Guest Post: Gina Troisi on Trading Freedom, Time, and Health Insurance: Part II

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Ian here—Gina Troisi is a fellow writer, memoirist, and overall awesome person who wrote about finding security with a full-time Day Job in her BIAHADJ guest post last February. At the time she felt good about her decision, but over the last year things have changed, and I invited her back to write a follow-up to explain how. 

Gina’s journey shows us that what works for us at one time in our lives might not work in another, and that it’s always OK to make a change. Enjoy!

I took the Day Job in an office back in 2017 because I felt scattered and overwhelmed, and I thought having a conventional nine-to-five schedule might help me feel more organized and in control of my writing life. It was the first time I wouldn’t have to wonder how much money I’d make each week, and the job came with exceptional benefits that had always seemed desirable but beyond my reach: a retirement fund, paid time off, and excellent health insurance 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 »

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 »

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 »

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 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 »

What Do You Compromise On When You’re Busy?

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I didn’t post last week (d’oh!) because I had a lot going on and needed to catch up on some things.  Fortunately I caught back up (yay!) and things look to be more chill this week, but the experience made me think about what I cut back on when I’m busy, and how I prioritize my time.

Here’s a quick list of things I’m likely to stop doing if I’m busy so I can focus on what’s more important.  The ones at the top are less important (and thus more likely to get dropped!) while the ones farther down down are things I’ll cut out more reluctantly.

Making this list has helped me understand some of the prioritizing I’ve been doing naturally, and I’m planning on keeping it as a reference to guide me through future busy weeks.  As such, it might be worth making your own list of compromises for your own benefit—if you can spare the time of course ;-) Continue reading »

May Novel Progress: Slow and Steady…

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During my last novel update in March I talked about how I was setting the small, reasonable goal of working for 2-3 hours a week drafting my new novel.  This involved a lot of planning with my creative time in that I’d set aside one 2-3 session (usually after work, but sometimes on the weekend) a few days ahead of time, then treat it like a regular appointment and not schedule anything else during that time.

This has been going really well—I literally haven’t missed a week since New Year’s, and that’s equaled out to a LOT of novel progress.

The disadvantage to this system, of course, is that it’s SLOW Continue reading »

I Checked My Email in the Morning and It Threw Off My Whole Day

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Yep, that’s what happened.

I’ve gone through a variety of email checking routines over the past few years, ever since I first realized in 2017 that I was checking email too frequently and it was causing me to get distracted during the day.  Even worse was that for me, email (also: texting, social media, Google News feed, etc.) was causing me to feel dependent, so that during the day I’d reach for my phone when I was feeling bored or down hoping for a quick pick-me-up.

Long story short, that way of using my phone sucks, and I really don’t like it.

Recently I also I wrote about my new text-message-free morning routine, where I physically close my eyes when I shut off my phone alarm in the morning to avoid seeing text notifications that could throw off my entire day Continue reading »

I’ve Become the Kind of Person Who Does Work in Coffee Shops and I’m OK With That

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For most of my adult life, I had a shit-ton of debt and was chronically short on money, which meant that I cut back on unnecessary purchases as much as possible.  My thought process usually went like this:

 

[At the gas station]

Do I really want that can of Sour Cream and Onion Pringles?

Nah, I’ve got snacks at home.

 

[When Making Plans]

Do I really want to see the Blade Runner Final Cut rerelease in the theater with my friends on a fun outing that may or may not include costumes and also go out for pizza at a restaurant I really like where we’ll have a great time hanging out?

Hell yes. Continue reading »

Three Submissions a Month for Twenty Years: An Interview with Melanie Faith

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Melanie Faith is a writer, editor, and teacher whose books about writing include In a Flash, Poetry Power, and Photography for Writers from Vine Leaves Press. She’s also the author of This Passing Fever from Future Cycle Press, a book of poetry set during the 1918 influenza epidemic; and Her Humble Admirer, a pseudonymous regency romance novel.  Her short fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in over 250 publications, and she teaches online for Southern New Hampshire University and the WOW! Women on Writing program.  On top of all that, she’s a photographer whose work I’ve scattered throughout this interview.

Melanie’s also the developmental editor of my upcoming novel, MFA Thesis Novel, and after a few back and forth emails I realized she’d be a perfect person to interview about her creative work life…

Continue reading »

Guest Post: Gina Troisi on Trading Freedom, Time, and Health Insurance

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Ian here—today’s post comes from Gina Troisi, a writer and fellow Day Jobber who also grew up in New Hampshire. The Angle of Flickering Light, her memoir about abuse, addiction, and escape, will be out this April with Vine Leaves Press, and you can check out her other awesome publications via her website.  She’s also my co-organizer for the Vine Leaves online Zoom reading on March 4th as part of the SMOL Festival, which you can check out here to see both of us read our work.

Gina was kind enough to share her thoughts on the move from part-time-freedom to a new kind of freedom through her full-time office job, so read on to see how she did it….

 

Designing Our Lives Around Art, Not the Other Way Around

Since beginning my low-residency MFA program in 2007 and getting serious about my writing, I’ve perpetually attempted to design my work life to fit around my world of crafting stories. At that point, I’d been waiting tables and bartending in restaurants for years, and while doing this work I found I could make what seemed like a large amount of money in a short amount of time. Continue reading »