Back To School

Pssst... have you entered my awesome contest yet? Closes Wednesday at midnight Pacific!

Tomorrow, I go back. Back to the hallowed halls of learning... blah blah blah... I'm not taking an English class this semester, so I'll save the flowery prose for later.

In fact, I doubt there will be much creativity fostering this semester at all. I'm taking, of all things, Chemistry, Calculus, and Modern American History. For someone who rather loves words, this is a math- and fact-heavy semester. Not to mention all the dangerous chemicals I'll get to play with.

School's been an interesting environment for me-- this time around. In high school, I could have cared less about my grades. I graduated with a 2.7 GPA. All of my friends sat up front, in their shiny white robes, the top students in the class. I did not sit with them.

This time around, I am determined to do it differently. Well, mostly. It's been nine years since I graduated high school. And I still don't have a degree.

But I'm happy with my decision to go back, even though getting the classes I need has become next to impossible, and finding the time to be in school feels like it will be impossible. I'm proud to have stuck with it, and proven that I can get better grades.

But most of all, I like the sense of measurable accomplishment being in class brings with it. Sometimes, with writing, it's hard to know how you're doing. Maybe you send out twenty queries and get five requests for a project that seems, to you, utterly commercial, and forty queries and no requests for your next project, which seems artistic and beautiful. There's no one grading our manuscripts though, at least not in any color ink we can read. All we can tell our progress by is that little feeling we get inside when we just know that what we've written is the best ever.

And then, it's our job to break that "best ever" with the next thing we write. Because we always must strive to be better, do better, write better. Pushing ourselves to better our writing is something we should never lose sight of. Ever. No matter what your writing or publishing journey is, no matter what happens, remember to write better.

Remember, every time you sit down to write, you are going back to school. Push yourself. See what you can accomplish.

I'll bet you'll surprise yourself.