Into the Unknown AHHHHH: Risk Taking and Leaping

It’s not just a song from Frozen 2; it’s a lifestyle

A big part of my perspective on the world comes from being a teacher. It’s a career I fell in love with so long ago; for fifteen years now I have been bragging that I get to talk about books and writing all day. And now I have a final countdown of eleven school days left as a high school English & journalism teacher. 

Fifteen years, by the way, is like an entire person. That’s an entire Seth Cohen’s lifetime at the beginning of The OC of teaching. It has not been an easy job. I have taught thousands of students; fielded every emergency from stapling the seat of my pants together after accidentally tearing it open on a metal filing cabinet to grading an assignment someone’s dog had partially eaten; and given feedback on more essays than I actually want to calculate at this point. And, in the less glamorous bits of it, I’ve been harassed by unsatisfied parents, called a groomer, and watched as many a man in a meeting presented the exact idea I shared minutes earlier to enthusiasm instead of rejection. All in all though, the joy of the kindest students shines brighter than any of the stressors. 

All the emergencies aside, I truly love the bit where I am standing in front of a classroom or walking in between groups or sitting down listening to conversations about books. I love booktok, but have you tried the OG book talk, where your teacher talks enthusiastically about books? Or your students chat in a group or your whole class does in a seminar? Clearly, I am nerdy. Nerdy enough to vibrate with excitement over Shakespeare, or to jump and (embarrassingly) yelp a little if someone has a big breakthrough in writing a timed essay with style. I write more cat puns into worksheets than you might expect, and yet, I won’t apologize for it because people like my cat puns enough to publish a book peppered with them, so that must make cat puns and book nerds cool. SPACECAT* forever. At least that’s what I am telling myself. 

Anyway, I’ve spent this whole enormous slice of my life cheering hard for students to love reading and writing, and telling them that I hope they follow their dreams, even if it is difficult, and even if it is scary. 

It would be a bit hypocritical now, when presented with my dream, not to take a bit of a leap into the unknown. I won’t go into details, but I grew up poor enough to know hunger and the agony of crashing in someone’s side room or a basement as a whole family. So when it comes to career decisions, I am careful, to a fault. And in my book deal, I have been so fortunate, though it is worth noting that being in a position to benefit from good luck does not often come without working one’s ass off writing and revising and querying books. It is not a meritocracy here in publishing, and still, I worked hard, and none of it was instant. I got lucky and I worked hard and wrote something extraordinary. Because I’ve recently vowed not to settle for making myself small, I am going to acknowledge that I earned this. 

Just like Elsa from Frozen II (first of all, I have two young kids, and second of all, it’s a fantastic film), I am heading into the unknown. I am taking the first real career risk I have taken in decades, and stepping away from the classroom and from my fantastic colleagues and my absolutely wonderful students to write full time. The way I see it, I can do it for a year and if I haven’t sold anything else by then, I’ll have to reevaluate, but I am going to make this jump and hope for the best. 

And that feels scary, but necessary for many reasons. Here are a few! 

First of all, I now feel a lot less pressure to mute my coarse vocabulary, and my previously rated G puns can really hit other spots. 

Also, the flexibility is going to be nice for my family and for my health. I can’t wait to be able to drink water all day and pee at will; I’m probably about to be more hydrated than ever, which I can only assume will be glorious. 

But most importantly, I want to give this a real chance to be my career. I want to give all of the books bubbling up in my mind a chance to explode outwards like a shaken bottle of champagne. I want to suffer again showing my agent and my editor the things I have painstakingly crafted and hearing the rejections (OK, I actually hope there aren’t rejections, but I acknowledge that these are part of the whole thing). I want to revise my ass off and struggle for and then celebrate the improvements and, I hope, help some more of my stories make their way into the world. I want to shed light on the literal stack of manuscripts hanging out in my closet, waiting for their turn, and on the 30-page-long google document of ideas and the many overly enthusiastic canva slide decks pitching them all. 

So I’m going to try it. I’m sad to leave my students and I’m uncertain about how it will work out, but I don’t want to look back and wonder how much more or what else I would have written if I had taken a chance. 

Anyway, to kick off my my “I’m leaving my job” newsletter post here, I leave you with the following tip: Do not sleep on the musical oeuvre of Chappell Roan, she is a glittery shiny unicorn of queer music and HOTTOGO! is my walk up song for every day of my life. I basically exist with my brain bopping around from that to Red Wine Supernova to Feminomenon to Good Luck, Babe to Pink Pony Club to Casual and I don’t hate that for me. 

Treat Yo’ Shelf:

Morbidly Yours by Ivy Fairbanks: This book has everything I dream of in a book. Big feelings, grumpy sunshine, depth of feeling and emotion, comedy, drama, and both heartwarming and spicy romance. I awkwardly joked to the author (who is incredible) that I thought someone gave it a 5/5 railing rating, and I stand by that rating. It is a phenomenal railing, and one of my favorite books in a long long time. It honestly feels like it combines my love of love and the macabre quite perfectly. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of it. 

The Art of Catching Feelings by Alicia Thompson: it’s a fantastic sports romance that takes baseball and You’ve Got Mail online communication and rolls just a bouquet of things I love into one incredible book. Bonus: I also love summer baseball, but I’m in it mostly for the little treats, and I went to an Orioles game (let’s go O’s!) where I had a hard lemonade, a little hat with ice cream that one of my kids rejected, and then I turned to my partner and told him about this book AND then the stadium played the Twilight baseball music and it was basically the perfect moment. I love Daphne and Chris so much. 5/5 baseballs. 

Unsteady by Peyton Corrine: I am in my hockey romance era, and this book has me shipping Sadie + Rhys forever. My favorite part of it is that Sadie is working so hard to be a figure skater and to look after her siblings, an Rhys strolls in with all his privilege willing to just be her rock and support her from the get go, because he is down bad and they are both working through some things.  5/5 swoons re: nicknames in a different language that she doesn't understand until later.

*SPACECAT is a super fun AP English Language and Composition acronym that helps students consider the rhetorical situation. My SPACECAT worksheet is full of cats in space helmets and purrrrfect puns. It stands for Speaker, Purpose, Audience, Context, Exigence, Choices, Appeals, and Tone. This is the sort of bonkers teacher shit I will miss so much. 

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