The Stable Life vs. The Creative Life

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In my English courses with Japanese students we discuss a variety of topics.  A few weeks ago I posed them a question I was genuinely curious about: What is your Dream Job?

Part of why I like teaching abroad is that it gives me an insight into another culture and how Japanese people think, which in turn helps me understand my own culture.  I had no idea what kind of dream job a bunch of twenty-year-old Japanese English majors might have.  Teacher?  Hotel clerk?  Translator?  Lawyer?  Generic office worker with an important-sounding job title?

The notion of knowing your dream job is interesting to me because it implies that you have some passion for something you really want to do.  My dream job, of course, is being a full-time novelist, though when I was twenty I don’t think I really understood that yet.  Maybe when you were twenty years old you had a job you wanted to do more than any other, or maybe now you still have a job you’re aspiring to—don’t give up yet!

Anyway, I posed the dream job question several times Continue reading »

Here’s What I Got Done in 2021

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It’s been a long year, but it’s finally almost over….

That’s been my mindset for a while, since I’ve realized that I’m suffering from some pretty serious burnout due to taking on too much.  Thankfully, though, the year’s almost over, I’ve got a 2-week (!) break coming up for Christmas and New Years, and January on the Japanese university circuit is set to be pretty chill.  That means I’m almost out of the woods at last (hurray!!!!).

As such, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I did and didn’t accomplish in 2021, how things look differently now than they did last year, and where I’m set to go in 2022.  And there’s no better way to do that than with a year-end summary, both for those who may have missed my news, and as a personal reminder that things aren’t all doom and gloom ;-)

So without further ado, here’s what I got done in 2021: Continue reading »

I Told People At My Day Job That I’m a Writer and They’re Totally Cool With It

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One thing I’ve struggled with since the days when I first started working was how to present myself and my goals while at a Day Job.  Should I pretend that I was totally interested in whatever work the company was paying me to do so I could take care of my bills, or should I be honest with my boss and coworkers that my real passion lay with writing and a career where I could do something creative?

Fortunately, in the days when I stocked grocery store shelves or cleaned preschool classrooms as a college student, this wasn’t a problem because everyone realized I was just doing these jobs for spare cash.  They knew I was in college, that I was only doing the job part-time, and that I was majoring in an area that had nothing to do with grocery stores or janitorial work, so we were all on the same page.

The problem was, though, that after college when I went out into the world, I wasn’t sure which direction I wanted to move in, but needed Day Jobs to help me to pay my bills while I figured that out.  And while I was working those jobs, people tended to regard me with suspicion, derision, or just plain view me as incompetent Continue reading »

November 2021 Novel Update: Or Not…

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Warning: Vaguely self-pitying ramble ahead, though I end on some pretty kick-ass news.

It has not been a good few weeks for working on my secret new novel project—at all.  In fact, November was absolutely my slowest writing month since I got back to Japan in September full of energy and productivity.  So what happened?

Well, on one level, preparing MFA Thesis Novel for publication happened.  November is the big month for manuscript prep, and I’ve been going back and forth with Vine Leaves publishers Jessica Bell and Amie McCracken, answering proofreading questions, sending materials like back cover copy and Acknowledgements, and even updating some images that appear in the text. MFA Thesis Novel is complex and has a lot of special formatting in it Continue reading »

Broken Devices Can Really Put You Behind…

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Yep, that’s my laptop.  Last week I pulled my trusty Toshiba laptop out of my bag to discover that the casing had come loose due to a malfunctioning hinge. Damn.

Said malfunctioning hinge makes the laptop difficult to open and close, and has caused the screen to become popped out of its casing. In my attempts to maneuver it back in, I cracked the corner of the screen (d’oh!) as you can see here.  The laptop is still usable, and the screen crack nearly invisible in most situations, but the opening/closing difficulty makes it cumbersome and dangerous to transport. That’s a problem because I use my laptop at my Day Job every day to plan and carry out my university English lessons through the magic of PowerPoint and the student textbook app.

Fortunately I did some asking around the department and my boss was able to get me an English company laptop to use, which covers my Day Job computer problem nicely and also means I don’t have to Continue reading »

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 »

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 »

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 »