One version is the very very important hurry-up-and-write-but-then-wait-before-you-show-it-to-anyone, otherwise known as “put it in a drawer for a year.” I first heard this advice in reference to the short stories of my friends and classmates when those stories simply weren’t ripe yet. There was a core of something very good in the writing, but it needed time to mature. In nonfiction, the same principle applies: sometimes to the writing, sometime to the writer. Personally, I had a piece that was demanding to be written last summer, but I knew I needed more distance from the occasion of the piece. I wrote it, then promised myself I wouldn’t look at it until 2011 — a little over six months away at the time. (I haven’t looked at it yet.  Sometimes this version of hurry-up-and-wait turns into hurry-up-so-it’ll-go-away.)

Another form of hurry-up-and-wait is the urge to be discovered.  We spend much of our time (and I’m generalizing here — not all writers feel this way) hoping for such a turn of events.  Yet when it happens, some of us have reached a stage in our development as writers when we don’t feel ready — not yet proud of the arguably-finished work. In such a position, it’s the writers asking the world to hurry-up-and-wait: see me! see me! oh, um, wait, just gimme a couple weeks to revise… just… stay right there.

And third but not least, the version emerging writers all hope for: hurry-up-and-sit-on-your-hands-while-THEY-read. Almost all of us have experienced rejections, and many of us have received the sought-after “nice no.” But the stage after that is:

Editor: “We’re making the final cuts for our next issue and considering your piece — is it still available?”

Writer: YES! YES! TAKE IT! Um, I mean — “While I have sent it to another journal, they haven’t yet responded; so yes, for now the piece is still available.”

“Great we’ll try to tell you within the next few weeks.”

Weeks? Whimper…  Are you sure you don’t mean in the next few hours? minutes? heartbeats?

I’m by no means an established writer.  I have scholarly work and some book reviews published, with a couple more reviews and a poem forthcoming.  But I also have more than one piece of work in a situation similar to the dialogue above.  (Just for the record, I don’t bite my nails.  But if I did…)  There seem to be two ways to react.  One, rock back and forth, chanting “please like my work, pleaselikemywork, pleaselikemywork.”  Or two, tell yourself, “You already know they liked it at least this much.  That rocks, so be a rockstar.”  That’s the direction I’m trying to go, and I’m succeeding … if you don’t count the adrenaline spike I get each time my phone chimes for a new email.

All that being said, I must admit, the elaborate form of the calendar raises the question of whether I’ve gone overboard again, but I think I have good reasoning: First, the calendar only shows six days of each of the next four weeks, meaning I budget my time planning to take an entire day off once a week. (That’s not always the norm.) Second, the large sheet is framed under plexiglass.  If you’re wondering who would frame their calendar(?!), let me reassure you: it’s just an old beat-up poster frame I already had and wasn’t using. I thought of it because I was holding the innocuous calendar in my hands thinking,

Now that the deadlines are in one place, I don’t want to fall into the trap I usually do of making other calendars and lists — more calendars, more lists — until I once again have to look three places to make sure that it’s Tuesday and find out if there’s time for lunch.

I wanted to be flexible, not to set the calendar in stone or duplicate my efforts; the clear surface allows me to place sticky notes on it for tasks, events, or micro-deadlines without messing up the calendar when I move the stickies. For instance, earlier in the week I tentatively blocked out both Friday and Saturday for a family visit. Now that I know my mom is going to arrive on Saturday, I’ve traded the large notes that said “Mom?” for smaller ones with reading goals, such as how far I hope to get in re-reading Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, which I’m covering in two classes next week.

Tonight I successfully arranged the notes for every task through spring break.  I feel more prepared to tackle the tasks of tomorrow and enjoy my time off knowing I can get it all done, on time, without losing sleep or sanity.  However, the process of laying all this out has combined with recent events in my life to make me realize that I did, in fact, take on too much this semester.  In this way, my calendar is like a scale, and I can see the needle’s pegged even before I add in me-time.  My mood is declining, my social life suffering, my migraines recurring more frequently, and those moments of life that I enjoy most — walking with my dogs, cooking, being with friends — are becoming too rare and are being given too much weight in their roles of keeping me centered.

In short, I’ve run a similar race before, and I know I can’t keep up the pace. I consider myself lucky to have good work and blessed by high-quality students and colleagues; everything I’m doing right now is smart professionally — be it teaching or editing or what little time I can carve out for creative work (more on this in a future blog post) — but this schedule, this rigor, isn’t sustainable for the me-ecosystem.  After this semester I’ll have to make some tough decisions about prioritizing my work-life.

—

News:

• Submissions have closed for Issue 27: Entropy of Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments.  Expect to see it online next month.  Details about upcoming themes — Image (2011) and Migration (2012) are now available.
  
• I will be traveling to Amherst in May to speak at “Why Does the Past Matter?”

Current Submission Status: Five essays out to five journals, anywhere from two days to eight months, and three poems out in two contests.

I had broken this habit, somewhat, when I went back to grad school. That might seem counter intuitive, but I suspended many professional ties and responsibilities at that time, and the rigor of the MFA program itself was repetitious and easy to maintain in my head alone. There was always a book I should be reading for the following week, and the only complication on that task was when I had to read more than one. There was always a batch of workshop essays to be read and responded to, and overlaid on that were my own workshop writing deadlines. Put that in your brain and get in the habit of doing those tasks at the same time every week — oh look, it’s Tuesday and therefore time to respond to Wednesday’s workshop pieces — and being “organized” and on top of things is cake. Or at least, easier than my previous tenure-track teaching job had been.

Now I’m in the exact opposite situation. This spring I’m teaching three classes, as well as guest lecturing for four weeks in another class. I just finished my syllabi and found myself slipping into old habits

How can I convert these three ‘topic and reading’ schedules into one meta-schedule?

An hour later,

Lookie here, I’ve made a table of color coded entries that covers all of the topics and readings for the semester.

This kind of system centralizes all my needed reminders in one place and worked great when I was a student, in the sense that I got shit done. But teaching a class is more complicated than taking it. I can’t only look at this week and know that I have to prepare to introduce myself and the syllabi on the first day of class. I also have to look ahead a week and accommodate what will be happening in that session, too. In one case, I need to make a handout about rhetoric and provide a short sample of my own place-based writing so that students can read it for the following Tuesday when we’ll be discussing rhetoric and using that discussion to critique my own piece. The following Monday I’ll need to have not only my introductory lectures ready but also a packet of reading for the following Monday, etc., etc.

So I find myself looking at my fancy-schmancy color-coded two-page mega-list that I’ve just made, thinking,

How can I make this list convey what I need to do for the following week as well? I could make two checkbox columns: one for prepped and one for taught. Oh, no, wait, make that three: pre-prepped, prepped, and taught… I’ll call it reading-prepped, teaching-prepped, and taught. Oh, I know, I could paste the main column again, to the right, staggered up by one week, so I just have to look at one row to know everything for

STOP.

This is a ridiculous level of list-need. It isn’t, really, that hard to look down a little farther on the list, or even to — let’s back up a step here — staple together copies of all three of my syllabi and flip from one page to the next. In fact, many people believe a short to do list, each day, is much more effective and much less stress-inducing than having this master mega-list. Even before this mini-crisis I’d be experimenting with a five item maximum; it only really worked if I left off eating and showering, which sometimes I have to be reminded to make time to do.

The truth was, looking at my spreadsheet titled “MetaTeachingSchedule2011,” I was already stressing that I couldn’t include non-teaching tasks on this list as well, even before I finished upgrading it like some tricked out fighting robot. “It chops, it burns, it cuts through other machines like butter — AND IT TELLS YOU WHEN TO FINISH GRADING THE MIDTERMS!”

So what are some simpler, kindler, gentler steps to getting organized, especially for those of us taking or teaching multiple classes?

1. Devote a bookshelf to class reading — I moved all of the general writing books I keep as references away from my desk to another shelf I’ve cleared, and in their space I put all of the books I’ll be reading and covering this semester, in the approximate order I’ll need to use them. Any handouts and such I’ve slipped into folders and put between the books to maintain the order and so that I can read them on paper, which is my preference.
2. Physically compress my to do list to reduce it conceptually as well — I’ll be doing my teaching prep for each following week after wrapping up my last class on Thursdays, so I’ve decided simply to make three 3×5 cards, one for each class, and my goal will be to conquer one card per day — Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, if I’m lucky, so that I still have Sunday for a bit of a weekend. Now all I have to keep in my head is (1) make the cards each week, and (2) three things go on each card: logistical prep-work like scanning, teaching prep, and grading.
3. Notebooks, or folders of some sort — I have some colored folders, and I’ll gather any papers I need to take to class there.

Could I sit here continuing to think of things I could add to that list? Abso-freakin-lutely.  But will I?  No, because it’s time for bed — the one thing I (almost) never forget to do.

That said, I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions.

A few years ago, I started a tradition based on a suggestion from a friend, who had identified — midyear, mind you — the need to create an “Independence Package,” a collection of resolutions self-promises, adventures, and activities meant to embrace the end of a long relationship.  Liking the idea, I made my own mini-package with what was left of the year and then, at New Year’s, created my own ten-item Independence Package.  In a way, it was a list of things I wanted to do in the first year after leaving my ex-husband, like getting a second tattoo and moving into my own apartment for the first time.  Some of it was practical and almost assured, like the move.  Some of it was entirely for me — like learning to hula hoop.

In the course of that year, I realized a few things.  My divorce wasn’t going to happen as soon as I wanted, nor would we be economically stable again so quickly (hello, recession).  Despite my efforts at crafting a hoop and practicing in my backyard, I was never going to be a hooping star, and I was okay with that.  Same for learning the guitar (which I borrowed).  The lesson of that first package was that not only could I really make a list of goals and stick to it, I could also rationally reassess which goals were worth it sticking with and move on without guilt.

That last part was important to me.  When I made those resolutions, I was already at a healthy weight, already happy with my exercise routine and diet, not smoking, and not addicted to anything (except romance novels).  For that reason, my resolutions were all “yes” resolutions, all “do this” not “quit that.”  I’m a Type-A but also introverted, so making myself try new things, making informed decisions to pursue or not, and then moving on guiltlessly was altogether huge for me.  (I realize as I’m typing this that I took a similar approach to dating and to men not long afterward…. Hmm.)

All in all, I felt I could walk away from that first Independence Package at somewhere around 90% completion.  I hadn’t stuck with either the hula hoop or the guitar, but I had tried both.  That was worth something a lot.

This year’s package was a similar mix of challenge, certainty, pragmatism, and frivolity.  I wanted to hike 200 miles, but only managed 125 after re-injuring my knee in early autumn.  I wanted to finalize my divorce, and I did.  I wanted to move to an apartment large enough to allow me to truly, for the first time in years unpack, and I did.  I also wanted pet fish, which I now have, along with a puppy I didn’t plan for at all, but I digress.

Of the entire package, the only two items, again out of ten, that I didn’t nail were the hiking and an unrealistic weight-loss goal.  The former I give myself a break for, given how much I did hike, how much I tried to get back into hiking-shape in time to finish the miles, and given how mine was not the only knee injured on that hike — one I wouldn’t have even tried a year before.  Overall, go me.

The weight loss on the other hand, that was all my fault.  I shouldn’t have set a size-based goal, I should have set mini-goals, and I should have gone into it with a plan.  In truth, I threw it out there, figured it would probably be the one in ten I let slide and forgave myself over, and then I forgot about it.  (And then went through a huge ice-cream eating phase following a break-up.  Ahem.)  So, yeah, that’s all on me.

Even if I grade myself hard for that list, I still feel I’m earning a B+ on keeping to my goals overall.  I can look back on past lists with some measure of pride, and I’ve made a new package for 2011.  It involves specific professional, personal, and health goals, including, as always, some challenges and some fun (with overlap).  What it doesn’t include is certainty.  This year’s list has nothing on it that will surely happen even if I get lazy — moving has been a certainty in every previous package, and even though I’m likely to do it again this year, I left it off.  Furthermore, there’s no fluff — nothing I can do in one afternoon, nothing I can easily let go of if I don’t give it a serious, hardcore effort.

When my friends grieve over the unlikelihood of keeping their goals, I suggest that they think hard about what it is they really want and why, and what specific, reasonably scaled steps they could take to get there.  I also ask about accountability.  Most studies say a work-out buddy or support group helps most weight-loss programs.  My system, the package idea, relies on my accountability to myself alone, and that doesn’t work for everyone.  No one knows all ten items on any year’s list except me, and the only goal I widely publicized (hi, facebook) was the one I clearly failed — hiking.

Two other tips I would give:

1. Test-drive your resolutions — I wanted to make some changes to my dog-walking routine to get us all more exercise, and I wanted to make some small-but-substantial dietary changes to kick off New Year’s weight loss.  Once I made those decisions in December, I went ahead and started.  Wouldn’t do any good to resolve to take a walk to a certain park everyday if the walk was too long for the dogs, or lacking enough sidewalks for my comfort.  Giving up ice cream for a month gave me the boost I needed to plan changes that will last longer. (You might be thinking, “But it’s already January!” True, but you can make resolutions whenever you want to.  Why not treat January as a test-drive month and “resolve” to have your routine for the rest of the year narrowed and nailed down by February first?)
2. Figure out whether you do best with “yes” resolutions or “no” resolutions and whether you’re an abstainer or a moderator.  I’m an abstainer who does slightly better better with “yes” resolutions.  It was easy for me to become a vegetarian years ago and pretty easy now to swear off ice cream until I hit my target weight.  Most of my resolutions, this year and in previous years, take the form of specific affirmative statements, but that’s me.  One thing a little NYR research taught me is, what matters most in making lasting resolutions (by any name, at any time) is knowing yourself.

Might be on to something there.

After that wave of dating ended, I’ve been limiting my introductions to in-person meets, but I decided, recently, to re-open this dating site profile and see what would happen.  I discovered that some things in the old profile, both facts and phrasings, were no longer true to me.

This is the revised profile. You’ll have to imagine it arranged into complete sentences, with other words thrown in to make sense.  The cloud effect is a little misleading in this case, in which I use the words “like” and “two” only four times apiece, but still, it’s an interesting way to consider yourself, as portrayed to potential dates.

As we read, word by word, sentence by sentence, words that are significant or personally meaningful stand out more than others.  If I see someone likes hiking and dogs, that sticks with me, though it’s also true that saying “I’m not into drama” makes a guy a living cliché in six syllables flat.

The profile that stood out the most to me wasn’t memorable for its wit or our commonalities but for the “about me” section that read, “There is honestly no reason to type anything relevant in here. … You are all the same.”  Between the raw negativity of some profiles and the “if u wanna kno any thin jus ask” of others, the profiles with complete sentences and decent grammar stand out the most, which is a sad state.

I wonder what would happen if I replaced the profile statement with a word cloud like this one, or with the word cloud from my manuscript.  (sotto voce: I don’t think I’ll try to find out.)