A worthwhile distraction

+ so many January deadlines

Last week I had final exams for my first semester back at school.

A quick recap on what led me back to a college classroom: About a year ago, my family and I moved cross-country from Portland, Oregon to Connecticut, to be closer to family. I left a full-time writing job I loved in anticipation of that move, assuming I could slip back into the freelance work I’ve done off and on for many years. But when I started emailing clients and publications I’d worked with in the past, something had shifted. Not hiring, not publishing, not here, no dice. The occasional polite rejection. The very occasional assignment. One big exciting project canceled at the last minute. At some point I shifted to full-time job applications. More crickets and heartbreak. The hot breath of AI takeover on my underemployed neck.

So in September, I shifted gears. I still needed to find work, but I decided to also start working on my prerequisites for nursing school. Ever since our daughter spent three months in the NICU, I’ve been awed by the critical and caring work of nurses. Their direct influence on the wellbeing of real people is inspiring, terrifying, and humbling. When I find myself scrolling through social media, thinking vaguely about needing to work on my online “brand” if I ever want to publish a book, all while incomprehensible suffering passes through my feed, the pivot to nursing makes perfect sense: Quit this charade of ideas and persuasion and stories and learn to stitch a wound.

Studying on a walk, probably not really thinking about Glycogen.

So, I took algebra and nutrition this past semester, and last week I had a lot of studying to do. (Fun fact: You’re almost definitely getting enough protein! Stop with the supplements! You’re just peeing out all the extra and making it harder to stay hydrated. See? I know stuff now.)

And yet, I kept finding myself on submission pages. Scrolling through pitch opportunities. Setting my notecards aside to noodle on the introduction to an essay I started last month. Emailing another editor. Going for a quick run before class and stopping in the cold to write a little poem.

On several mornings leading up to finals, I woke up extra early to study. And then I found myself reading until my daughter woke up, the two hours of study time I’d promised myself lost somewhere in the latest edition of Best American Essays. The day of my nutrition exam, just hours before the big test, I dropped the guise of cramming to browse a book store, staring at all the spines as I so often do, and thinking: I still want this.

It feels good to be a student again. And I love the idea of becoming a nurse. I could really help people, at a time when the urgent need for more humans helping humans feels so heavy. And yet. The part of me that has always been a writer can’t stop writing. I fear the blank page, and I feel its relentless pull. You have more to say. More to figure out. You have to keep at it.

I was confessing to a friend in voice notes recently, that I’ve been feeling an icky amount of envy for writer friends who are sharing big milestones, like awards and book deals.

“It’s not icky. It’s worth paying attention to,” she told me. She went on to underscore what I think I already knew. That envy, that yearning, can be a little shove towards a thing that lights us up. In other people, we might see a singular gap between us and a thing they have that we want. But those gaps exist everywhere, between us and every human being and every goal and every dream. So many gaps that it’s actually more like an ocean of possibility. And when we feel the pull to fixate on something in particular, it might be a sign of the gap/pond/ocean/whatever that’s worth jumping into and exploring for ourselves. Those pangs of envy can be like buzzing neon arrows, pointing at the work we’re meant to be doing.

This morning I looked up the word “distracted,” like a good little nonfiction writer. “Dis" is Latin for “apart” and “trahere,” is to “draw or drag.” To be distracted is to be drawn in different directions. Which feels a lot less cringey than the definition I so often attach to my many distractions: something meaningless pulling me away from something meaningful. I think instead, there can be meaning in many directions, a reason to turn in slow circles and take it all in, and then pay a little extra attention to whatever it is we can’t help but return to, again and again and again.

I have also been “distracted” by the urge to make stars from old books. This, too, is worthwhile.

I’m not giving up on the nursing thing. Next semester: Biology! But I’m not discounting how distracted I still feel by the pursuit of telling stories and making sense of the world through words. Again and again, my own wounds have been stitched by a story or even a sentence, and I know I won’t let myself forget that because I can’t stop yearning for more of it— to be the stitcher and the stitched. To write and read and talk about ideas. And so, here I am, pulled, drawn, dragged in different directions. Good thing, as writers, we are practiced at moving through this directional chaos. It’s how we stay curious and question everything. It’s how we arrive at the unexpected, where every worthwhile story wants to be. And so perhaps it’s worthwhile to let ourselves float between goals and desires and yes even distractions, to discover something unexpected in the space between it all.

What you can expect

If you’re new here, hi! Welcome! How cool that we found each other. If you’ve been around awhile, hello again! Things have been a bit disjointed in this little corner of the internet, mostly because of the above. That first semester back in school was a doozy. But I do hope to return to this newsletter with more consistency in 2026.

Wild Writing paid subscribers might notice that I’ve paused payments while I figure out a rhythm for the new year. But expect more of this. Short essays on the writing life and dispatches from a freelance journalism career in flux. Also, some Q&As with fellow writers and how they’re making it all work, including some who have made big career transitions, which I always find fascinating and think you will, too! And then of course, upcoming deadlines and random stuff I think you should know about if you’re a writer in the world, trying to be creative and also pay your bills. We’re all just trying to figure it out. Thanks for being here to figure it out with me. <3

Upcoming Deadlines

The Stringer Foundation Grants | Grants support those who use the public media to investigate abuses of power, expose injustices against the public, and uphold the truth. | Apply by December 31

Trusted Creator Fellowship | News Creator Corps’ Trusted Creator Fellowship is a short-term program providing partnership and training to U.S.-based information providers who want to level-up their connection to their communities | Apply by December 31

Black Mountain Institute 117° Residency | The 117° residency is for emerging and distinguished writers working in English who have published at least one book with a trade or literary press. | Apply by January 1

Mississippi Review Prize | Prizes of $1,000 in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. | Submit by January 1

The Jacobs/Jones African-American Literary Prize | This prize honors Harriet Jacobs and Thomas Jones, two pioneering African-American writers from North Carolina, and seeks to convey the rich and varied existence of African-American/Black North Carolinians. | Submit by January 1

***There are SO MANY DEADLINES coming up in January. Check out the full list for lots more.***

That’s all for today, friends. I hope you’re finding time to rest in these final days of 2025. It’s been a hard year for so many reasons for so many of us, and we all deserve a little break and a lotta love. I’m sending some your way.

B