"Please, be kind. Especially when we don't know what's going on."
Also: the This Creative Life book is out!
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May
Four years ago, my husband and I embarked on a commuter marriage adventure. His job was in the Bay Area, where a couple comprised of a teacher and a writer can’t really afford to live; our place was in Utah, where we can. Since my job is reasonably portable I started going to CA for stretches of a few weeks, coming back to UT for stretches, and so on.
The idea when we started this was for it to be a two-year stopgap while we figured out what the next phase of our lives would be, our third act. The goal was that around spring 2020, we’d make some decisions.
Let us reflect upon what happened in spring 2020…
It wasn’t, to say the least, a great time for trying to plan the future. In spring 2021, we said: one more year. We can do this one more year, and then hopefully we’ll know more and be able to make plans.
It turns out that we still don’t actually know anything except that four years is already too long to be living in two states, and 32 years is a very long time to be a classroom teacher for him (or anyone), and being a full-time writer for 16 years has been a lucky privilege for me, one often enabled by that mentally and emotionally taxing work of his.
So he’s coming home, and we’ll re-assess. Part of me would love to shoulder the burden he’s been carrying, and find some actual employment situation with, I don’t know, health benefits? Part me wonders if I’m even hirable. A third part of me is ready to sell everything and hit the road with husband and cat and nomadically bounce around the country with family and friends. A fourth part wants nothing to change. A fifth part has hot-dog hands and is living somewhere with Jamie Lee Curtis.
I keep waiting for this transitional season that started in 2018 to feel over, but I suspect it won’t. The way the world is going with regards to the economy, politics, the climate crisis, the changing paradigms of work and technology—just to name a few things—I think this will be an entire generation of transition, and the joke’s on me if I spend it sitting around waiting for things to feel settled.
The hot-dog hands reference, like the quote in the subject line of this edition, is from Everything Everywhere All at Once, a deeply weird, wonderful, and funny movie that made me cry for reasons that would be made trivial if I tried to explain them. And I think a third act in the 2020s (or a first, or second, or fourth) might look more like that movie that anything else—a series of scenes that feel sometimes painful, sometimes absurd, sometimes terrifying. Disjointed but profoundly connected, where we’re not quite sure how we got into each one or we’re going to get out of it, yet they’re “punctuated by moments of transcendent, sublime grace,” as critic Walter Chaw writes in his powerful and personal response to the movie. “If you don't savour them, you miss every reason to be alive.”
This Creative Life: the Book - now available!
If you’d asked me a few months ago if I was really going to pull off this self-published project as planned and (almost) on schedule, I would have answered, “Mayyyyybe.” There were many platforms to learn and pieces of the puzzle I hadn’t anticipated and, of course, the actual writing of the thing. But I did it! 😅 As someone who loves learning and problem-solving, the process of the whole thing was fun for me, and I’m very pleased with the result.
➡️ Trade Paperback: It currently should be available by special/online order anywhere you get books. It’s distributed by Ingram, which pretty much all booksellers in the U.S. use. For example, I found it at my two local indie online order sites: Weller Book Works and The King’s English. So if you check your favorite shops web site, you should be able to order it online from them. It’s also available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. $12.95
➡️ Pocket Edition: This edition is only available at Amazon and Lulu for now. The pocket edition was a somewhat last-minute idea, and to set it up for wider distribution, I need to purchase a separate ISBN for the trim size and get it in the queue as a distinct book. This all takes some time to work through their system. $9.95
➡️ Ebook retail links: Apple Books | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Google Play $7.99
➡️ Ebook direct with newsletter coupon: If you like the convenience of ebooks but not the big tech companies, you can purchase directly from me and save 30% with a coupon code. Buy here and use the code QWBODLO8MX at checkout. ⚡ If you feel confident in your ability to get a downloaded ebook onto whatever app or device you like, you can use the “download now” option when you buy. I recommend waiting an extra few seconds for the BookFunnel email that will give you a special landing page with instructions and tech support. They do not make you make an account or save your email address! ⚡
📬 If you get the This Creative Life newsletter, you already know all these details. If you don’t get the newsletter and wonder what makes it different from this one: to date, it’s mostly gone out with new episodes of my podcast with the show notes and links. Going forward, there will be more regular non-podcast editions talking about writing and the writing life, while The Inbox Variations will remain a monthly newsletter with the basics of what’s going on with me and my books.
🔗 I set up a new one-page site to function as the home for the podcast, the book, and the newsletter, so if your eyes glazed over reading all this, just go here.
And if you’ve read every word—you are a warrior! I’ll be back in June with news and recommendations. Until then, take care and maybe I’ll see you over at This Creative Life.
Hi Sara—thinking of you and appreciating you for this, your podcast,your books. Thank you.