The Most Important Question

and some attempts at wisdom

As we screech over the 2024 finish line, I am predictably reflecting on *things,* and I keep thinking about an unsettling interaction I had at work a few weeks ago.

Before I share the details, I have to explain a little more about myself—qualities about my personality that might be obvious to others but that I feel I am constantly rediscovering.

I am a type-a, high energy, enneagram type one, (recovering) perfectionist workaholic. I’m not workaholic in the sense that I am overly committed to my day job in an unhealthy way. I am a workaholic in the sense that I must always have a project to be working on. My brain really doesn’t enjoy idle time. The cavernous void that “rest” creates is immediately filled with my gremlin thoughts. Not a humble-brag. If I could dial this down, I would be a much more content person.

It’s important to know that I do fight my nonstop desire to achieve and do more while also being very easily sucked into the achievement rat race. Sometimes, it takes all my self-awareness and frequent pauses to prevent myself from hopping on whatever achievement opportunity is sparkling in front me at any given moment. For example, I have declined the “opportunity” to have my workplace pay for me to earn my doctorate so many times¹. Bearing all of this in mind, I was appalled by something my colleague said.

Here we go… a colleague of mine spent the last five years working towards a doctorate in the field of education. This degree is not going to change the trajectory of her career and will give her only the tiniest raise². The major difference is that her business cards, email signature, and name plate on her desk will all now say “Dr.” instead of “Mrs.” She is one of many people I work with who have run this marathon rat race.

To be very, very clear, I’m not knocking education (it’s my career!) nor am I knocking advanced degrees, necessarily. Every field and every career is different, but I can unequivocally state that her advanced degree is not necessary and will have no impact on her career.

So back to the story.

I congratulated her as one does and what she said in response stunned me:

“I can finally be a mom now.”

Lady, your oldest son just graduated high school and your youngest is a sophomore. If pursuing this degree cost you the only chance you had of being their mom, why, exactly, did you do it? TO WHAT END?

The entire interaction has stuck in my brain like a splinter–especially because this conversation happened as I was grappling with my decision whether to release my manuscript KINGS OF THE NEW WORLD as a serial publication. It really shook me and had me worried that I was essentially doing the same thing, except with my pursuit of traditional publishing.

Shortly after, on a small Slack with my closest writing friends (Yay for the internet!), I was processing the whole situation and how it had got me thinking about my own efforts pursuing traditional publishing. I wrote this:

What am I scrambling after? And how much of this precious life am I willing to spend on permission-seeking? It’s [pursuing trad pub] still worth it as of now because I’m careful about how I spend that time, and the traditionally published book will gain me some things in my life that are valuable to me.

But my perspective is shifting in that I am not going to let it be the only path.

So, at some point, if the trad pub thing becomes the only guiding light in my writing, then I have to back away and remember that I actually started this to write stories and share them.

Which can be done without the “credential” of a random person giving me permission to do so.

I’m not all wrong to see that there are many similarities between her pursuit of the graduate degree and my pursuit of the coveted literary agent and traditional publication deal. Look, I made a Venn Diagram.

As you can see, there are many things in common between pursuit of traditional publishing and earning a doctorate: mostly, it boils down to the prestige and global acceptance of inherent value in both pursuits. No one typically has to justify to outsiders why they chose to earn a doctoral degree, and, likewise, no one typically has to justify why they wanted their book published traditionally. These are both widely accepted and celebrated goals.

However, I’m not willing to forego “being a mom” for years simply to achieve prestige. After all, as I established above, prestige is what her degree was really about.

I have always been the kind of person who worries about regret and how future-me will judge present-me. (I can be sooooo mean to myself.) Since I started this ridiculous Sisyphean trial of writing novels and seeking literary representation, I have been extremely conscious of not letting it disrupt my parenting. Sure, there have been several periods (typically as I am nearing the end of a first draft and a first revision pass) when writing overshadowed parenting, but over the long haul, I haven’t set aside “being a mom” in pursuit of paperthin prestige.

At this point, you might be asking if I have a point. I’m not entirely sure that I do except maybe this: it’s important to regularly pause and reflect on your why and ask yourself, to what end? This is the most important question in my opinion.

For people like me (and, I venture to guess, many other writers³ out there), it is easy to get caught up with incremental achievements and to be fixated on the “big goal.⁴”

And so, at this time of year-end reflections, I’m still asking myself to what end? about several writing-related things. I feel really good about these answers, and I’m happy to share them below in case any of my self-reflections are helpful to you.

1. I am excited about publishing my serial fiction. To what end? I really meant it when I said that Sophie and Mason’s story deserves something better than death on my harddrive. Way back, when I started to take my writing seriously, I was writing because it brought me joy and because I had stories I wanted to share. This is the first chance I’ve ever taken on sharing my work without seeking someone else’s permission to do so. Plus, on a very practical level, sharing the serial is giving me a lot of (uncomfortable) experience and therefore increasing my comfort with self-promotion.

2. I am extending a pause on writing new words until 2025. To what end? I need to give myself a creative rest so that I can come back to my works in progress feeling far less tethered to eventually querying those projects because that mindset sloshes mud all over my inspiration.

3. I am continuing to query my young adult horror-romance. To what end? My ultimate goal is a hybrid career, and I will eventually need a literary agent to achieve that; however, I’m not going to let death in the query trenches be the end of the road. I will find a fork in the path, or I’ll pave one myself.

4. I am investing a little more time on my social media, specifically short-form videos. To what end? I *gasp* think it’s fun? And, it’s not going to hurt me in the long run with self-promo (see number 1) which is a skill I will need regardless of which path sharing my stories takes.

5. I will jump back into my works-in-progress in January. To what end? I have stories to write, and I want to share them with readers. That is the why. It’s not “to get a book deal.” Getting a book deal is just one of several paths to reach my goal. While it is the most widely accepted and most prestigious path, traditional publishing is not the only one.

As you face down the last month of 2024, I encourage you to consider your own goals and ask yourself “to what end”?

I said I was working on my comfort with this.

My comfort with self-promotion started in the negatives–utterly averse and avoidant. When I say that I am trying to increase my comfort with promoting my work, please know that I am only at zero comfort now. Anyway… I am going to share the first two chapters of KINGS OF THE NEW WORLD through this newsletter tomorrow. Don’t worry. I have no intention on pivoting this newsletter to my serial fiction. I really like the compartmentalization of separate platforms. Plus, I appreciate that young adult thrillers may not be everyone’s cup of tea⁵, but if a story that accidentally predicted the early events of 2020 and then made it much, much worse sounds interesting to you, please head on over to my Patreon (it’s free to sign up) and keep reading. I hope you enjoy the first two chapters tomorrow.

Entertaining Distractions

I watched the Martha Stewart documentary and loved it. I keep hoping that I’ll have a sudden epiphany and understand why I enjoyed it so much. She is a fascinating icon with a remarkable career, and I like how the documentarians call her the first true influencer. There is much about her career and business savvy to admire…and there is much that is not so admirable about her, but I agree that a man operating exactly the way she was operating would not have been villified—a man would have been celebrated. Oh, and her whole friendship with Snoop Dogg is delightful.

I’m still hooked on Outer Banks. As I said before, this will go on for quite some time because it is my biking show, and I only bike four to five times a week which means a max of three episodes watched per week. Hey, but if you’ve watched this show and enjoy the love triangle between Sarah Cameron, Topper, and John B, then can I recommend reading my serial fiction?

However, I did watch a bunch of the show A.P. Bio over the Thanksgiving Break. I really enjoy the teaching-related humor. There was one episode that took place entirely within the time between the principal arriving at work and when he has to read the morning announcement that so expertly captured the chaos that can ensue so quickly in a high school. It’s one of those shows that I can’t necessarily recommend because it is a very specific brand of humor, but I have enjoyed it in twenty-minute spurts.

I am thrilled to be reading The Whispering Night, the third in The Luminaries trilogy by Susan Dennard. I genuinely love this trilogy. It’s exactly the kind of young adult fiction that I will be excited to recommend to my students this summer. The voice and blend of contemporary setting with fantastical monsters is great entertainment, solid storytelling, and compelling writing. I also recently finished A Study In Drowning by Ava Reid, which I really enjoyed.

Words of Wisdom

I’ve been thinking a lot about how stories are not really a luxury. They are an integral part of being human. I remind myself often that we work to live; we don’t live to work. And what do I most want to do with my living time? Spend it with my family, travel when I have the resources to do so, consume stories, and create them. Even the time I spend with family and traveling turns into stories we share as memories. And when I’m feeling down? I read, or watch something, or play a game–another form of story. My googling search for the perfect quote eventually got me to this webpage. Together, the two quotes below *almost* capture the wisdom about storytelling that I’m seeking.

• “After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” ― Philip Pullman

• “Storytelling is among the oldest forms of communication. Storytelling is the commonality of all human beings, in all places, in all times.” ― Rives Collins

To sum it up, while imposter syndrome is yelling at me that I cannot be the one to offer words of wisdom, here I go anyway (shut up, Dolores):

No creativity is ever wasted. Stories and art are essential ingredients of our humanity. Stories and art give us common language and metaphors for discussing our human experience with each other.

Anyway, I needed this little quote to help me stay strong through the ongoing torture of querying and sharing my serial and promoting my serial and pausing on my works-in-progress and my not quitting… et cetera.

All my best,

1. I acknowledge the extreme privilege of having a workplace that will pay for an advanced degree. If I felt that another graduate degree would improve my skills, enhance my knowledge, or further my competency, I would not decline it so easily. However, this would truly be for the prestige because everything else I can gain from experience and reading.

2. In other fields, obviously the situation could be very different. Even, perhaps, in another work environment. But for this individual, the ladder is out of rungs and the raise amounts to slightly more than $100 a month.

3. I mean we deliberately assign ourselves homework.

4. However you define it: finishing the draft, revising the draft, querying literary agents, self-publishing, increasing your readership, etc.

5. I’m genuinely grateful for the wide variety of readers out there! Some of my stuff is dark and weird, and thank goodness there are readers out there who like my brand of dark and weird.