I Was Having Problems at My Day Job and Talked to My Boss About It

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Yep, this is kind of a serious post.

Things in general haven’t been going well for a while, and I’ve kind of been in denial about it.  My writing’s still stalled, I’ve been way too insanely busy, and I’ve been pushing myself too hard during the week and then crashing hard on weekends.  None of these has been doing me any good.

Apart from all this I’ve been experiencing some pretty bad lows, many of which can be indirectly traced back to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Even though Japan’s been grappling with the virus far better than the States, over here I still have to deal with cancelled plans, limited activities, and lot of other negative changes.

Here’s a big negative change: I had to cancel my trip back to the States in August, when I was planning on meeting friends, seeing family, and attending my brother’s wedding.  That sucked pretty hard. Continue reading »

Non-Creative Things I Do to De-Stress: Saturdays at Home

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On Saturdays I like to step away from creative work.

I used to sleep late on Saturday mornings, but this left me feeling lethargic, so now I try to get up around eight or so to let the sunlight in through my balcony doors.  If it’s sunny (which it usually is this time of year) I’ll throw in a load of laundry to air-dry later in the morning and lay in bed reading until I feel like getting up.  This morning instead of a book I read this essay from The Millions about writers living a life of uncertainty, which left me feeling inspired.

After reading but before leaving my bed I pull out my phone and check messages from the night before.  I try not to overdo it, though, since it’s best not to get sucked into a social media vortex first thing in the morning.

I used to check email first thing on Saturday mornings too, but this left me feeling drained and empty regardless of what I found in my inbox, so I stopped.  I’m writing this at one p.m. on a Saturday—I haven’t checked my email today and I genuinely don’t care.  It’s midnight in America, so email can wait. Continue reading »

I’m Getting Ready to Write a New Novel But Not Actually Writing It Yet—Here’s Why

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My writing’s been in this weird state of transition for a long time now.  That’s because, for the first time in nine years, I’m not actively working on some sort of novel.

Instead I worked on querying MFA Thesis Novel to publishers for ten months, and in between queries worked on some shorter pieces in various states of completion.  Having time to focus on these other projects has been great, but I’m realizing how badly I miss having a bigger, more involved project to work on, and how much I want to get back into the creative process of working on a novel.

But, as I wrote about in my post a few weeks back, I’m having trouble starting.

That’s partly because this novel idea is particularly ambitious—it’s like nothing I’ve ever written, and writing it the way I’m imagining it is going to take every bit of my writing skill, in addition to a lot of skills I’ve yet to get a handle on.
Continue reading »

Holy Shit, I Signed a For-Serious Novel Contract!!!!!!!!111

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Hell yeah I did.

As of three weeks ago, MFA Thesis Novel, my satire about a grad school writing program, is officially signed and scheduled for publication with Vine Leaves Press in April 2022.  That means that my goal of publishing an actual novel is finally going to become a reality.

MFA Thesis Novel is about a twentysomething writer named Flip Montcalm (who’s definitely not based on me) who enters a grad school writing program (that definitely isn’t based on the one I went to at the University of Nebraska) in the barrens of the Midwest.  However, no one around him seems to like his novel, and in an world of fierce competition, Flip has to figure out how to write something that’s both meaningful and that people will actually like.  It’s a novel about fitting in, starting out as a writer, and the desolate working conditions that thousands of underpaid grad students face every year, along with what it’s like to be a lonely young artist in a strange place.

Plus there’s jokes.  And cursing (fuck yeah!).  And lots of pop culture references. Continue reading »

Here’s What I’ve Been Working On RIGHT NOW (and have been for the last few months)

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It’s been a while since I updated you on my projects in progress, so I thought I’d change that.

I started posting semi-regular updates on my creative work a few years back both to keep people updated and keep myself accountable.  If I posted that I was working on something, it felt more serious and I’d be more inclined keep working on it so I wouldn’t have to answer to my blog readers and admit that I’d been slacking off—or worse, that I’d given up.

There are a few reasons for my lack of updates—the main one being that I haven’t been working on a novel since finishing my last one well over a year ago, and not having that as a primary focus has felt…distracting.  Without a bigger project to work on Continue reading »

Thoughts on Going Back to Work After School Closures

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Quick Recap: The Coronavirus pandemic hasn’t hit Japan nearly as hard as most other countries, and in my region of Toyama there’s only been 227 cases since COVID-19 came here in late March.  Still, schools in my city were closed for most of March, all of April, and the first three weeks of May.  During that time I mostly stayed home, running a schedule that mixed creative work and Day Job work, where my coworkers and I made English movies for the kids to watch at home.

But that’s all changed now—schools in my city opened on May 21st, and as of June 1st the foreign teachers are back to work too.

Since most schools in the US are still closed, Japan’s school openings…may seem surprising to some of you.  Going to school naturally involves a lot of people being close together indoors for long periods of time, Continue reading »

Things That Bring Me Down During COVID-19

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I haven’t caught the Coronavirus, nor do I know anyone who has.  I also still have a job, got a $1,200 stimulus check from the US government, and I’m going to get another ¥100,000 yen stimulus (just under $1,000) from the Japanese government in a few weeks.  My part of Japan has had relatively few cases, and almost everywhere in my city has stayed open except for schools—which has given me a lot of extra creative work time.  I also got a haircut yesterday—the barber wore a mask, and since not many people go to that particular barbershop, I felt pretty safe.

In the grand scheme of things I shouldn’t feel sad at all, since there are other people out there who have things way worse than me—but still, I often feel down in the dumps.

If you’re like me and don’t have any of the more serious problems I listed in the opening paragraph, maybe you’re feeling guilty that the comparatively minor problems you do have are getting you down Continue reading »

Texting While Working on Something Else is the Bane of My Existence and I Hate it So Freakin’ Much

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Before starting this post I responded to a text someone had sent me and then put my phone away on silent so I wouldn’t be tempted to look at.

Why?  Because I HATE getting distracted by texts when I’m trying to work on something.

My usual mode of working involves disconnecting from my phone and all the distractions that come with it when I’m trying to get something done.  This normally works pretty well…except when I’m feeling down, or having trouble with my work, or waiting for something important.  In these cases I’ll intermittently pick up my phone hoping for a new message that’ll boost up my energy,.

That kind of compulsive phone-checking is…not good, and I don’t like that it invades my work habits.  At best, these microchecks distract me even further Continue reading »

I Signed a Book Contract…That Got Cancelled Due to COVID-19

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In the words of every SNL host ever: What a week it’s been.

This week I was planning on posting some really Good News…that’s since turned into Bad News.

The Good News is that two months ago I got an email from one the small presses I’d sent MFA Thesis Novel (my novel about grad school life) to.  The email said they enjoyed my book and wanted to publish it.  The email was really short, so at first I wasn’t sure if I’d understood it correctly—but when I realized they were serious, I fell into a state of cautious ecstasy for the next few days.  The email came in the middle of some other life shit I was dealing with that month, so the uncertainty of those first few emails added a lot of extra stress to an already difficult time.

Eventually the press sent me a publishing contract, Continue reading »

Once in a While I Get Really Depressed, and That’s OK

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I went through a pretty rough patch a few weeks ago—like, stay in bed until four o’clock on a Sunday rough, stomach’s so upset you can’t finish your lunch rough, harboring doubts about your entire life’s direction rough.  The worst of this miserable cesspool overcame me for two and a half days (about 54 hours by my count), but its effects lingered for the next two weeks as smaller problems that wouldn’t normally bother me started hitting me hard—and that was all kinds of not fun.

I’d rather not share the specifics of what set off this depressive episode, though in retrospect I’ve realized that it was caused by a lot of different factors, including Day Job problems, personal issues, Coronavirus risks, the fact that it’s fucking cold and murky during the Toyama winter, and Continue reading »

Coronavirus Update: What’s Going On in Japan?

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Over the past few days I’ve gotten a barrage of texts and calls from friends and family back in the States who’ve heard the Coronavirus news from Japan and wanted to reach out.  I’m grateful that so many of you have expressed concern, and thought a blog post might be a better (i.e., time-saving) way to keep you updated on what’s going on with COVID-19 in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Last Thursday night, Japan time, Prime Minister Abe announced his request that all Japanese elementary, junior high, and high schools close for the next month to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.  The move came at a time when about 200 cases of the virus have been found throughout Japan (excluding the passengers of the cruise ship docked in Yokohama).  Around 50 of these cases have been in the northern island of Hokkaido, Continue reading »

Here’s What I’m Working on RIGHT Now (Fall 2019 Edition)

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It helps me a lot to sit down and write about my current projects and creative goals (as opposed to just thinking about them), as well as what kind of progress I’m making toward them. This is a lot more helpful than keeping them in my head, where they swim around in the nebulous stormcloud that is my creative work life so I can’t see them with the proper perspective.

I try to be honest about my progress and setbacks on this blog because I don’t want to fall into a trap of pretending that I’m doing a kick-ass job if that’s not really the case. Pretending you’re doing better than you are is pretty unhelpful because 1) It alienates you from other people you can’t be open with, and 2) It hinders you from actually improving the way you organize your time because you’re living out a kind of fantasy where everything’s going just peachy.

Anyway, enough with the intro: here’s what I’m working on RIGHT NOW: Continue reading »