Being 9 months pregnant is not necessarily a great time to evaluate and judge one’s life choices. However, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my writing life and my teaching life. They intersect in some wonderful ways. Teaching adolescents definitely gives me an ear for how they speak and what’s interesting to them. On the other hand teaching is also incredibly draining and often leaves me too pooped to write at the end of the day.
I’ve often said/thought that if I won the lottery I still wouldn’t want to write full time. I’m definitely a social animal and I enjoy the structure and community that school creates. I don’t really want to see teaching as my “day” job and writing as my dream, mostly because it’s just not true for me. They’re both fulfilling to different parts of me.
Perhaps this is coming up as I think about the time and energy that this new person is going to require from me, and I’m wondering how my writing life will survive and emerge? It doesn’t help that everyone loves to tell pregnant people to enjoy their alone time because it’s the LAST TIME THEY’LL EVER HAVE ANY! People just love to have something to say.
Day job or dream job? How do you negotiate it all?
Ideas In Things 