I'm baaa...aack.
crackling static
Seriously. I'm back. I'm back from Indonesia. I'm back from my identity crisis. I'm back from a long ride on the couch . . . well, that part's more wish than reality. Now I sit in a chair.
Two weeks ago, on Friday the 13th, I resigned from my teaching job and I finished my first novel. That's right. In the same day. I designed it that way. Not the Friday the 13th part, that kinda' freaked me out. But the resignation and the completion of the novel . . .
One year ago, my school district told me they would hold my teaching job until this spring, at which time a doctor would have to release me. Mid-April, my doctor did not release me. The Epstein Barr Virus is alive and strong. The district, acting at the behest of the students, accepted my resignation. I don't begrudge my administration at all, especially since they saved my position for two years, hoping I'd be able to come back to the classroom. I hoped for that, too, but I'm still sick and the kids need to have a stable, full-time teacher.
Knowing my illness and my career were intertwined on a timetable, last spring I began to prepare myself for either outcome. My first year out on sick-leave I had spent in a coma of despair, sick in body and heart, no part of myself available for comment. I couldn't do that for a second year, and I certainly didn't want to do it forever. So I set a goal for this past year, to complete a novel before the medical decision had to be made.
Writing a fictional book helped me get up in the morning, helped me fight the brain "fog" associated with my disease, helped me build a new identity, helped me gain emotional equanimity in face of losing my beloved career. I'm not gonna' lie, writing wasn't always easy, not when I have so little energy most days. Some days I wrote one sentence, sometimes a paragraph, thrilled if I was kicking out two or more pages. But, goddammit, I did it. I finished a novel.
Smart Mouth. Currently, it stands at 252 pages but it will probably round out at 280 by the time I make the final edits.
Anyway, I'm back to bloglandia and I'm not going away. I have a lot to say, a lot of stories to tell. Like the time I met this agent . . .
