A Long Hiatus: Coming Back from a Pandemic

Readers,

I find it almost funny how little has changed on this blog over the past two years.

I took a long hiatus over the pandemic years just for my own peace of mind, and I wrote on and off for several months in between, oscillating between writing longer works, poetry, and short fiction. Much has happened since then. I taught through a pandemic, began working with a professional teaching organization, moved halfway across the country, and now I reside on the northside of a city much larger than I am used to (and somehow still get lost in even a year later). I’ve found time for myself and my writing so little that I feel like I’ve almost lost sight of it!

Some of you who keep up with the snippets I post every now and then may have noticed the inconsistency, and while I will try to do better, I have always struggled with forming habits. I was speaking with a student the other day about the importance of consistent practice, and I realized I don’t quite practice what I preach–too busy trying to stay afloat to actually enjoy the swim, so to speak. I realized, too, that so much of our human experience is tied to the stories we choose to tell, the ones we give credence to, the ones that matter to us most. We trade stories in the hallways of my school, for example, bite-sized pieces of our day falling out of us as we grasp onto the small things that delight or engage us. That has been a beacon of light in a largely dark place most of us have been in the past two years, and I see the effect that human connection–those stories–can have on those around me daily.

I had almost forgotten the joy of a writing until I started building once again a world with the students in my classroom.

I’ve written and published work in the past two years, of course, and you can find my more professional publications in the Formal Publications section of this blog. Many of those publications so far have required me to think with the “historian brain” (as I affectionately call it) that I acquired through my university training. And while I admit I have enjoyed being a teacher researcher, digging into the hows and whys of the educational sphere of influence, I also wanted to get back to the root of how I view myself as a writer, individually speaking, to dive back into that author’s craft I always encourage students to develop and explore as burgeoning writers themselves. I genuinely enjoy the cathartic experience of writing, whether that is through educational research or narrative fiction, and I whole-heartedly believe that everyone can write if they want to dedicate themselves to the task–that everyone has a story to tell. I always talk about the joy of creation, and regardless of whether it is objectively good, I found that in most cases it is therapeutic.

I need to take my own advice.

I don’t have to write in order to profit. I think many of us lose ourselves in hobbies thinking we can turning something we enjoy into a hustle; while I admire those that can, I feel as though I would easily lose touch with myself if that were my end goal. I get so caught up in whether or not I will be judged, whether or not my prose is engaging, whether or not it’s perfect, that I have failed to trust myself with the most basic concept: that I need to acknowledge I will fail, struggle, fix, and revise for the better. I want to get back to writing things I can immerse myself in first and foremost–to create a world in which I and readers can escape, whether that is through short fiction or longer projects, like the novels I used to fixate on as a kid. I know that there will be an audience, but first and foremost I want to rediscover the joy of creation. I do, however, also want to accomplish some of the goals that I always thought about but somehow held myself back from; to put myself whole-heartedly into projects or works that readers can relate to and find within it a piece of themselves, no matter how little. I want to share that experience with others, to help them grow into something and someone they can be proud of–to accomplish something small or large, to tell their own story.

I think that’s the purpose of writing, after all.

All this is to say that this blog will (hopefully) be more active in the next year as I finally settle into a groove with my current position and life. I’ve sorted out the navigation so it’s more easily accessible to those of you who want to browse, and this space will be a place for both my non-fiction travel snippets and shenanigans (mostly stories about getting lost–or getting food) and more serious creative fictional endeavors. Some will be ones from long ago, polished and revised for the sake of clarity, and the date of writing will always be attached. Short stories and poetry I will post here, on this blog, in the Creative Fiction section, while my travel stories will remain in the Travel Stories section of this site. Feel free to browse or share as you like, and I do hope you all will continue with me on this journey.

I still have stories tell, after all.

Sam