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.

One project fails, another begins

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

I had a few projects I hoped would last through the entirety of my entire time out of the classroom that fell away over the sabbatical. Some of that change happened because unexpected opportunities popped up for me at various points along the way. Other projects just felt less important once I got into the rhythm of working on my novel first and everything else second. And a couple of projects morphed into something else entirely.

One such project was a series of blog posts I called Top Shots, a planned weekly roundup of some pictures I took on my phone simply to slow myself down and pay attention to the physical world in images the way I tend to in my head with words.

And for a while, I did just that, as you can see in the pictures below.

You may recognize this picture from the front page of my blog. This is facing west toward Mission Bay in the end, the sun piercing the clouds in the same moments a long bout of depression lifted for me.

San Diego’s 163 Freeway, in a rare moment of open road.

The view from Sunset Cliffs. To think, I used to drive past this view almost daily on the way home from work.

Street art meets commerce on University in Hillcrest.

But, as Frost put it, way lead on to way and I just couldn’t find the space for the space I was trying to make there. 

To say this was frustrating is an understatement, even as the project was supposed to be light and really just for me. But, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I really don’t have an off-switch for feeling bad about letting projects go. Even the light ones.

Sometime in the summer, as I grudgingly started thinking about going back to the classroom, it occurred to me that I had not been back to the Top Shots well in some time and I started scrolling my Instagram feed for shots I might include in a new post. It was only at this moment that I realized what the issue was.

I was platforming these pictures on the wrong medium. Fifteen minutes later, I had created an author account on IG with the same handle as my Twitter account and have since been posting all my writing-related content there, including what I might have called Top Shots before. It’s been really helpful.

Something about posting things one at a time as they come to me—Bird by Bird-style—just makes more sense. Maybe it will for you too. Give the account a look and a follow either here or via the widget at the bottom of the page.