Closing time

Sunset on the sabbatical.

This the fifteenth installment of a series reflecting on a sabbatical that ended one year ago. It will run each Wednesday through the summer.

At the end of the sabbatical, what did I really accomplish? Well, there are a couple ways I can go about totaling that up.

I mean, I kept a tally of all the work I did. Here what it looks like:

Projects in Progress

Novel “Breached” Progress:  31,000 words in manuscript file/60,000 written

Academic Collection Innovative Teaching – under contract as of August 15 with April 1,

2020 delivery deadline

Essay Collection “Grafted” Progress: 15,000 words written/Four essays draft complete

In Progress – “Hamstring Nemesis” (working title), “Bill Cosby and My Herniated Childhood” (working title), “Submersibles” (working title) with (4,000 words)

Short Story “The Sun in Not Ours to Hold”: 1,000 words written and edited

Novel “Coast Highway 101” 90s revise: not started

Completed

Short Story Collection Grip Complete/48,200 words in manuscript

Editing: two articles for Journal of Creative Writing Studies — completed January

Novel Concept (Rough) – Billy Florence in China (basketball novel from my short story “Crossover”)

Blog – Six Sabbatical Posts (4 Top Shots, One Short Story Reflect, “Coaching Small”) –

2,400 words

28 Post Sabbatical Posts – 13,000 words

Editing Black Was Not a Label: content edits for Pronto Press – Oct. 18 publication            

Putting a title on a long-form project for the first time in years was a bit daunting.

Publications

“Shakespeare’s Dogfish.” Academic essay in Thinking Creative Writing (Routledge) —

May 7

“The Best Thing” short story: in Bull & Cross journal — May 21

“One Perfect Episode: CHiPs ‘Roller Disco 1&2.’” Pop culture column in Drunk

Monkeys —August 15

“One Perfect Episode: Lock, Stock, Some Smoking Barrels and Burton Guster’s Goblets

of Fire.” Pop column in Drunk Monkeys — November

“Toward Disruptive Creation in Digital Literature Instruction.” Academic essay in

Journal of Creative Writing Studies — September 25

My essay “Eulogies for Those Who Haven’t Left” was republished in The Other Journal’s print edition.

Submissions

“Towards Creative Disruption.” Journal of Creative Writing Studies — January 15, 2019

(Accepted)

“Innovative Teaching” – Bloomsbury Academic, March 1, 2019…Resub June 1, 2019

(Accepted)

CNF Essay “Signal to Noise Ratio”: The Rumpus, May 9, 2019 - Rejected

Pop Culture Essay “One Perfect Episode: CHiPs ‘Roller Disco 1&2’”: Drunk Monkeys

            May 14, 2019 - Accepted

Flash Fiction “The Sun Is Not Ours to Hold”: The Master’s Review May 29 - Rejected

Short Story “Francis the Shards”: Barrel House June 30 – Rejected

Black Was Not a Label Book Edit – Pronto Publications, August 15, 2019 (published)      

Projects Ready for Submission

Collection “Grip” (submitted and under consideration)

Short Story “The Sun in Not Ours to Hold” (submitted)

CNF Essay “Subsidence” (submitted)

CNF Essay “Signal to Noise Ratio” (published)

CNF Essay “Precautionary Tales” (published)

But the final products, as always and in every circumstance, don’t really do a good job of conveying the work that went into their creation.

I could, of course, point you back to the more than 13,000 words of blog posts I wrote about my sabbatical work. I’ve tried, for a number of reasons, to encapsulate the experience for myself and for anyone who might be interested. But even that is a selected set of reflections that in no way captures the scope of it all.

Speaking of the scope of it all, one of the most rewarding projects of my sabbatical was coaching a team of 6-8 year old basketball players. They were phenomenal and I, despite my misgivings about working with kids that young, drew so much joy from the experience.

I could take an aerial view and say that, like always, I got a lot but done but not near as much as I would have liked. That is the perpetual state of being of the species academic.

So maybe it’s best summed up in this way: I’ve already started the clock on the seven years I have to wait before I have the chance at another sabbatical. I’m sure I’ll find things to keep me busy in the interim.

The downside of down time

This the fourteenth installment of a series reflecting on a sabbatical that ended one year ago. It will run each Wednesday through the summer.

Turns out this joke photo I posted at the beginning of sabbatical is actually the way some people assumed the time would go for me. It’s like they don’t know me at all…

“So, you’ve got, like, a half year to just hang out? Really?”

No, not really. Sabbatical is designed to produce rest and recharging, but it is not a vacation. Add to that my Type A tendencies and nascent-but-still-present workaholism and no, I was not lying around…

…except when my depression flared and kept me from writing or researching or doing, well, anything much meaningful in terms of all the projects I’d given myself and the ones that presented themselves along the way.

I took this picture in the middle of the worst of that season. Looking at it now, it shows.

Days lost to bone-deep fatigue and crushing self-doubt piled up in the early portion of my time away. This was supposed to be when I could focus, when I could swipe away all the distractions that truly do get in the way during my busy semesters.

Depression, it seems, doesn’t hold much concern for my hopes and dreams. As it settled in, I was paralyzed and piling on, chastising myself for being lazy even as I know that I was working harder to stay level than I would when the words were flying from my fingertips to the screen.

Early sabbatical was a gray period, inside and out. The view from where I did most of my writing.

The lowest lows are manual labor of the soul and no one is equipped for that work alone. Fortunately, Heather kept checking my negativity. Kept reminding me that on my good days I could be very very good, so the bad ones weren’t just a loss. Kept reminding me that staving off burnout was one of the reasons we’d needed me to have this time so badly.

And then it passed and I was working. Writing. Exercising. Actually sleeping at night. Shoulda known it was too good.

Soon enough, a weird and persistent calf injury sidelined me for most of the spring and early summer, eliminating my ability to do the work on my health I’d wanted to. Which led to more depression. Which led to more missed days of writing.

Writing this here is part of this process for me,

And yet, I kept going. What’s the alternative?

And then the end of my sabbatical rose on the horizon and I was not where I wanted to be on my primary projects. It was bad. But Heather was better.

She pointed to what I had completed. The people I’d helped with their studies and texts. The book I’d edited without expecting the project in the first place. The friendships I’d reengaged.

Life is like that. Never all we want, but maybe all we can give and that should be enough. For ourselves and for everyone else in our lives.