But I Want to Be a Writer

Registration for the fall session of my online Speculative Novel Workshop opens this Monday, August 17 at 8:30am PT! Scroll down for details!

I wrote these words in a notebook twenty years ago:

"But I want to Be a writer"

This notebook fell out of a pile of things, to remind me of a time when I was working hard, and was very much not there yet and simultaneously closer than I thought.

It was like discovering an old self. This notebook from 2006 was kept during a time when I worked as a production editor in publishing, all while staving off student loan companies because the forbearance was threatening to run out. I’d let go of an adult novel I had queried to agents, shelving it for good (?), and the heartbreak was fresh. Inside this notebook I discovered an anguished series of pages from the days when I gave notice at a job at one Big Publisher so I could move to a job at another Big Publisher that had less responsibility and less of an opportunity to move up all because I thought it would give me more time to write.

Now, years later, I read what I wrote to myself:

“But I want to be a writer. I went for drinks to explain myself the other night. To say why I was leaving. . .  It all has to do with my aspirations. I have no desire whatsoever to climb any kind of corporate ladder. I want a day job. That’s it. A day job I don’t take home with me. . . . I said: I just want to be a writer. And she said she understood that, why I’m leaving, because I have something on the side. But don’t you see—that’s the whole point? It’s not something on the side, my writing, it’s what I want to BE. My whole reason for living. This is no joke to me, no hobby. My job is what I’m doing on the side. I realize what it looks like. I’m unpublished. It might sound like I’m a failure, but I’m not about to believe that. I can’t stay. It’s so much responsibility. I watch the person I hired go home at 5:30—as she should—and then an urgent thing comes in and I can’t leave at 5:30, not 6:30, not even 7:00. I can’t work somewhere I have to do that. I want to be a writer. I don’t care how pathetic it sounds. I want to sprout wings and fly.”

We can laugh all we want at my earnestness. What’s interesting to future me is that all the while I was agonizing over this, I was finding the wings I sought. In the midst of the diary entries in these notebook pages there are random phone numbers, attempts at the math of how I might pay my student loans, as well as scattered lines from a novel I was trying to write that eventually would turn into a short story. That very short story would take me to the Tin House Workshop. And after the Tin House Workshop that short story would morph once again into an entirely new novel, becoming a book I published in 2011 called Imaginary Girls.

It was there under my fingertips the whole time. I was a writer, writing all along.

Twenty years later, I had jury duty in the city of Philadelphia, where I currently live. I did not get picked.

But I keep going back to an odd thing that happened at the start of the morning at City Hall. I had filled out the form and under occupation I wrote: Writer. Then next to it, smaller: Writing teacher. Then I was sitting in the rows of chairs among hundreds of people, waiting. So much of jury duty is waiting.

The jury announcer was assigning our numbers and organizing groups of 40–60 people at a time to go get questioned for different cases with a judge. It was the second round of cattle-call lists and my name came up. We were to say something aloud to indicate it was us, and then we would be assigned a number. My name was called and I spoke up, but at the same time so did someone else, hidden all the way across the large room and beyond many rows of chairs behind some kind of pole so I couldn’t see who it was.

There was a flurry of confusion. “Is your name Nova?”

We both apparently answered yes.

“Is your name Nova Suma?”

Yes? How could we both be saying yes?

The court worker with the mic was confused too—a name like that, and the two of us here at the very same time?

We were told to go check in with the worker at the entrance who had a copy of the list of names requested by the judge. I did, and it was confirmed the "Nova Suma" in question was me and 29 was my number. The court worker at the entrance yelled, “It was this young lady!” pointing to me (they called old women “young lady” there, so don't get excited, it wasn't a compliment). Then all at once there was enough activity and confusion next as a group of people got up to head to their assigned courtroom so I couldn’t see who the person who claimed my name was… I didn't see them go past me to confirm at the entrance. I never saw who it was, and if it was a misunderstanding and someone mishearing, or if something surreal had just happened, something strange, something meant to shake me, something true. I've never met anyone with my name before.

If there is another Nova (Ren) Suma, do you think she is a writer, too?

Let’s be real.

I know I’ve been quiet for a while. I miss my semi-anonymous blog of twenty years ago. I’ve started writing a number of newsletters and then abandoned them without sending them to you. Nothing has felt worthy. The newsletter format feels more “official” and “newsworthy” than I have been comfortable with at this moment, and I want to keep my writing to myself lately.

I also felt crushed under the weight of publishing my last book. Even when you hold your expectations and hopes close and don’t allow them to get too outlandish, even then, putting something so precious to you out in the world is painful and I think it did a number on me.

But I'm writing.

I've spent my summer break writing and worrying and writing some more. And all the while the fall semester when I start teaching again is creeping up on me...

I miss being faculty at an MFA program—it was ten years ago this year that I started teaching at Vermont College of Fine Arts, but no more. The good news is I'm back at the Penn Creative Writing Program this fall teaching a "Horror, Mystery, Suspense" creative writing class (can you just imagine how thrilling, literally, my reading pile has been these past months as I create my syllabus?). And I've just joined the online Novel Writing Certificate Program with Stanford Continuing Studies as one of the instructors.

Plus, I'm teaching my Speculative Novel Workshop with Stanford Continuing Studies again this fall... and if you're interested in joining me for this ten-week class you can sign up on Monday.

Speculative Novel Workshop

Are you writing a speculative novel, or would like to start one, and are interested in taking an online class this fall?

I'm delighted to say that I'm teaching my online workshop with Stanford Continuing Studies once again, and it starts in late September. Registration for The Speculative and the Fantastic: Novel Workshop opens this Monday, August 17 at 8:30am PT. This ten-week asynchronous workshop aims to be flexible and full of creative opportunities to experiment with different genres and begin or make progress on a speculative novel. Join me?

Common wisdom says to never send out a newsletter over a weekend, but I wanted to offer a heads up about this workshop if anyone wants to sign up Monday morning. (The last two times I taught this, registration filled within a day, but if you're seeing this late, not to worry! By the time the course starts, we do seem to end up going to the waitlist, so if you sign up for that you could very well end up in the class!)

I wish I could say I knew how to be an author or a person in this world at this moment. I wish I'd kept a steady job and somehow found a way to balance it all.

But there's one thing I can say at least, twenty years later: I'm still writing.