Processing My Thoughts through Writing

It's amazing to me how just writing something out, expressing my anger and arguments on a subject through the written word, can make me feel so much better. It doesn't solve the problem, per se, but for me, writing something out is my first step in dealing with it and addressing it.

Today (and last night, to be honest) I was consumed by anger about a particular set of laws that have been proposed here in Georgia and throughout the United States. The recent attacks on women and reproductive freedoms have me completely infuriated. So much so that I have been losing sleep over the issue.

While I don't plan to stop with writing a blog post that only a small handful of people will read, it was my necessary first step. Now that I've written it, it becomes real.

It was always weird for me, that listening to lectures in high school and college, I could process information and respond to ideas, but until I wrote something down about it, until I wrote my own essay, or put the concepts down into my own words, they never really clicked for me. Writing is a way of processing ideas, of making them real. It's how I work things out, how I process them. Even if I just whiteboard an idea out and erase it immediately, what I write down there sticks with me far better than anything I listen to or encounter in any other way.

It's why writing in a journal or diary has always been a great way for me to address serious issues in my life. If I try to process it just in my head or talking it out, I can lose track of the issue. I have to write it down, make lists, compose a narrative for the issue. Only then does it really mean anything. Only then does it become real to me.

Writing is how I give life to my thoughts.

So forgive me, people in my life, if sometimes I can't deal with issues the first time I encounter them, or if I have to shut down an argument or discussion that occurs in real life. If I haven't written about it previously, chances are I can't get a handle on my thoughts. They're flitting around in my head, effervescent with their intangibility. Until I pin them down and capture them with the written word, they're not real to me.

If I've written about it previously though, I'm good to go. So watch out if you engage me on one of those issues. :)

Forcing Discipline

I am horrible at discipline. I love my work; I love writing. I really do. But half the time I am tempted to do nothing but watch the entire series of Battlestar Galactica for the fourth time or play video games or read all the books (I average more than 50 a year, and I feel like a slacker!).

But when I have something I really should be working on, even if I want to, my creative/childish side rebels and wants to do anything but work. This is awful when you basically work for yourself. I am trying to build a brand for myself with writing. I freelance for many different companies and websites, as well as work with several graduate students on dissertations and writing projects. I run three blogs (about which you've read), am working on a novel, am world building for two more, and am beginning to draft for a nonfiction book. Not to mention the ebook/app I'm developing, the home I'm keeping clean, the meals I make, and the house hunting.

Wow I'm exhausted just listing those things!

So, in order to get any sort of work done, I have to create rewards for myself. These can be little things, like "You can take a fifteen minute web-surfing break if you finish this article," to harsh and punitive, "You may not leave the house until you finish that chapter." Sometimes I cheat myself, but I always have to remind myself that I'm the only one I'm hurting when I do so. Yes, I may want to go out instead of stay in and write; yes, I may prefer to read the latest Rothfuss offering right now. But is it worth it when I go another day without working on my own writing? (When it comes to reading Rothfuss, the answer is "SO TOTALLY WORTH IT!" but that's the rare exception.)

The rewards do work, though. I get so much more accomplished when I program in little bonuses for a job well done. Tonight, that means I got through way more than the 25 articles I needed to do today to get caught up for going to karaoke last night. That means, I get paid on time this week, can afford to pay for my sister's bachelorette party, and retain the good will of my family. See? It all works out.

So for your edification (or glimpse into the twisted structure that gets Sara to accomplish anything), I give you today's reward structure:

Today's absolute minimum: Finish five articles or you can't have a single glass of water or go to the bathroom or get up out of that chair, you lazy slug. (I didn't enforce this very strictly, but I got it done.)

No food today unless you finish at least ten.

Today's main goal: Okay, this batch has to be completely done before you leave to pick up your husband from the airport. If you fail, he's stranded at the airport, and it's all on you. Do you want to be a terrible wife? Then finish this batch!

Above and beyond: Good job getting to where you should have been yesterday. All right, we'll be lenient, five more articles and you can have a glass of wine. It's your favorite!

Keeping the momentum going: Great job! Okay, five more short articles and a blog entry (believe it or not, this is actually part of the reward), and after that and you can watch an episode of that show you love.

Still to come: Whoo hoo! Wasn't that reward nice? I'll tell you what: if you can give me five more now that you're all rested, you can take a nice relaxing bath and go through some research for your novel before bed. (Note how I plug in productivity on another project as a reward. My way of tricking myself: procrastination by working on something that needs to be done, but probably not yet. Sneaky productivity!)

And that's that. That is how I wrote 25 articles and over 8000 words today. Problem is, I need to come up with new rewards for tomorrow... Any ideas??

Two New Blogs

The point of this blog was to get me back into the habit of writing daily. Alas, that has not panned out the way I intended with my posts here being a bit sporadic to say the least.

And yet, I do write every day now!

I'm either writing for my clients, working on my novels, or now blogging on specific topics.

That's right. I'm launching two new blogs, that I hope I will post in at least three to four times a week, if not every day. They are more focused than this blog, aimed at specific target audiences and exploring variations on themes. I'm hoping that will enable me to start building platforms from which I might launch some future works.

In the meantime, they're great opportunities for me to write every day and explore things I think about a good deal.

The first is "A Sane Libertarian." In this blog I will discuss a good deal of politics from a highly educated, highly interested libertarian perspective. I didn't spend four years in college and three years in grad school to never talk about politics. And since the topic is verboten at most social gatherings, I'm going to commit to writing about it. I've got a Masters in Political Theory and American Politics from the University of Virginia, I've run a political campaign for the US House of Representatives, and I keep up with politics by reading way too many blogs and news sites. Time to make my experiences work for me.

The second blog is called "A Writer's Recipes." The first post basically sums up why I'm doing this blog: I have to lose about 30 pounds for my sister's wedding in order to shrink my well-endowed top half and fit into the bridesmaid's dress that is apparently discontinued and the last size they had.... *RAGE* .... Since I have a relatively sedentary lifestyle as a writer and I really hate to exercise--I don't run unless someone's chasing me--I aim to keep my daily caloric intake below 1200. This means modifying recipes and trying out new ones to keep from getting bored. Salads every day are unacceptable in my house, especially since my husband doesn't eat them. In this blog, you can follow my experiments, successes, and failures as I change my eating profile and hopefully my physical profile as well!

So that's that. I hope you will consider checking them out! Let me know what you think of them, and if you want me to tackle any particular topics in either of them.

Comment on my last post:

JamesJan 10, 2012 06:43 AM

I'm very happy you are a writer

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you know how you married the right person.

My poor husband puts up with being married to a very frequently unstable, complicated, complex, troublesome person who would rather disappear into a fantasy world of her own creation. His wife dives into work and distraction with equal vigor, because she can justify both as inspiration or production. He deals with irregular sleep patterns, emotional outbursts, and unpredictable story telling as an idea works its way out of subconsciousness. His wife frequently disappears into her own head for days at a time, and yet still constantly needs reassurance that she is being supported (as it's sometimes the only connection she has to this world).

And yet he professes that he is glad his wife is a writer.

I have either married a saint or a masochist.

Either way, I love my husband, and I am so sorry for all I put him through. Zeus knows that I am a problem who is equally likely to spontaneously want to move to Montana and live on a kibbutz (as was brought up tonight) as to situate herself in a one room studio in London with no internet access just so she can write with no distractions. How that man talks me down from my crazier ideas and convinces me to channel them through my writing, I will never know. He has more patience than anyone I've met (as my father constantly reminds him). And I'm sorry, I put him through so much.

Mind you, it's not going to change any time soon... I'm going to be a challenge no matter what. But I love him. And I am so lucky that he loves me.

Don't Be a Writer

Good Advice

“You don’t want to be a writer. Trust me, if you can do anything else, do it. Writing is hard. I cannot tell you enough how much you do NOT want to be a writer.”

I’ve heard that same advice at conferences and conventions, in classrooms and chat rooms, in blog posts and in books. Almost every writer’s advice to other writers is to, first and foremost, give up.

While other industries will first tell you all the great things about their line of work, only writers will tell you up front that you’d be better off doing anything else besides writing.

It’s hard work. It takes years to get good at it; it takes even longer to get paid for it. No job will take more out of you. Trust me, you do NOT want to be a writer.

Did I listen?

Of course not. Like most people who choose this path, I thought, “I’m different. I’m going to make it. I’m not afraid of a little hard work.”

Have I ever told you that I’m just not that bright sometimes?

.

Not that Great at Listening

So now I’m a writer. I write for money. I write more often for no money. I write for people to read, but more often I feel like I’m writing for myself.

That’s what a writer does. A writer ignores the good advice that tells them to get a real job, to take a steady paycheck, to follow some dream that has some remote possibility of coming true. We quit our day jobs to pursue what we think we’re good at and what we want to get better at. We spend our free time writing thousands of words, most of which never see the light of day, and our working hours writing for others on subjects we might not care about just to pay some bills.

It turns out, they were right. Writing is hard.

As a writer you must constantly generate new content, for your blogs, your articles, your novels. You have to be on the lookout for new ideas, and new spin, sometimes for subjects on which you have already written thousands of words. In the last two months, I have written 41 articles on Blackjack; each one is unique and original. Can I just tell you how tiring it is coming up with new things to say on a subject you exhausted weeks ago?

And you have to write every day.

.

Turns Out, Writing Is Hard

Writing well takes a lot of practice. Everyone thinks they can write. They write emails at work. They send each other text messages and chat online. They think writing is just an extension of that.

It is so much more. Writing well takes drafts, revisions, editing, rewriting, and then maybe scrapping it all and starting again from scratch. A single blog post may take a few hours as the writer figures out that a first draft is often rambling and without direction and requires a lot of revision. I’ve done three drafts on this post, and it’s only going to be read by a handful of my friends (if they even make it this far!).

I’m still struggling with learning how to write well. Every day I discover an article I’ve written where the words lack flow, where the thoughts stumble or fail to develop fully, where the syntax is laughable.

Every day I ask myself what demon possessed me and made me think that I could possibly be a writer. That damned muse won’t leave me alone.

So to you, I offer this advice. If you want to be a writer, don’t do it. Writing is hard. I cannot tell you how much you do NOT want to be a writer.

Two Points for Honesty

Too many days lately I just don't want to even get out of bed. When I finally do, I lack all motivation to actually accomplish anything. It's all seemed so pointless and requiring too much effort with almost no payout. No one's interested in reading what I have to say. Freelance work seems to be drying up even before I get to it. I'm bringing in almost nothing; my monetary contributions barely cover half of a single bill.

It's been over a year since I had a steady paying job. And that was a contract position, so I didn't really bring in any money. I made just over $2000 in six weeks as a campaign manager for an underfunded congressional bid. Before that I waited tables for six months to help pay for the wedding, and before that I made $12 an hour as an administrative supervisor. That was my last real job, and that was done in December of 2009. It's understandable to see how a person could grow a bit demoralized.

Things don't seem to be getting easier, either. With over 9% declared unemployment, I'm in good company. And those numbers are understated. For instance, I don't count. I'm getting freelance work, so I'm self-employed. The PhD serving you beers doesn't count either; she has a paycheck of $0 every two weeks as taxes are taken out of her measly $3/hr salary. The stay at home mom and the housewife don't count, because they chose to take themselves out of the job market and settle into home life. The employment population ratio has dropped 5% in the past three years down to 58%. That means 5% less of the population able to work is actually currently employed.

It's hard. Everyone's struggling. Too many of us look at each paycheck and almost every cent of it has already been allocated to paying bills, paying for the necessities, getting by. There's little to nothing to save, to get ahead, to pay down debt and plan for the future. Forget the future. Let's just make it through the end of the year.

And we try. We take every little extra job that comes along, no matter how demoralizing it is to shill for horrible products or advise others about the next great ideas in entrepreneurship when we can barely get a job or afford those same awful products ourselves. It's something, right? Even then, after staying up late finishing those articles that need to be done RIGHT NOW, after cleaning the house, scrubbing the bathroom, bidding on seven new projects, applying to ten new jobs, exercised and eaten right, writing for my own novel, it still feels like I've accomplished nothing. I'm just treading water, because nothing is bringing in any money or moving me forward.

It's hard. To stay motivated. To get through searching for the next job. To get rejection after rejection no matter how many projects I bid on. To have resumes still go unremarked upon. To be underbid for that editing job by someone who barely speaks English but had the right price. To bleach the bathroom a few times each week but still have mold come back because the apartment was built shoddily. To not lose any weight despite cutting back on portion sizes and processed or fast food. To find that new chapter still doesn't feel right after rewriting it three times. To feel like I'm getting nowhere.

Like I told my wonderful husband today when I just couldn't bring myself to get out of bed: I'm torn between screaming at the top of my lungs in frustration or crying into a pillow in despair. How do I move past this? I keep plugging away, keep logging the hours, and writing the words, but dammit if this isn't hard.

Follow Up to Obama's Job Speech

After my initial impressions of Obama's speech (overall positive on the speech itself, doubtful on the follow through, and suspicious of motives), I've spent the last few days reading through analyses and criticisms of the speech and Obama's plan moving forward. I have to say I think I'm with the critics. This was a successful campaign speech and nothing more.

Obama sounded emphatic, forceful, serious, and like a man who gets things done. He appealed to his strongest bases (Dems, education, public works unions), and reached out to a few swings (veterans, the unemployed, independents). But did the speech really mean anything beyond a stump speech?

One editorial I read today summed it up pretty well. Obama knew full well that this jobs bill would never pass. First of all, they're replays of the exact things that were in the first handful of stimulus bills: infrastructure, education, unemployment checks. We still have ridiculously high unemployment, the infrastructure projects we already "paid for" have not even begun, and education bureaucrats just pocketed the money and fired our teachers anyway. And those bills barely passed when we had a DEMOCRAT Congress. With a Republican Congress, they'll never get through.

And his explanation of "it will be paid for"? To increase the tax-cutting Congress is already failing to do? It's nonsense and requires tax increases that Obama knows Republicans will never agree to, and again are something he couldn't get the Democrats to agree to when they had control of the Congress.

Obama's not stupid. He knew all of this when he gave the speech. His exhortations of "pass this jobs bill right away" were appeals to the public at large, begging them to see that "At least I'm trying!" Now he can point the finger at Congress when unemployment fails to go down or, gods forbid, rises again. It's not his fault that things are bad; after all, he suggested this completely reasonable, non-partisan plan that would surely save us all.

The plan is to set up a completely unprovable counterfactual. In a year, he can say "If my plan had passed, we would be out of this dismal situation by now" in the same way his administration says of the former stimulus plan "If we hadn't passed it, we'd be even worse off by now." Counterfactuals are completely unverifiable but incredibly useful political tools. You use failed expectations of the past and present and future to gain political ground by insisting that even the worst policy decisions did some good or prevented some evil, even without evidence. It's just as easy for the other side to say the opposite: "by passing the former stimulus, Obama made the situation worse," or "We saved the country from even higher unemployment and deficits because we refused to pass Obama's jobs bill."

People don't seem to be falling for it, and the bill is unlikely to be passed at all.

I have to run now, but I might write later on the mentality that says "We have to do SOMETHING" when things are bad, even if that something often makes things worse. Or I might not. Depends on what I feel like writing later. :)

Obama's Job Speech

(I've been up all night writing for work. I figured since it's about 5:30am and I'm still up, I might as well write something for me.)

Obama gave a jobs speech tonight in front of the joint houses of Congress today. I'm listening to it for the first time. Here are my reactions in real time (I'll be pausing the youtube video so I can type out responses and not lose too much of the speech): This should be fun.

0:30 "What will this speech mean for the President? What will it mean for Congress?" --Does that strike anyone else as incredibly arrogant? He's referencing the importance of his own speech. One, I might point out, that he had to schedule around both a debate that he tried to pre-empt and an important football game. But it's his speech that is important? I'd say the economic crisis is the important thing here, not the speech about it.

0:45 "Millions of Americans watching right now don't care about politics." --Okay, good. We're kind of sick about the politics of it. :)

1-3:00 Much of nothing. Americans are frustrated, aren't getting by on their hard work anymore, we've got to do something, etc.

3:05 Steps to take: Ok, I'm listening.

3:10 "I'm sending a bill that you should pass right away."-- Oh, I always get nervous when a bill has to be passed immediately. When actions HAVE to happen right away, a bunch of bad stuff gets packed into the legislation that everyone admits was probably bad later down the line. After all, it's how we got the Patriot Act, the Wall Street Bailout, the TARP bill, the Stimulus Bill, and the Health Care Act.

3:15 "There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation." -- Aw, come on. He's baiting the Republicans with that one.

3:33 "Everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything." -- Yup, I've definitely heard that one before. TARP, bailout bill, Medicare Part D (by the way, all Bush bills) ... Have we gotten half of the returns on those "investments"? He sounds defensive about it.

3:55 Okay, jobs for construction workers, teachers, veterans, and long-term unemployed. I'm calling it: Infrastructure, education spending, new veterans bill, and extension of unemployed benefits. Only problem is, most of the infrastructure spending we've initiated in the past 2 years have resulted in almost no jobs created, education spending has led to large amounts of teachers being let go while administrators and bureaucrats take the money, and unemployment benefits are not "jobs". Trust me, the unemployed want to WORK!

4:10 "cut payroll taxes in half for every working American and every small business." --But I thought this would pay for itself? We're already having revenue issues. I'm willing to pay taxes on my income, just so long as I actually have some.

4:30 "Pass this jobs plan right away." --Again, I'm nervous about that talk. Can we make sure we know what's actually in the bill before we pass it? Or do we have to pass it to know what's in it again? That didn't work so well last time and ended up with many waivers for people who couldn't meet the requirements of the mystery legislation.

5:00 "Pass this jobs bill. Pass this jobs bill." --Ok. Ok. What is in it??

5:05 "Small businesses get a tax cut if they hire new workers or raise workers' wages." But big businesses don't? That seems really difficult to get away with, not to mention, very likely unconstitutional.

5:15 "Payroll taxes cut in half." --Wow. Um, is that feasible to even fund this?

5:40 "You should pass it right away." --STOP!

6:00 Infrastructure spending! I called it. And he invoked the black cloud of China to do it. Impressive.

7:00 Renovating schools. Do it for the kids.

8:00 "To make sure the money is properly spent..." Ok, how are we going to avoid the waste that has infected most of the other infrastructure spending of the past, um, forever?

8:10 So no earmarks, boondoggles, red tape or bridges to nowhere. Not really much of a solution to waste in spending, but hey, recognizing the problem is at least a good step!

8:45 He's all about the "It wasn't my idea. Dems and Repubs suggested it. I'm just the bridge builder here, folks." That could be really effective. But it makes it seem like he's giving this speech directly to the politicians in the chamber. It's not so effective at reaching out to the American people. I feel like I'm listening in on a business presentation or investors meeting.

9:00 "You should pass it right away." --Really getting creeped out by that.

9:15 Teachers back to work. Two for me!

10:00 Hiring veterans. THREE! Wait, what about the teachers? How are we putting htem back? Ooh, the veterans talk got the Republicans standing. Go troops!

10:55 $4,000 tax credit for companies that hire someone who has been unemployed for more than six months. Will that be enough to get companies to hire the long term unemployed? There's already such a stigma on us, and hiring the long term unemployed poses so much risk, it may not be enough.

11:20 Invoked the Georgia Works program which gets temporary work for the unemployed so they can develop their skills. Unfortunately, few of those jobs have transitioned into full time work or provide a real pay check. These workers just get their unemployment checks and work part time; employers get free labor for odd jobs and don't have any obligations to the unemployed.

11:30 Another year of unemployment insurance.

11:50 "pass it again--right away." .....

12:00 $1500 tax cut for middle class Americans. Wait. This is Bush's tax cuts extended again. I thought that was the worst economic decision in several decades? And this would be Obama's second or third time extending them. Someone needs to call him on this.

12:35 AHAHAHA! He invoked the "No New Taxes" pledge a bunch of the Tea Partiers took before taking office. Awesome mockery right there. Most of those pledges are so stupid. I urged my candidate (whose campaign I managed) to ignore all of those. He ignored all but this one. Ah well, close enough.

12:45 "Pass this bill right away." I should have made a drinking game out of this. Although, that might be seen really badly by some seeing as it is about 6 in the morning now. :)

13:20 Will not add to the deficit and here's how: Let's hear it...

13:30 He invokes the agreement passed in July to cut government spending by over $1 trillion over the next ten years .... Okay. Stop. That bill did not cut spending. It agreed not to increase spending by its usual increments to keep up with inflation. There were almost NO cuts made to planned spending. Some departments had their budgets reallocated, but there were no real cuts. That better not be it...

13:35 Another $1.5 trillion in savings by Christmas. --And how many of those have been agreed on?

13:45 Increase that amount so that it covers the cost of this new bill. --So you have no idea. You're just going to promise to make someone else find some way of paying for it while you increase spending? You want to cut spending while finding new ways to spend? Does not compute.

13:50 Huh. He says he's going to introduce a new deficit plan in two weeks.

14:05 "This approach is basically the one I've been advocating for months." I need Chris from Family Guy here. "Whhuuuuu-uuuttt??"

14:22 Huge moment here. He just put Medicare and Medicaid on the table!! Oh it is on.

14:30 Adjust tax code to make wealth Americans pay more. -- Wouldn't mind that. How about eliminating some of the loopholes? :)

15:20 Um, so health care costs are spiraling out of control ... but we need to cover more health care costs? Again, does not compute.

16:00 Eliminate tax breaks and loopholes for the rich. Woot! It's like he can hear me. From twelve hours in the past ...

16-17:00 Okay, this Obama character. He's growing on me.

19:20 Making America more hospitable for business. Sounds good to me. How so? Eliminating some regulations? :)

20:10 You'll actually paid for the work you do for the government. --Shouldn't that be a bare minumum?

20:20 Cutting red tape. Woot!

20:30 Helping homeowners and refinancing mortgages. -- Whoa there. Isn't that how we got our housing bubble in the first place? By artificially boosting home prices? How about something to encourage lending instead of directly affecting home prices?

21:15 Updated patent process. Woot!

21:30 Free trade agreements?? Who are you and what did you do with Obama?? I'm so confused.

22:30 Oh no. He just invoked his Jobs Council. That's the one where Jeffrey Immelt is the Chair. Yeah, Immelt of General Electric. Whose company has relocated several of its manufacturing companies to China. And Obama just said he wants to have the next generation of manufacturing "not in China, but here in the United States of America." The dissonance. It hurts.

23:30 We're number one. We're number one.

23:45 Here's where he calls out the Republicans. And they respond childishly. Ugh.

24:15 And wow. He just conceded that a lot of what the Republicans have been arguing for--cutting unnecessary spending and eliminating unnecessary burdens on businesses--are correct. And he's going to work with them to fix that. I hope those aren't just words.

24:30 Already found over 500 reforms and regulations to eliminate. Color me impressed.

25:00 Going to preserve the protections that Americans still need. Fair enough.

25:30 He goes on to list a whole bunch of regulations that I don't think anyone would argue are probably necessary. No fair going to the straw men. You were doing so well.

25:38 Collective bargaining rights not on the table. And Joe Biden goes nuts. I think he almost gave himself whiplash back there.

26:20 His characterization of the Republican position: "We dismantle government, refund everybody's money, and let everyone write their own rules, and tell everyone they're on their own. That's not who we are." To be fair, that is almost the Tea Party's position, or at least the one they give lip service to. It's funny. I'm a libertarian with some seriously researched and principled reasons behind my stances. But I disagree with the anarchist stance that is being taken by the Tea Party. (Of course, they're not really anarchists. They're just reactionary. Give them power, let them take the reins, and they're just as autocratic as the next.) I'm for some social safety nets, and even some progressive taxation. ... This is another rant. Back to the speech.

26:50 Communitarian invocation followed by Lincoln invocation.

27-28:30 Government has done a lot of great things.

28:30 "Where would we be if Congress had decided not to pass Social Security or Medicare because of some rigid idea about what government could or could not do?" -- You mean like the Constitution? Damn those restrictions. Of course, there's a way around that with an amendment, which had to happen to let those things even be legal. But details. Bah!

29-30:30 Reiteration of what's been said.

30:30 Next election 14 months away. The American people don't have the luxury of waiting 14 months for us to do something. -- Great rhetoric there. Very nice job by his speech writers.

31-32:00 Invoke Kennedy, wrap it up, and God Bless America.

Overall Impressions: Pretty good speech. I'm usually not a fan of his speeches, but he seems to have hedged a lot of his positions and conceded a lot of ideas about government spending. I'm actually pretty impressed. I'm not completely convinced by it all, but I'm curious about what's REALLY in that jobs bill. I'm looking forward to see how it works out.

Getting Paid

Post finishing up the grad school story is still coming, but I'd like to interrupt that for a bit of good news.

After nearly a full year of being unemployed I finally have some work. It's not a full time job, and I don't have to report into an office. I'm instead freelancing with article writing, proofreading, editing, and rewriting on a couple of different projects. It's flexible, reasonably well-paid, and I can do it in my own time from my own home.

I'm so excited to finally have some work, and I'm actually really enjoying it so far.

So that's all. Now I have more of an excuse for my breaks between posts, but I promise I'll still try and update fairly often.

Leaving grad school

Today while compiling a solid portfolio of my writing for some freelance jobs I'm bidding on, I came across a document I made while deciding whether or not to leave grad school. If you've known me longer than five years, you know what an agonizing decision it was for me to leave the University of Virginia before I got my PhD in Political Theory. For those of you who don't know me well or may have just met me since I've moved back to Georgia, I can tell you, it was not something I came to lightly.

The document I found lists out a number of things I considered when making my decision. Specifically I listed out what I liked about academia, what I disliked, what I liked outside of the academic arena, what I do well, and what my concerns about leaving were.

In truth, I did love the graduate experience. Or rather, I liked a great deal about it. I decided to go to grad school late in 2005 and by mid-2006 I was enrolled on a full scholarship and receiving a living stipend from the University of Virginia. I doubt I have to tell you how amazing it is that not only did I get into one of the top schools for political theory, but that they were paying me for the privilege. I was honored, proud, and excited all at once. I was also terrified that someone would figure out that I wasn't nearly as smart as everyone else in the program, and they'd surely kick me out soon. (I found out later that almost every graduate student feels this way at some point.)

It was great. I was paid to work with some of the greatest minds and talk about ideas daily. I was paid to read and write about some of the most interesting things I've ever encountered. I was contributing to the debate on topics of identity, governance, race, and gender. And if you've never had the opportunity to develop a new idea and see it turn into something other people want to learn more about, then you cannot understand what a thrill it is!

On top of all of that, I got to teach and mentor excited and exciting students. For a lot of graduate students this is the drudging price one must pay to do what one really wants to do: research and write. For me, though, teaching was a revelation. I got to work with kids that were hungry for knowledge, and I got to help that student hone this hunger into something greater: a sharp and inquisitive intellect. I loved working with my students to improve their writing, to give them a chance to voice their opinions and help them articulate better what was in their minds, to take the shy girl in the back of the class and turn her into a well-spoken debater. I loved it!

So why did I quit? Why did I just give up after I got my Masters? Why not continue what I clearly enjoyed?

Because it wasn't all hearts and rainbows. I went to the University of Virginia for a few specific reasons. One, it was the alma mater of two of my undergraduate mentors, and they told wonderful stories about the guidance they got from their professors. Two, there was a professor there I was dying to study with and learn from. Three, I got accepted and received funding.

Two of those three reasons failed me pretty miserably. First, the professor under which I desperately wanted to study turned out to be nothing what I expected. He made himself almost impossible to get a hold of, ignoring emails, blowing off office hours, refusing to answer his phone, and generally declining to give me any guidance at all. I was so excited about a few ideas he had introduced in some of his earlier books about individualism in America as defined by Tocqueville, and I was so anxious to ask him about them in one on one conversation in the hopes that I might be able to expand on them in my own research. To my dismay, he had no interest in discussing his ideas. He had tenure; he was close to retirement; he was invited to guest lecture at other universities for lots more money while maintaining his chair at UVA. So he disappeared. For months at a time, he was no where on campus or even in the same state, and as I have already pointed out, he refused to communicate in any way over technology (be it phone or email). He was an utter dead end to me.

No worries. In my first year, I was still learning. I could easily change my interests and explore another avenue for my own research.

As luck would have it, I took an amazing class with a junior professor who had not yet been granted tenure. She was inspiring, brilliant, and encouraging! Everything my last professor was not. She helped me take my ideas on individualism and helped me reformulate them into a more theoretical study on identity and essentialism. She had tons of literature for me, and urged me to read more and decided if I wanted to pursue that for my doctoral research instead.

Boy did I! I was hooked. The ideas were new and ever evolving. This was the perfect avenue for me to lay down the groundwork for a lifetime of research and publications. And here, too, was what my mentors had described: an eager, accommodating, and encouraging mentor at the most beautiful university.

Then she came up for tenure at the same time as her husband. Good for her, she got it. Bad for him, he was denied it. My professor was asked to make a decision: accept tenure and hope her husband can stay on as an adjunct, or look elsewhere for them both to begin a new tenure track. And my masters thesis fell in the middle of this.

My professor had to take me aside and tell me she could not be my advisor for my thesis, let alone my dissertation. I had to find someone else to guide me and accept or reject my research. Alas, there was no one else in the entire department who was willing to take me on as an advisee with my current research interests. I had to abandon my work to this point and find a new topic.

That brings us to my third year. I'll continue the story in the next post as this is getting quite long.