Author: Ian

Do You Use Your Day Job to Find Emotional Stability?

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This topic hits pretty close to home for me.

When I was 22 and just out of college, I worked a few temporary jobs and side projects, but had very little stability.  I was still living at home, didn’t know where I wanted my life to go, and didn’t have any real creative goals.  I spent a lot of time reading, sleeping, and meeting up with friends who were in similar boats as me now that they were out of college too.  Most days it seemed like the path I’d been on for the past 17 years from kindergarten until college had flipped off the tracks and derailed.  I felt stuck.

During this time I suffered from some pretty bad anxiety and depressive episodes that I had trouble talking to people about.  I felt embarrassed that I was having these problems, and it really hurt knowing that several of my closest friends had left New Hampshire to find new jobs and start exciting new lives where they had plenty of spending money and didn’t have to live with their parents.

I felt like I had a lot of energy to do things, but no focus, Continue reading »

My Day Job Mood Affects My Creative Work Mood

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This title of this post sums up something kind of obvious, but it’s worth talking about in detail.

At every Day Job I’ve ever worked (including my current one), when I’ve had a good day, a stimulating day, a chill day, or a day that was genuinely fun, I’ve come home ready and excited to do creative work.  When I get home after days like this I often throw down my bag, sit right down at the computer (or notebook, etc.) and dive into my work with a clear head and tons of energy.

Unfortunately, though, when I’ve had a day that was stressful, overwhelming, overstimulating, required me to make a lot of decisions, felt physically taxing, or just plain sucked balls, I’ve come home…well, not ready for creative work at all.  On days like these I’ve been known to take long after-work breaks, Continue reading »

October 2021 Novel Update: Back in the Saddle After a Break

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As I mentioned a few weeks back, leaving my old Day Job and moving to Yokohama has put me in a clearer headspace for doing creative work.  This is partly because of my new surroundings, partly because of the mandatory Japanese 14-day isolation period that kept me in my apartment for two weeks, and partly because, well, there are just plain fewer distractions here.

This has translated into more novel-writing time.

To be fair, it hasn’t been a LOT more novel-writing time—rather, the conditions I’ve been working under have made going back to the novel easier. Continue reading »

The Ins and Outs of My New Japanese University Day Job

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Two weeks in, and I’m feeling good.

As you might remember, in July I finished my job on the JET Program in Toyama, Japan, took a quick trip back to the States, then relocated back to Japan and the city of Yokohama for a new Day Job teaching university English for the fall semester.  It’s been a wild ride, but things have finally started to settle down.

As I wrote about last month, I had to deal with a two-week isolation period mandated by the Japanese government (even for vaccinated people…) that fortunately put me in a REALLY clear headspace for concentrating on my creative work.  I then spent the second week doing Zoom trainings and preparation for the new job from my apartment, which wasn’t too strenuous and served as a really good introduction to the new job and the people there.
Continue reading »

Don’t Leave Your Creative Teammates Hanging (But If You Have To, Do It With Class!)

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I went through a rough time recently with a Creative Project Whose Name I Won’t Mention Here.  This project is a team effort that requires me to work closely with a few other people toward a common goal. Each person has a job, and we worked together to produce something we’re really proud of.

Until one person jumped ship.

Their leaving was pretty gradual: they started out by citing some personal issues and asking for more time, which we were happy to give them.  However, a few weeks turned into a few months, during which the person started replying slowly and briefly to messages where I asked for updates, then stopped replying at all.

This put the project in a weird state of limbo, especially since we had other collaborators on the line, promises to keep, and at least one financial-based deadline.  Finally, after several weeks of silence, Continue reading »

I Chose a Cool Opening Quote for MFA Thesis Novel!

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I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with opening quotes on books—on the one hand, some of my favorite books start with them, and they can set the stage for the story to follow and give the background on the novel name or the author’s other thematic choices.  For example, here’s the opening of my favorite Hemingway novel, The Sun Also Rises, which includes not one, but two quotes:

You are all a lost generation.
– Gertrude Stein in conversation

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever… The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose… The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to its circuits… All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come thither they return again.
– Ecclesiastes Continue reading »

I’m Back in Japan on COVID Lockdown…And It’s Not That Bad

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Quick catchup for those who missed it: at the end of July I finished my Day Job teaching Japanese elementary English on the JET Program in Toyama, and in August I flew back to the States for some long-awaited reunions with family and friends. Now it’s September and I just flew back to start my new job teaching university English in Yokohama, just outside of Tokyo.

Unfortunately, Japan’s still a tad behind on COVID vaccinations and is still being tight on its border rules. Only just this week (six days after I entered the country!) did Japan relax its rules to allow vaccinated visitors to go through a shorter isolation period.

That means that even though I’m fully vaccinated, as of now, I still have to go through a mandated 2-week isolation period (notice I wrote “isolation period” instead of “quarantine”) after arriving. I also had to do a TON of paperwork, install a check-in app on my phone so Japanese Immigration can robo-call me to check my whereabouts, and wait in a 2-hour line at the airport. Bleh…

Anyway, it’s important to note that the “isolation period” isn’t a quarantine per se—I’m supposed to stay in my apartment, avoid crowded places and anywhere with people Continue reading »

New Author Photo!!! (and How My Photo Shoot Went!)

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Yep, that’s me.

Above are two cropped versions of my new author photos, superbly set up, photographed, and photoshopped by Toyama-based photographer Kaede Tsuji (@maplens27). We took these photos back in early July on a swelteringly hot Saturday in Kansui Park in Toyama City.  I’ll be using one of them (probably the standing one) for the release of MFA Thesis Novel in April, along with marketing, publicity, social media, and all that good stuff.

This was my second time doing a photo shoot—my first time was back in New Hampshire in 2016 Continue reading »

There Are Other Weird People Out There Like Me: An Interview with Krissy Diggs

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Krissy Diggs posts illustrations on Instagram, where she has a lot of followers but doesn’t make a big deal about it.  She first achieved internet fame in the late 2000s making videos as That Chick With the Goggles for what would become Channel Awesome, and briefly produced her own Youtube show, Challenge Accepted!!!  Her art has been featured in exhibitions, on concert posters, a novel cover, and a Japanese beer label, and she’s worked as a waitress, an art director for a major cellular company, and an English teacher in Kanazawa, Japan.

Krissy and I first collaborated in 2019 when she shared some of her drawings with the TRAM zine in nearby Toyama.  When pandemic restrictions eased up I took the train out to meet her in Kanazawa, where we enjoyed a lunch of hanton rice and she shared her insights on the Day Job life.

 

I. I Just Thought of It as Fun

 

But I Also Have a Day Job: So when did you join Instagram?

Krissy Diggs: I was an early adapter, so I joined when it was a new thing.  When I first started I never took it seriously as a platform to share art or anything.  I was kind of using it the way everyone else was—sharing pictures of food, etc.  I tend to have my name on all of my handles because I get in early enough.  I have that for Twitter, Instagram, and I think TikTok too.  I don’t know how to do TikTok, but I’m trying to learn. Continue reading »

Life Upheavals Make It REALLY Difficult to Do Your Creative Work

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Yeah, I’m here.

I just packed up my entire apartment, said goodbye to all my Toyama friends, spent two and a half days traveling halfway across the world, finished another round of developmental edits on my novel, and met up with my New Hampshire family and friends for the first time in two years, all while battling jet lag and struggling to find the clean socks I’d scattered throughout the darkest regions of my luggage to save space.

How you doing? Continue reading »

Leaving the JET Program, Part 4: Why I Switched to a Shorter-Term Day Job

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At the end of July I’m finishing my Day Job teaching English in Japan with the JET Program, and the transition has given me a lot to think about.  This is the last post in my series about working on JET, what it’s brought me, how I feel about it, and where I’m headed in the future. If you missed the beginning you can get start with Part 1 here.

The cover photo shows decorations for a festival on a street in my town of Namerikawa, Toyama, sometime in the early- to mid-twentieth century.

Today I had my last day of work, and it was really sad.

There were a lot of goodbyes, a lot of farewell cards, a few presents, a last-day lunch, and one of my old supervisors even came from a different school to say goodbye and thank me for my service.  For Japanese-style goodbyes, coworkers will usually gather at the door to wave to someone as they leave for the last time, and that was really nice too.

I also gave a speech during my main school’s end-of-semester ceremony, which was really meaningful as well.  I talked about the shock of working in a Japanese elementary school for the first time, how I always Continue reading »

Leaving the JET Program, Part 3: Doing Creative Work at My Day Job

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At the end of July I’m finishing my Day Job teaching English in Japan with the JET Program, and the transition has given me a lot to think about.  This is the third in a multi-part series about working on JET, what it’s brought me, how I feel about it, and where I’m headed in the future. If you missed the beginning you can get caught up with Part 1 and Part 2.

The cover photo shows the local government office in Namerikawa City, Toyama (役場, yakuba) sometime in the early- to mid-twentieth century.

Last week I talked about how hard it’s been to leave a job I really, really like and gain tremendous fulfillment from because I want to move on to a new stage of my life, especially with writing and creative work.  It’s been getting harder and harder to both teach as an elementary school ALT, work on my new novel, and keep up with all the other activities and commitments I have, including this blog.

This balancing act has actually gotten a lot harder since I first got to Toyama in 2018.  Back then, I had a lot more free time, Continue reading »