Listening for that Inner Voice
Years ago, in my mid-20s and fresh out of an MFA program, I got a job teaching literature and writing at a tiny private school in Austin, Texas.
I loved much about the job: The old Victorian buildings that made up the campus; sharing with my AP Literature students the last paragraph of Cormac McCarthy's The Road (the most beautiful paragraph ever written!); laughing off a stressful day with my colleagues in the overcrowded break room.
I did not, however, find much time to write—the very passion that fueled my enthusiasm in the classroom, and led me to teach in the first place.
Years prior, when I was still in college, I'd taken a fiction writing class that reignited in me a long-forgotten love of creative writing. By the time I eventually moved to Austin, I held my MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh, where I'd also taught college students through a teaching fellowship.
As a middle and high school teacher, though, I found myself feeling increasingly disconnected from myself.
It's a strange feeling, inner disconnect. It's so internal that it's easy to ignore—which is exactly what I did for four consecutive years.
Me with a few beloved former students.
By the fall of my fourth year at the school, I was earning enough extra money tutoring on the side that I figured I could start my own business and free up time to write. The unconventionality of the choice felt scary, though, and I was overwhelmed at the idea of disappointing the students in our small community.
One evening, I sat cross-legged on a yoga mat after a vigorous and sweaty class (yoga was one of the healthier ways I maintained sanity during the busy school year!). My eyes were closed and the room was quiet. Then, out of the blue, a voice rose up in me.
I mean, it wasn't quite a voice, really. It was more like knowledge, strong and clear—and it came from deep in my gut.
The voice, the inner knowledge, the whatever-it-was, said: You're a writer. You need to make time for writing.
It’s hard to ignore such a moment. I left at the end of the school year, and began focusing on writing my novel, The Crocodile Bride.
Like any journey worth taking, its had its dramatic highs and lows. I spent eight full years drafting and revising the novel—and incredibly, I finished the last of it while sitting in a chemotherapy chair, receiving life-saving infusions in that first summer of our global pandemic. (You can read more about that here, if you'd like, or over here in this more recent Newsweek piece.)
The novel earned a New York Times review, was named a New York Times Editors' Choice, and opened up countless doors for me professionally and personally.
Along this decade-long journey from teacher to novelist to cancer survivor, the most critical, stabilizing, meaning-making tool in my possession has, without a doubt, been listening for that inner voice.
When I coach young people, I see the ways writing helps them listen for their own inner voices—whether we're working on admissions essays, a student contest, or an essay for my programs.
I see how working with a coach gently supports them in that process—which can sometimes feel a little terrifying (case in point: I spent those four years as a teacher ignoring that inner voice!).
If my story resonates and you'd like your students to work with me on admissions essays; in my 12-session coaching program, Writing for Your Future Self; or in my brand new Writing for High School coaching program for rising 9th and 10th grade students, let’s connect!