted to do so (teachers have contract hours, if you didn’t know that). I’m pretty on-top of my planning and grading, so while the first thirty minutes might be spent catching up and mentally preparing myself for the day, the reality is that I had an extra hour or so to kill.
So I wrote.
Let me tell you, I have gotten really good at writing on my phone. This entire blog post? Written on my phone. About 25K words in Leticia Lunetti? Phone. A majority of the editing I’ve done for LoST? Phone.
It wasn’t easy, but I found that balance. The mornings have become my time of writing. I’m glad my classroom is off in the corner of the campus where nobody goes – I’m sure that anyone walking past would be a little concerned to see a teacher pacing about their classroom, talking to themselves while frantically typing on their phone.
Most of my writing is actually still at home – on the weekends when my wife logically sleeps in, I spend a good bit of it writing or editing. I prefer it – I can type a lot faster on a physical computer keyboard than I can on my phone (though I’ve gotten better!). But I’m able to carve out a little time for me in the mornings, and it becomes a part of my calming pre-teaching routine.
Two Lessons
There are still many days when I do zero writing – maybe I get swamped with grading, or maybe my heart’s just not in it. That happens a lot, and it’s the reality of being a teacher. But for those of you out there who might be in a similar place as me, who are both teachers and writers at heart and are trying to find the awkward balance between the two, I have two lessons:
1. Any amount of writing is good writing
What I mean here is this: any time where you are able to find a moment (or the energy) to do some writing is a good time. If you’re more the night owl and get your writing done late at night, great! If you’re like me and writing while still half-asleep, go for it! Even if the writing itself isn’t good, the fact that you’re doing it at all is impressive.
2. Cut yourself a break
Look, this year has been rough. Nobody is going to deny that. And if you find that you’re not able to write for days, weeks, or even months at a time: that’s okay. The reality is that, for us, teaching comes first. And sometimes that means that there simply isn’t the motivation or energy to do other things. Give yourself a break and let yourself rest.
Honestly, after re-reading this, this advice applies to pretty much anyone who fancies themself a writer. Take it easy, stay safe, and (as I always jokingly tell my students) don’t get arrested!
Jacob Ryckman 