{"id":6339,"date":"2011-10-20T17:24:11","date_gmt":"2011-10-20T23:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=6339"},"modified":"2011-10-20T17:24:11","modified_gmt":"2011-10-20T23:24:11","slug":"decisions-suck-writing-is-awesome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/decisions-suck-writing-is-awesome\/","title":{"rendered":"Decisions suck, writing is awesome"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Whew!\u00a0 I just finished revising through almost 9k words in <em>Desert Stars.<\/em>\u00a0 I&#8217;ve only got three more chapters and an epilogue to go, and man, I am so excited about this story!\u00a0 I have no doubt it&#8217;s my best work yet.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, I might be biased. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p><em>Star Wanderers<\/em> is also coming along very well.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve only got a few more scenes to write\/revise before it&#8217;s ready to send off to the next round of first readers.\u00a0 Part of me wants to send it off to Writers of the Future right now (and according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.deanwesleysmith.com\/?p=329\" target=\"_blank\">Dean&#8217;s sage advice<\/a>, that&#8217;s probably what I should do), but I want to get some feedback first just to make sure there isn&#8217;t something I&#8217;ve missed that would make it better.\u00a0 If all goes well, I&#8217;ll probably send it off by the end of the month.<\/p>\n<p>This is the best part of writing process: finishing up a project that you <em>know<\/em> is good.\u00a0 This is one reason why I love rewriting so much.\u00a0 If I could do this all day, every day, and get paid enough for my work to make ends meet, I&#8217;d be living the dream.<\/p>\n<p>Until then, however, I&#8217;ve got to figure out another way to make ends meet.\u00a0 One option I&#8217;m considering very seriously is selling my contract and driving across the country this Thanksgiving to spend a month or two with my parents before going overseas.\u00a0 My mom was the one who suggested it, and I have to admit it makes a lot of sense; if I&#8217;m going to go abroad to teach English anyways, why not spend some time back home?<\/p>\n<p>If this is something I need to do, I&#8217;m going to have to make the decision very soon, possibly before the end of next week&#8211;and if you know me, you know that I&#8217;m terrible at making decisions.\u00a0 However, I have been thinking about it enough to make a couple of lists, and this is what I&#8217;ve come up with so far:<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Reasons to go to abroad:<br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><\/strong>To start a new career.<\/li>\n<li>To have adventures.<\/li>\n<li>To experience another culture.<\/li>\n<li>To gain TEFL experience.<\/li>\n<li>To support myself as I write.<\/li>\n<li>To have a change.<\/li>\n<li>To see the world.<\/li>\n<li>To have something to write about.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Reasons to stay in Utah:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To get married.<\/li>\n<li>To focus on writing.<\/li>\n<li>To pursue a graduate degree.<\/li>\n<li>To stay in a predominantly Mormon community.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I decided to list only the positive reasons for making either decision, and not to consider any of the creeping doubts or fears (and there are many!).\u00a0 So let&#8217;s break it down:<\/p>\n<p><strong>To start a new career:<\/strong> This seems prudent, especially if it takes a while for my books to really take off.\u00a0 Specifically, a TEFL career seems like something I could juggle with my writing career, and it would certainly offer a lot more satisfaction than a grunt day job.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To have adventures: <\/strong>Perhaps not the most responsible reason, but hey, you&#8217;ve got to remember to have fun.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To experience another culture: <\/strong>One of the perks of traveling, for sure.\u00a0 It would probably improve my writing considerably as well, though culture shock and distance from family would certainly pose a challenge.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To gain TEFL experience: <\/strong>In other words, to find out if teaching English as a foreign language is something I want to build a career around, or whether I&#8217;m just not suited for it.\u00a0 This is why I&#8217;d want to do <a href=\"http:\/\/tlg.gov.ge\/\" target=\"_blank\">the TLG program<\/a> first, before heading off somewhere like Cairo or Amman.\u00a0 And if it doesn&#8217;t work out&#8230;well, at least I&#8217;d know.\u00a0 Right now, I don&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To support myself as I write: <\/strong>This is huge.\u00a0 I hear that most TEFL jobs only take up about 20 hours per week, and that if you&#8217;re living in a local apartment, it&#8217;s not hard to make time to write.\u00a0 In the past two years, I haven&#8217;t had any success balancing writing with full-time work, and working part time probably wouldn&#8217;t earn me enough to support myself here in the states.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To have a change:<\/strong> Not quite as tangible a reason, but important nonetheless.\u00a0 I can&#8217;t quite explain it, but if I stay where I am now, in my current life situation&#8230;it&#8217;s just not going to work out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To see the world:<\/strong> I could probably lump this under &#8220;to have adventures.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>To have something to write about:<\/strong> Also huge.\u00a0 My experiences in Jordan and the Middle East were a huge inspiration for <em>Desert Stars<\/em>, and if I&#8217;d never gone over there, the novel wouldn&#8217;t be nearly as rich.\u00a0 Who knows what else my imagination would produce if I spent some time traveling the world?<\/p>\n<p>Now, for the other side:<\/p>\n<p><strong>To get married: <\/strong>Honestly, this is more of a negative reason than a positive reason.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve already decided that I&#8217;m only going to marry someone who&#8217;s a practicing Mormon, and since Utah is predominantly Mormon, I&#8217;m worried that if I leave Utah, I won&#8217;t be able to find someone.<\/p>\n<p>Trouble is&#8230;I&#8217;ve been here for almost six years, and still haven&#8217;t found anyone.\u00a0 I could probably put more effort into dating, but the truth is probably that finding a marriage partner is more about your mindset than where you physically live.<\/p>\n<p>Besides, I could always spend a year or two abroad and come back.\u00a0 I&#8217;d be pushing thirty and well beyond &#8220;menace to society&#8221; status, but at least I wouldn&#8217;t be a loser who spent all his twenties in Utah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To focus on writing:<\/strong> This was why I decided last year not to go teach English in Korea.\u00a0 The ebook revolution was just getting started, and I felt that I needed to stay in the states to learn how the market was changing and focus on building my indie writing career.<\/p>\n<p>Now, however, I feel like I&#8217;m high enough on the learning curve that I can afford to work on other things.\u00a0 Besides, with the current state of the economy, I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;m going to find balance if I stay in the states.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To pursue a graduate degree:<\/strong> I&#8217;ve largely ruled this one out.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t see how an English degree would help me at this point, and I don&#8217;t currently have any career aspirations that would justify pursuing an advanced degree.\u00a0 The only reason I&#8217;d go back to school is to postpone facing the real world, and that&#8217;s probably the worst reason I could possibly have.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To stay in a predominantly Mormon community:<\/strong> Kind of the opposite of &#8220;see the world&#8221; and &#8220;experience another culture,&#8221; and it gets at the very heart of the matter.\u00a0 Would it be better to establish myself among people who are more like me and share my values, or should I venture out of the &#8220;bubble&#8221; and see what else is out there?\u00a0 I have a much stronger support group here in Utah than I&#8217;d probably have as a global nomad, but do I really need it?\u00a0 Am I independent enough to strike out and bloom wherever I&#8217;m planted?<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know.\u00a0 My thinking is so muddled with doubts and second thoughts that this whole exercise has probably been futile.\u00a0 If I had to make a decision RIGHT THIS SECOND, however, I&#8217;d probably choose to go.<\/p>\n<p>If nothing else, it would give me a good two months of writing time. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whew!\u00a0 I just finished revising through almost 9k words in Desert Stars.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve only got three more chapters and an epilogue to go, and man, I am so excited about this story!\u00a0 I have no doubt it&#8217;s my best work yet. Of course, I might be biased. \ud83d\ude09 Star Wanderers is also coming along very&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/decisions-suck-writing-is-awesome\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Decisions suck, writing is awesome<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[44,857],"tags":[89,364,88,191,33,46,83,30,156,37,495,149,387,148,189,312,247,197],"class_list":["post-6339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ds","category-sw","tag-career-decisions","tag-culture","tag-doubts-and-fears","tag-dreams","tag-girls-and-dating","tag-goals-and-plans","tag-inspiration","tag-life-decisions","tag-revising","tag-spirituality","tag-teaching-english-abroad","tag-the-middle-east","tag-the-real-world","tag-travel","tag-utah","tag-work","tag-writers-of-the-future","tag-writing-lifestyle","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-1Ef","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6339"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6349,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6339\/revisions\/6349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}