Way Back Wednesday: Does Writing a Syllabus Count as Writing?

Over at Organizing by STYLE, I have a recurring feature called "Then and Now." As Wednesday edges ever closer to Thursday, I thought I'd try something similar here.

Then:

This week, I am writing syllabi, which means I'm not spending much time with my characters. I was on a roll with my revisions, making really nice progress and enjoying all the complications I'd created for Marita, Bets, Angel, Charli and all those who surround them. Unfortunately, duty called and I have to leave my characters languishing for a bit while I take care of more time-sensitive issues. Leaving them to their own devices is not always a good idea; they sometimes cook up plot twists in my absence.

Fortunately, my writers' critique group meeting falls right in the middle of this novel writing (or, 

more accurately, revising) drought, which will give me the boost I need. Although I know my characters aren't real people, I miss them and get antsy to get back to them if I'm away too long. Talking about them at the meeting will make up for some of the time we've spent apart.

So, this week, instead of adventures with my characters, I'm having adventures with my daughter -- a week of shopping and appointments and whatever else materializes. In between, I'll work on my syllabi and try to fit in some revising sprints but, quite honestly, I'm more interested in fitting in time with her. By this time next week, she'll be back at school and, while I'm happy she'll be five hours away instead of an ocean away, the quiet house and empty calendar pages will be bittersweet.

I hope my characters will be happy to see me.

And now:

I started my syllabi early this year, knowing they always take longer than I expect them to but, here I am with less than a week until school starts, still putting the final touches on all of them. Tonight was my critique group meeting, and an interesting one at that. Storms turned our Zoom meeting into a magic act, with three out of the four of us disappearing from the screen due to power or internet outages. Luckily, most of us reappeared to rejoin the conversation.

Pixabay

Marita, Bets, Angel and Charli's stories are finished, but I find myself mourning the loss of writing time to advance new characters and projects. It was a struggle to get back into a writing groove after the last year and a half and, now that I've finally done so and even gotten excited about writing again, I'm finding that the school prep lists are too long and the days are too short to give my new projects the time I long to give them. My daughter, now graduated from college, has much less time for adventures than she did three summers ago, and the pandemic has left us feeling less adventurous as well.  

Am I complaining? Maybe a little. Mostly, I'm thinking out loud, sure that if I just lay it all out, there's room in the schedule for everything that matters.  

Time will tell. 

Meanwhile, there's a certain creativity involved in writing syllabi and planning classes and, until those things are accomplished, that will have to sustain me. That, and my blog posts. 

And the knowledge that new characters are waiting in the wings.