The time has come to do the very thing I never imagined myself doing…
…offer who I am and what I know to you, my reader. The only way to do that, aside from the excellent time we spend together here, is to be published more widely. And the only way to do that is to let publishers know that I am officially on the market. I must sell myself.
Jittery, watching time count down to my mentoring session with the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL), I tried to gather my thoughts. I’d accidentally scheduled the meeting for my “full Friday”—the Friday, once a fortnight, when I teach all day but have preparation time in the middle of the day. The “other” Friday I only work until 11:15 and then have the rest of the day at home. My timetable is as tangled as unravelled wool hastily shoved into a knitting bag.
So I was at school and going to be talking about my not-school-self. Not that the divide is a wall hastily built to keep one separate from another, more that this was a thing that if I hadn’t muddled the dates, I would have liked to do at home.
Time is my weakness.
I could go into all of the reasons and try to dazzle you with trauma-speak and all of that, or I could simply admit that time isn’t linear in my world. I overcompensate for this by being thoroughly organised but this tangle of multi-coloured wool constantly throws me into chaos.
I clicked on the link and waited to be admitted into the meeting.
Julieanne, surrounded by her book-filled office, smiled. The conversation was as great as that smile promised. The jitters left. She asked questions. I talked. Then she talked. And I mapped out a way forward.
Her generous advice and all-round positivity reassured me that I have a story to be told. She advised me ‘lead with the poetry you have published, your research, and your PhD’. I madly wrote it all down. She wished me all the best, asked me to let her know how I got on, and we said goodbye.
Looking at the Zoom screen, momentarily frozen before blinking black, non-existent words materialised.
It’s time.
I have never been big on promoting myself. Socially, I can’t be bothered pushing my wheelbarrow. I listen to others promote themselves and let them talk and talk. They aren’t interested in knowing much beyond their own aura.
Professionally, as in my job in education, I know what I know and am confident of that. My stint in leadership taught me that leadership has little to do with what you know and a lot to do with selling yourself. I like students too much to use them as a platform to promote myself and my arguably excellent teaching skills. I’d rather see kids learn about themselves and become all that they hope to be, as well as learning how to function in a world that will chew them up and spit them out if they aren’t careful.
I have a new ‘professionally’. Or I will come June 21st, the day I officially graduate. The day I can begin to use my title if I so wish.
June 21st is four years and one week after I started in 2018. Yes, I finished my part-time degree in three and a half years, if you don’t include assessment time, or four, if you do.
Did I mention I’m not good with time? 😉
Professionally, as in my new status as an expert in both poetry and as a literary trauma theorist, I have knowledge and writing that contributes to Australian literature. That is something to sell.
Will I become rich?
Nope. I have just received payment for my latest poem being published in Westerly but that is rare. Poetry journals don’t have a lot. Academic journals may pay a little more but the competition is fierce and no one is buying a villa in France from what they earn. Perhaps a couple of cups of coffee and maybe a fancy notebook.
It’s a good thing I am not motivated by money. I never have been, never will be. It simply doesn’t interest me beyond being able to live so that I am not tempted to steal and don’t have to worry whether I have enough to buy milk. People who lead with how much they have are curiosities to be wondered about. As I am I to them, I imagine.
As I begin to pull together the various pitches needed, it will be important that I remember that this isn’t about me. It is about what I have to say. And what I have to say will add, has already added, to things already said.
I tell my students ‘say the thing you feel needs saying and tell the truth’.
This Writer's Life 