As a brand new lecturer in creative writing, I vowed never to become a teacher who no longer writes. But then I began to understand the dynamic that’s responsible for declining creative production in novelists who join teaching faculties, And sure enough, mine began to decline.
First, I should say that as long as I can remember I’ve had to deal with what is now called ADHD. Concentration and follow-through have always been a challenge for me. The fact that I’ve finished 4 books, the fact that I’ve kept this blog going for a year and a half now–in my world, these are Olympian personal victories, though for most folks, business as usual.
That said, here’s the productivity-killer coiled inside teaching:
If you do it right, if you enter into your students’ creative worlds and take on, along with them, the challenges they are facing, you are using – and fatiguing – the same imaginative “muscles” you need to keep toned and fresh for you own work.
So what is the answer? Well, as Gertrude Stein said to Alice B. Toklas (really) from her deathbed, “what is the question?”
Here is my answer:
To teach or not to teach, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the exhaustion of shared energy and the displacement of focus toward others’ fortunes, or take arms against a withering of one’s own creative life and by regathering its mission and refocussing its power, end the creative draught.
If you were paying attention, you saw that (in addition to bastardizing Hamlet) this answer doesn’t answer the question, but, like Miss Stein’s deathbed wisecrack, only turns it back as another question. The truth is, as with so many paradoxes involving life and work, the answer will vary individual-to-individual.
Some writers of promise will disappear into academia like a stone in a pond, leaving only ripples of their lost potential. Others – like T.C. Boyle, Wallace Stegner, or Saul Bellow – will serve admirably in teaching positions, even direct creative writing programs, and still “get one out” every few years.
What about you? Do you teach and write? If so, how do you balance the two?
Do you wish you could have more time to write but feel smothered by the demands of a fulltime teaching position?
Do get by with temporary or part-time work, yet long for the security of that elusive perfect teaching job with great salary and minimal demands?
Suppose you got one that wasn’t quite as “perfect” as you wished – as an assistant professorhip at the bottom of the academic pyramid, underpaid and overworked? How do you picture your imaginative life once you are teaching 3 or 4 creative writing courses per semester?
Let’s broaden the inquiry beyond teaching: what do you do to put food on your table? Drive a cab? Tend bar? Are you a musician (once my hope for a meal ticket) like Graham Parker or Kinky Friedman? An actor, like Ethan Hawke or Thomas Tryon? An insurance executive, like Wallace Stevens? Do you practice law, like Scott Thurow or John Grisham.
Have you be lucky enough to have drawn a get-out-of-jail care? A trust fund? A rich husband or wife?
Do you have a writing job – PR, ad copy, newsletters?
Do you actually publish in a genre that’s commercial enough to support you?
Women especially, do you have small children? How do you manage that more-than-fulltime occupation?
Fiction writing and living life seem always to have been the opposite ends of a see saw. The challenge is somehow to achieve a balance that honors both ends. Do you feel you’ve finessed this challenge – or been beaten down by it? I’m truly interested in this question so please leave your perspective in a comment.
Here is my answer:
To teach or not to teach, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the exhaustion of shared energy and the displacement of focus toward others’ fortunes, or take arms against a withering of one’s own creative life and by regathering its mission and refocussing its power, end the creative draught.
If you were paying attention, you saw that (in addition to bastardizing Hamlet) this answer doesn’t answer the question, but, like Miss Stein’s deathbed wisecrack, only turns it back as another question. The truth is, as with so many paradoxes involving life and work, the answer will vary individual-to-individual.
Some writers of promise will disappear into academia like a stone in a pond, leaving only ripples of their lost potential. Others – like T.C. Boyle, Wallace Stegner, or Saul Bellow – will serve admirably in teaching positions, even direct creative writing programs, and still “get one out” every few years.
What about you? Do you teach and write? If so, how do you balance the two?
Do you wish you could have more time to write but feel smothered by the demands of a fulltime teaching position?
Do get by with temporary or part-time work, yet long for the security of that elusive perfect teaching job with great salary and minimal demands?
Suppose you got one that wasn’t quite as “perfect” as you wished – as an assistant professorhip at the bottom of the academic pyramid, underpaid and overworked? How do you picture your imaginative life once you are teaching 3 or 4 creative writing courses per semester?
Let’s broaden the inquiry beyond teaching: what do you do to put food on your table? Drive a cab? Tend bar? Are you a musician (once my hope for a meal ticket) like Graham Parker or Kinky Friedman? An actor, like Ethan Hawke or Thomas Tryon? An insurance executive, like Wallace Stevens? Do you practice law, like Scott Thurow or John Grisham.
Have you be lucky enough to have drawn a get-out-of-jail care? A trust fund? A rich husband or wife?
Do you have a writing job – PR, ad copy, newsletters?
Do you actually publish in a genre that’s commercial enough to support you?
Women especially, do you have small children? How do you manage that more-than-fulltime occupation?
Fiction writing and living life seem always to have been the opposite ends of a see saw. The challenge is somehow to achieve a balance that honors both ends. Do you feel you’ve finessed this challenge – or been beaten down by it? I’m truly interested in this question so please leave your perspective in a comment.
Here is my answer:
To teach or not to teach, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the exhaustion of shared energy and the displacement of focus toward others’ fortunes, or take arms against a withering of one’s own creative life and by regathering its mission and refocussing its power, end the creative draught.
If you were paying attention, you saw that (in addition to bastardizing Hamlet) this answer doesn’t answer the question, but, like Miss Stein’s deathbed wisecrack, only turns it back as another question. The truth is, as with so many paradoxes involving life and work, the answer will vary individual-to-individual.
Some writers of promise will disappear into academia like a stone in a pond, leaving only ripples of their lost potential. Others – like T.C. Boyle, Wallace Stegner, or Saul Bellow – will serve admirably in teaching positions, even direct creative writing programs, and still “get one out” every few years.
What about you? Do you teach and write? If so, how do you balance the two?
Do you wish you could have more time to write but feel smothered by the demands of a fulltime teaching position?
Do get by with temporary or part-time work, yet long for the security of that elusive perfect teaching job with great salary and minimal demands?
Suppose you got one that wasn’t quite as “perfect” as you wished – as an assistant professorhip at the bottom of the academic pyramid, underpaid and overworked? How do you picture your imaginative life once you are teaching 3 or 4 creative writing courses per semester?
Let’s broaden the inquiry beyond teaching: what do you do to put food on your table? Drive a cab? Tend bar? Are you a musician (once my hope for a meal ticket) like Graham Parker or Kinky Friedman? An actor, like Ethan Hawke or Thomas Tryon? An insurance executive, like Wallace Stevens? Do you practice law, like Scott Thurow or John Grisham.
Have you be lucky enough to have drawn a get-out-of-jail care? A trust fund? A rich husband or wife?
Do you have a writing job – PR, ad copy, newsletters?
Do you actually publish in a genre that’s commercial enough to support you?
Women especially, do you have small children? How do you manage that more-than-fulltime occupation?
Fiction writing and living life seem always to have been the opposite ends of a see saw. The challenge is somehow to achieve a balance that honors both ends. Do you feel you’ve finessed this challenge – or been beaten down by it? I’m truly interested in this question so please leave your perspective in a comment.
Here is my answer:
To teach or not to teach, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the exhaustion of shared energy and the displacement of focus toward others’ fortunes, or take arms against a withering of one’s own creative life and by regathering its mission and refocussing its power, end the creative draught.
If you were paying attention, you saw that (in addition to bastardizing Hamlet) this answer doesn’t answer the question, but, like Miss Stein’s deathbed wisecrack, only turns it back as another question. The truth is, as with so many paradoxes involving life and work, the answer will vary individual-to-individual.
Some writers of promise will disappear into academia like a stone in a pond, leaving only ripples of their lost potential. Others – like T.C. Boyle, Wallace Stegner, or Saul Bellow – will serve admirably in teaching positions, even direct creative writing programs, and still “get one out” every few years.
What about you? Do you teach and write? If so, how do you balance the two?
Do you wish you could have more time to write but feel smothered by the demands of a fulltime teaching position?
Do get by with temporary or part-time work, yet long for the security of that elusive perfect teaching job with great salary and minimal demands?
Suppose you got one that wasn’t quite as “perfect” as you wished – as an assistant professorhip at the bottom of the academic pyramid, underpaid and overworked? How do you picture your imaginative life once you are teaching 3 or 4 creative writing courses per semester?
Let’s broaden the inquiry beyond teaching: what do you do to put food on your table? Drive a cab? Tend bar? Are you a musician (once my hope for a meal ticket) like Graham Parker or Kinky Friedman? An actor, like Ethan Hawke or Thomas Tryon? An insurance executive, like Wallace Stevens? Do you practice law, like Scott Thurow or John Grisham.
Have you be lucky enough to have drawn a get-out-of-jail care? A trust fund? A rich husband or wife?
Do you have a writing job – PR, ad copy, newsletters?
Do you actually publish in a genre that’s commercial enough to support you?
Women especially, do you have small children? How do you manage that more-than-fulltime occupation?
Fiction writing and living life seem always to have been the opposite ends of a see saw. The challenge is somehow to achieve a balance that honors both ends. Do you feel you’ve finessed this challenge – or been beaten down by it? I’m truly interested in this question so please leave your perspective in a comment.
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I read some musing on the same subject recently from another university professor. She really wanted to be doing something else rather than teaching full time, but pay check and bennies are a big security blanket to shuck off. Particularly the health care package what with kids and getting older. I don’t think it’s just teaching that sucks the creative energy out of writers, but any job that demands strong creative focus.
~jon
Teaching doesn’t seem like that great an option any more, unless you really want to teach. In addition to the disadvantages you mention, competition for the few tenure track openings is fierce. It’s like planning to pay the bills as a rock star while you work on getting that astronaut career off the ground. Still, seems pleasant work as work goes, if you can get it.
I’m working as a computer systems administrator now. This isn’t that great for my writing. Too interesting. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a problem if I didn’t also have two small children right now. I only seem to be able to do so many context shifts in a day.
It’s an interesting dilemma. Not saying this would work for everybody, but I solved the problem by becoming a technical writer. It keeps my writing skills honed, my editorial eye sharp, but requires very little creativity, so I still have that drive to create. Documenting software uses a completely different part of my brain from writing novels…so much so that I often use one form of writing as a break from the other.
I could never teach, because as a true introvert, people drain me. Even if it didn’t sap my creativity, it would suck my energy. Avoiding people is much better for my inner muse
How I survive as a novelist:
1. I didn’t marry money, but my husband has a good, steady income and a generous nature.
2. I have lived in the same VERY modest home for the past 20 years.
3. I teach fiction writing to adults at The Worcester Art Museum. A paycheck, however small, is validating. I’m only paid for the time I’m actually on site teaching, so all the hours I spend on lesson plans and critiquing student stories are pro bono. The great thing is that I’m not bound by anyone else’s curriculum so I can design courses that really interest me. It takes a lot of energy, especially since I’m an introvert, but it can add to my energy, too. I meet some wonderful, creative people. And teaching has kept me writing through some hard times, because I would have felt like a fraud encouraging my students to soldier on if I were not willing to do the same.
4. I won an artist grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Every state has grant money (at least at the moment!) available to individual artists. Every writer should look into how to apply. Amounts vary; the honor that comes with the award is worth much more than the size of the check.
5. I am employed as a chauffeur. No paycheck, since my two, tall skinny passengers are my teenage sons.
6. I am employed as a gardener. Drive by my house and you will see me mowing the lawn, raking leaves, trimming the trees, etc.
MOST days I feel very lucky to have been able to cobble together this writing life for the past 7 years.
This is THE question for me right now, and you’ve provided a great butchered adaptation of Hamlet’s soliloquey!
(I’m currently teaching Hamlet to 10th graders right now by the way.)
I teach high school English and journalism (which means that I also sponsor the yearbook staff – there are always strings attached.) Teaching consumes most of my time right now, but I enjoy my career and love my students. Would I like to have more time to write? Of course… So, I take notebooks with me in my purse wherever I go in case I have an inkling of free time, and I make sure to sit down and write at home for at least 30 minutes every day.
Wow, this is a topic that touches me. I’m a pianist who teaches, and my playing has gone down so much that I have not played, except with students, for more than a couple days a year in the last four or five years. I’m only now starting to miss it. But to be honest, I really can’t do both. I’ll play if I have a couple weeks off teaching, but I just can’t do both.
As far as writing, I will never teach it. It does use up something. I won’t say what I write since I teach little kids (but it must be obvious, LOL!), and it doesn’t support me full-time. But if I could add some more, I could have my ideal life: making money from writing, playing piano a few hours a day for ME, lol.
Great comments, everyone. So many good points that I’m going to post a Part 2 around them. Thanks!
Seems like you should teach because you WANT to teach, not because it’ll buy you some time to bang out your next novel. Although the thought of paid summers off and a strategically placed sabbatical sure do sweeten the deal.
I’m not sure there is an ideal survival job for writers. If your day job is at all meaningful, it’ll drain your creative juices to a certain degree. If your day job is completely meaningless, it may drain your soul.
Julia Cameron wrote in one of her books that her mother (and herself) wrote in between the stuff that makes life up.
I try to do that. Write when I can. Sneaking off during making supper to slap some words down. Or after my daughter has gone to bed, and all day on the lucky days when she’s gone to grandma’s.
Not writing is what eats my soul. My job supports my life and me being able to have a computer at which to write and food which sustains my body. But writing supports my heart and soul.
I liked your premise, Bill. I had really assumed that the issue was finite time and not finite creative energy. I have been teaching in one capacity or another for thirty-five years, not counting part-time tutoring as an undergraduate. My colleagues and I remarked as early as graduate school how we had stopped our creative pursuits such as writing or music. (I have never been much of a creative writer, but I did write poetry and played music for fun.) I have discovered over time that I thrive on using my creative energy, whether that be as a poet, parent, administrator, or as a teacher. I really do love teaching, and I also love translating (from Portuguese to English) and academic writing in the summer–these activities make my job fun on balance. That said, a current personal crisis is forcing me to take a hard look at priorities. I have recently decided that, beginning over the next five years, I want to invert proportions of the amount of time spent on activities done primarily for remuneration, creative or otherwise, and those done for personal pleasure and for the artistic product. I want to start with literary translation, but, who knows, I may get back to poetry and the guitar! This begs another set of questions that artists have long been asked: why do we engage in the esthetic pursuit (rather than, say, teaching)? Is it the extroverted motive of sharing a product (and, in the performing arts, the process)–or even the dream of fame and adulation? (Dare I mention wealth?) Is the more introverted purpose of meditation or self-expression for their own sakes–the pleasures of the process and the well-executed product? These questions are really just symptomatic, though; I think that the hallmark of creative activity is its restorative, life-giving quality, for oneself and hopefully for others. If teaching makes your tired heart sing at the end of the day, don’t give it up; otherwise, invoke the Muses with a trusting heart, study your craft, and enjoy the ride!