Catching the sun

Never is a tricky word. It seems so unassuming. But over the last ten years, I have learned to fear the power of that word. We all have goals for our lives, the things we want to accomplish. This time ten years ago, I was a senior in high school getting ready to graduate. This time six years ago, I was about to start my final semester of college. This time five years ago, I had finished my first semester teaching high school. This time three years ago, I was halfway through my first year of teaching philosophy. This time last year, I had finished a short story that had no deadline. This year, this year I traveled to Greece and finished drafting a novel. Some of these accomplishments, however, were never goals.

Because ten years ago, I decided to major in philosophy and creative writing, since my true passion was storytelling. I wanted to write stories. Despite the pressure put on writing majors to add a secondary-ed component, I flatly refused. I would never teach high school. Though not entirely unrelated, I also really wanted to visit Europe. Though how these majors would make that happen, I couldn't tell you. Eight years ago, I became a Teaching Assistant for Geneva College's humanities courses, which began my obsession with caryatids, thus increasing my desire to travel to Europe. I also discovered that I wasn't half-bad at teaching and shockingly I enjoyed it. So, I resigned myself to teaching college, but I still swore I would never teach high school or philosophy. I refused to believe I could ever live up to the standard set by Dr. Byron Bitar, my philosophy professor. Simply by saying "tinker toys" he could make the most obtuse philosophical concepts understandable. While I wrote a lot for my classes, I only poked at my own stories. If it didn't have a deadline, it simply didn't get done. Six years ago, I moved to Virginia to teach freshman English to help me get into grad school and despite my baptism-by-fire in classroom management, I loved it and found that I loved teenagers. Although, I still swore I would never teach philosophy. It was during that year I had an idea for a fantasy series based in the concepts of light and color and started drafting while pining away for those great works of art and architecture in Europe. Four years ago, I moved to Ohio to teach humanities and philosophy, which included art history and those lovely caryatids. But my goal was still grad school, so I could teach college. I was still tinkering with the fantasy series, but hadn't finished anything and was fairly convinced I never would. So my goal of telling stories was still unmet, while my anti-goal of teaching high school was quickly becoming my much beloved vocation. But at this point, I had sworn off swearing and was superstitiously avoiding that "never" word like the plague - almost. One year ago, I had already accepted that I love teaching high school and in that same year I finished a short story. It was only 7,000-some words. But it was mine and it was done. I loved it, like I loved caryatids and teaching. Then last summer after scrambling to get together the money and a passport, I went with some of those philosophy students of mine to Greece and I finally saw the Porch of the Maidens. Only to find out that four of the six original caryatids were in England. Guess I'll have to go there too. Tragic, I know, but it's my burden to bear.

But last month I finished the first draft of my first novel. This novel is the first book in the fantasy series that was born in my imagination six years ago in the basement of a townhouse in Richmond, Virginia. It started with a conversation with one of my sisters-by-choice, Michelle. We met nearly ten years ago during my freshmen year at Geneva. Eventually, I forgave her for being a math major. Eventually, she forgave me for being an artsy hu-buddy.* But for a long time, it was only really an idea. You have to understand something about me, I love thinking about stuff. I'm a dreamer, not a doer. I'm the introspective sort who will sit and write a blog about the past ten years of my life instead of braving the freeze-my-toes-off cold to get food even though I've only eaten a bowl of Mini-Wheats today. I chew on ideas like a cow chews cud. I like to think - a lot.

While this is a virtue in many ways, it's also a stumbling block in others. I've thought a lot about this series, these characters, this world, its magic. I'd written a lot of scenes. Which I would inevitably scratch because I used to be the edit-as-I-go type. While this is great for academic pieces, essays, and blogs, it doesn't work for fiction. At least, it doesn't for me. I could never maintain forward motion. *cue Reliant K; sings off-key; ends your suffering and goes back to something she's good at* But with the triumph of completing "The River," my short story written in December Ought-seven, I put my money where my wandering thoughts are and started chipping away at the manuscript last summer. When school started the manuscript got shelved until late October, when I decided to start NaNo for the first time.**

In November and December, I drafted over 80,000 words in my manuscript. On Christmas Eve Ought-nine, I finished the first draft of my first novel. You have to understand that this in an accomplishment I was unsure I would ever actually achieve. The end was always looming far on the horizon like when you're driving on I-70 heading out west. No matter how far you drive, you'll never actually catch the setting sun. But I did it. I caught the sun. I really can't describe what it feels like to look at that monstrous manuscript of 121, 200 words and know that I wrote that. That it's mine. I have no idea what the future of this novel and series holds. All I know is that I did it. I actually finished. Since November 1, 2009, I have drafted every day for sixty-four days straight.

Looking back on the weird and unexpected paths life has taken me over the past decade from adolescence to adulthood, from student to teacher, from dreamer to doer, the one thing that really sticks with me is that it all comes down to choice. I chose to go to Geneva College. I chose to major in philosophy and writing. I chose to teach English in an inner-city school. I chose to move to Cincinnati to teach philosophy. I chose to write a short story. I chose to drive to Detroit to get my passport so I could go to Greece. I chose to participate in NaNoWriMo 09. I chose to keep writing. I have never regretted any of those choices. As I start these first tentative steps into the fresh snow of twenty-ten, I choose to finish what I've started. I always wondered where I would be ten years after I graduated from high school. I never could have imagined where life has taken me, to sleep-deprived drives back from Niagara Falls, to passing out on Dr. Smith in Fern Cliffe, to fourteen-year-old moms acting out Romeo and Juliet, to stealing pens from my juniors and murdering Larena repeatedly in increasingly inventive ways, to moving nine times in as many years, to running around JFK praying Valerie would land in time, to finishing drafting a novel. The last ten have been a wild ride and the next chapter is just beginning. All I have to say about my future is that I'll never move to Ireland.

Cheers!

* Definition: hu-buddy (n.): the title given to a humanities major by a science or technology major.

** NaNoWriMo 09 blog post