I thought it would be a good idea to do a quick post explaining what I’ve been up to the past month or so, since a lot of things have changed and I’m sure they will be changing a lot more in the future. So, here’s what’s up:
As you may or may not know, I decided about four or five months ago to leave the USA to teach English abroad. For the past few little while, I’ve been applying for a program to teach English to elementary school kids in Georgia. I had the interview over Skype just yesterday, and I think it went pretty well! I should hear back in the next couple of days, so fingers crossed on that.
If they decide to hire me, I’ll leave in three weeks and stay until at least mid-June. At that point, I’ll either sign up for another semester or go somewhere else, either the Middle East or Eastern Europe. The pay isn’t great, but it seems like a good cultural experience, and I’m a lot more interested in the Caucasus than I am in East Asia (no offense to Asians).
Ever since I graduated in 2010, I’ve been looking for a fulfilling career that I can balance with my writing aspirations. I learned pretty quick that that simply doesn’t exist in Washington DC; either you sacrifice everything for your career, including your family, or you end up trapped in an office pushing papers all day. In Utah, I bounced around a lot of temporary jobs while struggling to make ends meet, but I never found anything more permanent that seemed to strike a balance.
I hope that teaching English will help me to find that balance, and from what I’ve heard from some of my former expat friends, I’m optimistic that it will. Perhaps more importantly, it will probably enrich my writing by exposing me to new peoples and cultures. Desert Stars was certainly enriched by the time I spent in Jordan; without having lived in that culture, I don’t think I would have been able to write it. Besides, English is something I’m good at, and so is teaching–so why not capitalize on the skills I already have? It certainly sounds better than wasting my 20s in a warehouse.
So that’s the plan: launch a TEFL career and spend at least the next three to five years abroad. At least. I might not get married until my 30s–or who knows, I might find someone out there and go native–but this is something I want to do as a career, not just as temporary filler before I figure out what I want to do with my life. I’m through with filler. Whether it takes one year or ten for my writing career to take off, I’m going to get out and do something useful and worthwhile.
That’s the plan, anyway. And of course, I’ll always keep writing.
Right now, I’m finishing up Stars of Blood and Glory; I’m on chapter 15, with only three more and an epilogue after that, so I should finish that well before I leave. After that, the next big project is Star Wanderers, which is already about halfway finished. I’ll probably take some time off and work on polishing part II, then release parts I and II sometime in the spring–unless by some weird fluke it wins Writers of the Future. I’ll know in February.
And after that? Well, I’m thinking it’s almost time to pick up Edenfall again, but I can’t say for sure. Probably, though–I definitely want to finish that one before the end of the year, and preferably get it published. After Stars of Blood and Glory, I’ll probably take a break from the McCoy continuity in the Gaia Nova universe, though I may pick up something from Jeremiah’s timeline in Star Wanderers. I really want to do a parallel novel from Noemi’s point of view–maybe that’s the one I’ll do in seven days, just to hit that resolution. Everything has to be ready fist, though, and right now it isn’t.
So much is changing–I have no idea where I’ll be in the next six months, creatively or physically. But right now, I’m just enjoying a relaxing time with my parents and getting ready for the next big transition. Life is good.
