Shtick This! Ten Years of Joyous Freedom

Ten years ago, I filed for divorce -- the absolute best decision I ever made in my entire life. The only thing that would have made it an even better decision would be if I had filed about ten years earlier than I did! My bad.

Ten years, though. Wow. As they say, time really does fly when you're having fun. In recognition of those ten years, I thought I'd compile ten of my favorite accomplishments from these past ten years.

Number 10: I finally had a one-act team qualify for state, and it happened when my daughter was a part of the team and had a major role. 

Number 9: I took up water color painting and found out that I have a bit of a knack for it. I really enjoy painting, especially landscapes that involve beachy or mountainous scenes as well as sunsets and sunrises.

Number 8: I acquired a complete collection of all the Pulitzer Prize winners of fiction and have now read most of them. I also added extensively to my home library of books and organized it.

Number 7: I completed thirty years of teaching high school Spanish and English as well as coaching a variety of non-sport activities over those years.

Number 6: I bought myself a motorcycle -- and a Harley this time -- after a twenty-some year hiatus from riding. It was my gift to myself when my divorce was finally final (after a year and a half -- ugh!). Riding the motorcycle has added so much to my life. I became an American Legion Rider and met Kim all because I had that bike. Additionally, I've met some good friends, and riding is a great stress reliever.

Number 5: I traveled to Holbox Island (for a second time and where I again swam with whale sharks, and that should probably count as its own accomplishment because it was amazing!) and other places in the Yucatan of Mexico, New York City, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Nashville, Asheville, many other places in Tennessee, Tybee Island, Niagara Falls, Boston, Dallas, Branson, the Black Hills of South Dakota, Minnesota and the Mall of America, Kansas City, Jefferson City, Harvard, Yale, Notre Dame, and many other places. I can't wait to revisit some of them as well as get to new places in the coming years.

Number 4: I got to see both of my children graduate from college and go after careers they love. While this isn't necessarily my accomplishment, I consider it at least partly so because I helped them so much along the way. Sam, my daughter, is currently completing a master's degree in paleontology, so she's not fully invested in her career yet, but she is working at a dig site affiliated with her college. Trevor is a coach and educator.

Number 3: For two years, Silvia, my dear friend -- and original foreign-exchange student -- lived with me. She and her daughter, Constanza, stayed here while Silvia pursued a belated business degree at the community college in Norfolk. Unfortunately, Silvia got very ill before she could thoroughly complete what she'd set out to do, but she did manage to finish her associate's degree in business, and the college mailed her diploma to her in Mexico. For the past year and a half, she's been on dialysis awaiting a kidney transplant which she's now on the cusp of getting. I pray that all goes well for her, so she can continue chasing her dreams, one of which involves the two of us running a part-time writers' retreat in Mexico.

Number 2: I met Kim, the most generous man in the world. He's been great to me and to my family and friends. Since we both suffered through long, agonizing marriages, we understand the trauma those leave on a person's soul and we've been able to build each other up. We've had almost eight years together now, and I hope for many more.

Number 1: I began a full-time career as a writer. In doing that, within a short span of time, I've published two more novels, got my column placed in a second newspaper, made a number of in-person appearances at libraries and book festivals, started a word newsletter and a YouTube channel, and added Instagram and Facebook author pages. Leaving teaching to invest in my dream of being a writer is, by far, my greatest accomplishment, and I hope to be doing it even longer than I taught.

I know that I can safely say that most of these things would NOT have happened if I hadn't gotten a divorce. It freed my soul which, in turn, freed me to do and be the things I was meant to do and be. 

I look forward to seeing what I'll accomplish with the next ten years. 

Shtick This! Common Things Now Uncommon

Nostalgia has hit me hard recently. Probably because I'm in my 50s and not exactly sure how that happened or because my children went so damn fast from being children to being adults who don't really need me anymore or because our world sure seems to be sliding fast into a big, ugly hole of politically "woke" hypocritical nonsense lately that I just want to go back to a time when things were (or seemed) simpler. 

Here are some things that I wish were common again. These are listed in no particular order but rather as they pop into my middle-aged and tired brain.

1. How I miss good late-night comedy. If Johnny Carson could come back from the dead and see what his world has turned into, he'd immediately turn around and jump back into his grave. That man was funny. His skits were funny. His commentary was funny. He had style and class. I haven't been able to sit through more than two minutes of late-night comedy shows for years now. They simply suck. When they are capable of thinking for themselves again, then maybe, just maybe, comedy will return to the late-night stage. I hope it does. I miss it greatly. I love to laugh, and I wish late-night comedy was even remotely funny.

2. I miss riding in the back of pickup trucks. There was nothing better than piling into the back of a pickup truck with your friends or cousins or all the neighborhood kids and going for a ride around town. My grandfather would always be sure to hit every bump especially hard and then laugh as he watched us nearly bounce out of the truck bed. Dangerous? I suppose so, sometimes, but he would have stopped and picked us up off the road if we'd actually fallen out. Fun? Hell, yes. Now, if you try to throw a dozen kids in the back of your pickup truck to take them for a ride through town, you'll be pulled over and given a hefty fine. Heck, you might even be arrested for child endangerment and who knows what else. I'm so glad I was a kid when riding in the bed of a pickup truck was legal.

3. As long as I'm writing about the back of vehicles, I really miss riding in the rear-facing back seat of my parents' brown station wagon. I don't really miss fighting with my obnoxious little brother back there, but he and I also had great times riding back there during the long drives of our family vacations. We'd wave at truckers and get them to honk their loud horns, we'd wave at other drivers and get them to wave back at us, and we'd just sit and watch the road spool out behind us. When we'd tire of facing backwards, we'd hop over the seat and sit in the forward-facing backseat, and if my brother would leave me alone in the back seat, I'd stretch out and take a nap. Naturally, we weren't buckled in, and that added to the joy of long car trips because we were free to roam as needed while being cooped up in the car. I realize that seatbelts are a wonderful safety feature, but I will always be glad that I grew up in a time when they weren't mandated. 

4. I really miss the days of fewer (and perhaps no) mandates. I was a kid, so I'm sure there were mandates that I didn't even know existed, but that's my point. Kids nowadays are surrounded by mandates. Their lives are mandated to death. All our lives are mandated to death anymore. What happened to the freedoms of childhood, let alone the freedoms we're supposed to enjoy as citizens of the U.S.A.? 

5. Instead of having an overreaching government making all my decisions, I'd like to go back to letting either the Magic 8 Ball or those little paper fortune tellers rule my life. At least I could trust what came out of them. I wonder if I remember how to fold one of those paper ones? Will I be rich? Famous? Living in a castle? Only it can tell me.

6. Perhaps the thing I miss most about the "good old days" is actual privacy. Big Brother is alive and well and hanging out with us every single day in the form of our "smart" phones, our "smart" TVs, our "smart" cars, etc. The only things that aren't "smart" anymore are us. Databases know more about me than I know about myself. Social media and social sites allow kids nowadays to invade each other's privacy in ways I never could have imagined when I was young. Then, if you wanted to know something about someone else, you had to resort to learning it from good old-fashioned gossip, and if you wanted to be mean to someone, you had to put time, effort, and thought into it. You couldn't just write a nasty text or comment or meme or any other damn technological invention that would be delivered seconds after you created it. No, if you felt the need to trash someone else, you either had to be brave and do it to that person's face or you had to craft a note that you'd then have to try to sneak to that person. Perhaps along the way, you'd actually grow a conscience and have second thoughts and not actually be mean, or perhaps an adult such as a teacher would see your sneakiness and take the nasty note from you before you could deliver it to your target. Not the case these days. Any bully or mean kid can just go online and learn things about you and then twist those things to his or her self-serving intentions and then immediately send you a horrible and harmful message. If only this meanness stopped at childhood, but it doesn't. Adults on social sites are even worse, and things get shared and blown out of proportion so quickly that it makes your head spin. Having true privacy not only cushioned us from evil intentions, it also slowed the process, so that things didn't boil up at the speed in which they do now. George Orwell knew what he was talking about. Too bad nobody really listened.

7. I really miss the days when the news actually reported the news. Reported. Not spewed on and on with opinions that other "reporters" are saying on every other news program. Reporting the facts and letting viewers form their own opinions. I miss that. Walter Cronkite, you are missed, sir. By me at least. I stopped watching the evening news years ago. Occasionally, I turn it on to see if things have improved. They haven't. I prefer to read the newspaper because then I can take my time and formulate my own opinion about what I read, but I'd like to watch the news again, if it ever returns to the days of truly reporting the news. 

That's enough nostalgia for today.

I miss all these things that once were so common, but the common things that I miss the most are COMMON SENSE, COMMON DECENCY, and the COMMON COLD.

Shtick This! A bell-free life at last.

In Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem called The Bells, he writes of four types of bells: the merry jingle of sleigh bells, the mellow wedding bells, the screaming alarum bells, and the solemn and somber death tolling of the church bells. He did not write of the bells that I heard every day for the 30 years I was a teacher and the 13 years I was an elementary, junior high, and high school student.

For 43 years of my life, my days were controlled and regulated by bells -- school bells. In actuality, they weren't really bells, but rather shrill peals that echoed down the hallways or loud tones that came from loudspeakers or intercoms. Just as we continue to use terminology that was better suited for rotary phones, we still tend to refer to those annoying sounds that dictate the lives of students and teachers nowadays as if they were the clanging of a bell being rung outside a one-room schoolhouse.

The bell pictured above has been used for years as a "victory bell" at the school where I taught for 29 of my 30 years. Its peals were cause for celebration. The other bells I'd hear at school, however, were not -- unless it was the final bell at the end of a very challenging day. That bell, I admit, was a welcome sound.

Now that I am my own boss working the hours I set each day, doing what I want with my life, my body has settled into a calm rhythm. I left teaching in May. It is now the beginning of January, and it suddenly hit me today how freeing it is to not be dictated by tones. Only a few times have I needed to set an alarm since I retired from teaching, but on each of those occasions I woke a few minutes before my alarm and simply dismissed it before it rang. This was not the case when I taught -- most likely it was due to sheer exhaustion from teaching and coaching, so I needed that alarm to wake me in the mornings.

However, even then, I chose to not hear an actual alarm tone; I woke to the radio turning on because it was a much less jarring way to wake from a dead sleep. When I found myself no longer needing to wake early every day, I retired my alarm clock/radio, too. The few times I do need to set an alarm now, I use my phone, but as I mentioned above, I tend to wake without it even if I've set it.

I'm certain this is because I get enough sleep nowadays, and my body has attuned itself to a healthy circadian rhythm. In fact, I normally and naturally wake at about 6:30 each morning to care for the pets. Then, I typically go back to bed for an hour or so because I'm still tired. I enjoy reading late at night in bed, so I don't usually go to sleep until midnight or even later; thus, by 6:30 I haven't had those lovely eight hours of sleep yet. I know some people who don't get enough sleep at night will then take a nap in the afternoon to refuel them for the evening, but I've never been much of a napper. When I'm up for the day, I prefer to stay up until bedtime. Afternoon naps typically make me feel worse instead of better, too, so I prefer to get a bit more sleep in the morning.

Not having bells dictate my days is such a wonderful way to live and work. While the bell ringing at the end of a class could be a welcome reprieve, it also often was a nuisance because the students and I were in the middle of doing something enjoyable or we were having one of those good days which make teaching so rewarding. Then, when the bell would ring, I would simply be annoyed because it instantly put an end to whatever great progress we were making or to the fun we were having. Occasionally, though, the students would stay a bit, so we could finish, and I'd write them a pass or call their next teachers, but that generally caused more of a hassle than if they'd just leave in the middle of what we were doing.

Now, if I'm enjoying what I'm doing -- writing a long passage in a new book, reading, painting, watching a video about something that interests me, walking the dog, visiting with a friend, covering a news story, etc. -- I, and only I, decide when I will stop doing that activity. I may spend twenty minutes on it, or I may spend three hours on it. There's no bell to make me move on to something else, and there's no watching the clock to make sure I have enough time to finish something before the next bell rings.

No longer am I a Pavlovian dog reacting a certain way each time a bell rings. While I am grateful that we have "alarum bells" in the case of a fire or a tornado, I am so very grateful that I don't have to hear those school bells anymore (and the earsplitting fire drill bell that was right outside my classroom and which I blame for my partial deafness). I estimate that I heard 20 bells every single day as a student and then as a teacher. Multiply that by the standard 185 school days (for a teacher) and you get 3,700 bell noises every school year. Take that number and multiply it by those 43 years of my life and you see that I was conditioned over 159,000 times to do whatever that bell told me to do. Add in all those mornings of being awakened by an alarm, which also included the four years of college in which bells didn't really shape my school hours, and you can probably see how happy I am to no longer have to hear those noises.

Noises, in fact, are not allowed in my house while I work. I prefer silence, so I can think and create. Some people need constant noise and can't stand silence, but I adore silence while I work. Poe can have his bells; I'll keep my peace and quiet. 

Happy New Year 2022.

Shtick This! Survival Tips for First-Year Teachers

Teachers across the country are preparing for a new year of school. For the first time in three decades, I am not one of those teachers because I retired from the profession to focus solely on my writing career; however, during the 30 years in which I taught, I saw many many many first-year teachers enter the profession and then promptly leave it behind after that first year. A few tried a second or even a third year to see if they could gain their stride, and some of them succeeded while others did not and left teaching for a different career. 

For a number of years, I've been working on a book-length survival guide for first-year teachers because too often a new teacher is simply dropped into a classroom and expected to know how to make it. Teaching, though, and all the inane bureaucratic nonsense that comes with it, is incredibly hard. It's mentally and physically exhausting to a level that you just can't imagine until you do it. The demands of the job overwhelm even those of us who have 30 years under our belt and who are so jaded we no longer really care about pleasing parents, administration, school boards, communities, and the world at large.

So, even though I don't teach anymore, I'm going to give any newbies reading this a few pieces of advice to help you survive the trenches of your first year of teaching, so that you will, hopefully, return to teach many more years. There is a shortage of good teachers, that's for sure, so you need to make it.

I taught secondary school, so my advice is primarily geared toward junior high and high school teachers, but it's fairly broad in scope, so elementary teachers can use some of it.

All right, here we go.

First off, remember this very essential thing: after all the extra B.S. that will get shoved onto your plate concerning curriculum updates, standards, school and classroom rules, extra-duty assignments, in-services, continuous school improvement, staff meetings, etc., you are there to teach. So, teach. That incredibly simple, yet incredibly important, thing often gets pushed aside by all the other stuff that is thrown at you. Don't let the other stuff become more important to you than the teaching part. At the end of the day, if you actually taught the kids something useful for their current or future lives, then you did your job. 

Set the tone you want from the very start, but don't go overboard trying to be this tough teacher, demanding respect by demanding too much. Have demands, of course, but keep them manageable. I've seen teachers try to establish consequences for everything from cutting in line to cheating to chewing gum to talking during a lecture, etc. The more you spell out for them, the more they will try you, and you won't have time to constantly be focusing on the discipline part of the job. Eventually, you will tire of it, and you will start easing up on or downright ignoring your own rules, and then you will have lost the battle, my friend. The very first time you don't keep a student after school for some minor infraction that you have posted on your "classroom rules poster," another student will call you out for it. So, follow the K.I.S.S. policy of "Keep It Simple, Stupid." In my classroom, it was simply the Golden Rule with the addendum of "Do the right thing." I also had a no food in class rule. If a student cheated, I could ask him, "Is that doing the right thing?" Clearly, it was not, so a punishment could be given. If a student tripped another kid, I could ask, "Is that doing the right thing or treating another the way you want to be treated?" Of course it isn't. Then, depending on the situation and the kids involved, you can get the tripper to apologize or you can make him stay after or do whatever is fitting in that moment. 

When you are setting the tone, you also need to be very careful about the line you draw. With high school students and first-year teachers, sometimes there are only a few years separating their ages. In my first year, I had a student who had been held back a year and was nineteen when I taught him. I was only twenty-two. I was only three years older than he was. That makes it very hard to establish yourself as the authority figure, but you must do it. You are NOT their friend, and at no point should you ever act like you are. You can become their friend later on after they've graduated and become adults if they even want to be your friend then, but when they are your students, they are not your friends. Do NOT have them as any sort of contact on social media sites, do NOT text them about anything that isn't 100% sport or activity related if you happen to be a coach or adviser (I'd even go so far as to say do NOT text them, but unfortunately many schools now use texting apps to remind students and parents of things, so it's likely you will text kids, but always always always keep it on topic.), do NOT let them call you by your first name, do NOT allow them to flirt with you as will often happen with first-year teachers who are seen as "hot" or attractive by teenagers, no NOT look at them as anything other than your students. You can be friendly toward them, of course, but you are not their friend. 

And allow me to put this one in all caps: DO NOT HAVE ANY SEXUAL CONTACT WITH YOUR STUDENTS. That should be a no-brainer, right? Yeah, you'd think so, but every year I read stories of teachers who have been caught in sexual relationships with students and who then end up in prison. PRISON. Never to teach again. Life ruined. For what? And if you happen to think that you are too smart to ever get caught and that you just can't resist that cute blonde, then you are an idiot who has no  business being a teacher. You will get caught. You will lose your teaching certificate for life. And if your school board doesn't want to just sweep it all under the rug or if the irate parents find out, you will be prosecuted, and you will go to jail. For a long time. 

All right, let's get back to this teaching thing.

Know your subject well. You will come to know it exceedingly well over the years you teach it (I taught Spanish, and the degree to which I understand the language after 30 years of teaching it is so far beyond what I knew my first year, that I'm almost embarrassed by it; however, I still knew it well enough to know what I was talking about that first year or so.) Know your subject well now, but be always working to know it better. You will actually learn more while teaching it than you ever learned by simply studying it. Be aware of your limitations, and when you don't know an answer, be sure to tell the kids you don't know it but that you'll find out what it is. Then do that. When the kids see you caring enough to learn more yourself, they will trust you, and when they see that learning is a lifelong thing, they will be better for it. If you make a mistake with something you taught them, admit it and correct it. You are human, and you will make mistakes. Also, know the value of your subject to life in general. Why should the kids want or need to learn what you have to teach them? You better know the answer to that question before you let any students into your classroom. And the answer better not just be "because it's on the standardized test." 

Care. Care about the kids. Care about your subject or subjects. Care about the other staff members. Care about yourself. If you care, it will show, and the kids will reciprocate. Rapport is the thing you most need to build -- with students and staff. Again, let me repeat that the students are NOT your friends. They can respect and like you without being your friend. You can care about them without being their friends. Rapport is kind of a professional level of friendship. The kids know they can trust you to have their best interests at heart, but they also know that there is a line that they can't cross and that you absolutely will not cross, either. 

It's okay to say NO. Often, a lot gets dumped on first-year teachers because they are young and energetic and optimistic. Taking on too much is a sure-fired way to burn out fast. However, you also want to take on a few things because it's a good way to build relationships with students and staff outside of the classroom setting. So, find the happy medium if you can. 

Find a mentor teacher. The administration may assign you one, and that's great, but that person may or may not be the best fit for you. Find a teacher who has been there a while and with whom you click, and go to that person often to answer any questions you have. That teacher knows the school well already. Take advantage of that knowledge. Not sure how to find the best mentor teacher on your own? Pay attention to the students those first few days. Listen to who they grumble about the most or make fun of or show very little respect toward; then, avoid those teachers as mentors. If one of them has been assigned to you, that's fine -- just because he was assigned to you doesn't mean you have to take his advice. Instead, find that teacher who the students clearly respect and like, and then latch on as often as you can until you feel really comfortable in your new role.

The first day is very important for any first-year teacher, so set that tone, but if you feel completely overwhelmed that first day, it's okay. Most students are overwhelmed the first day back at school, too, and really only listen to about half of what you say, so set the tone as well as you can the first day, and then hit it firmly on the second day onward. Be consistent. Be in charge. It is your classroom. You set the tone. The kids will follow it. They might grumble and complain, but one thing that I know with total certainty after 30 years of teaching is that kids like being in classrooms where there is a caring, consistent, and competent teacher. Do your best to be all three of those things every day with every class, and you will not only survive the first year, but you'll come back for many more. Maybe you'll end up teaching for 30 years like I did, or maybe you'll stay even longer. Good luck.

Here I am at my desk on one of my final days of teaching.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have, so feel free to comment, or you can contact me via email on my website of tammymarshallauthor.wordpress.com on the contact page. 

Shtick This! My Self-Publishing Journey . . . So Far

 I left teaching after thirty years to focus solely on writing. Since school let out in May, I've written a number of feature articles for a newspaper, written and submitted more columns, written blog posts, scribbled down a bunch of ideas for future stories or books, typed more of the rough draft for what will be book number six most likely, and, as of yesterday, I finally got my third book published after spending the bulk of these past two months editing it. The following are screen shots from the email notifying me that the book is now live, so the quality isn't the best.

I've always wanted to be a writer, but I never imagined I'd go down the self-publishing path. Even now, it's not really the path I want to be on, but there are definite advantages to doing it this way. Let me tell you how and why I first did it.

As you may know, I write a column that comes out twice a month for the Norfolk Daily News out of Norfolk, Nebraska. I've been writing it for a number of years now, but about five years ago I asked the editor if he'd be open to serializing a novel I'd written years before that and which was basically languishing on my hard drive. I had tried a few times to get agents interested, but I hadn't had any luck, and the main publishers are closed to you without an agent. Since I was a full-time teacher, coach, and mom, it was always hard to find the time needed to really research and consistently send things out to agents, contests, small publishers, etc. I really believed that the book was darn good for a first novel, and I so wanted to have people read it to see if I was right.

The editor was a little skeptical, but the assistant editor agreed to read a few chapters, and then they'd decide from there. He read them and liked them, so they agreed to run a chapter a week on the online edition and see how things went. It took an entire year for The Clearwater House to be fully published for readers of the newspaper to see it, but over that year, many people read it and liked it and reached out to me asking where they could get a copy.

After the year was up, I went ahead and put it on the Kindle platform because that's a simple process to upload a book there. It doesn't take any special formatting for the most part. I only had to design a cover. A few people did buy the eBook edition of it, but others really wanted an actual physical book. I totally understand that because I seldom do any eBook reading myself; I much prefer to hold a book and turn the pages. So, I sat down at the computer one night and spent a long time figuring things out, but I finally managed to format The Clearwater House to run as a paperback, and I made a different cover that I liked better than the one I'd quickly created for the eBook. 

There are things I'd do differently with it if I could go back, and maybe some day I'll reformat it and resubmit it, but overall I've been very pleased with how it turned out and the reception it has received. Most people who have read it have enjoyed it. That's all I want -- for people to read my books and enjoy them.

Three years ago in September, my best friend since college, Amy Vojtech Beran, passed away from cancer. She was only 50 years old and the sweetest person I've ever known. She was a huge champion of my writing, and she'd personally bought and given as gifts numerous copies of The Clearwater House. During the year and a half that she was battling and losing her fight to cancer, I sent her daily pick-me-up notes to provide whatever cheer I could to her from afar (she was living in Dallas). When I knew the end was near, I made her a promise in one of my final notes to her -- that my next book would be dedicated to her. A couple months after her death, my promise was weighing heavily upon me because I had no idea when I'd ever have another novel done -- I had many in the works and even complete, including Ticker Tape, but since I was also bogged down with teaching responsibilities, I knew it would be a long time before I could get the editing done or finish writing the others I'd begun.

So, I decided instead to take a novella, a lengthy short story, and two short stories that had won writing prizes and compile them into a collection in her honor. Those pieces were done and just sitting around waiting for me to do something with them. They are all feel-good pieces, and I realized that the best way for me to honor my friend who always made me feel good was to dedicated four feel-good stories to her. Thus, State of Georgia . . . and Other Writings was born. I also included four of my poems (yep, I write poetry, too) to sort of introduce the theme of each story. The state of Georgia is not the physical southern state, but rather it is the emotional and mental state in which the protagonist, Georgia, finds herself after her husband's sudden and unexpected death. 

Speaking of unexpected deaths, the cover photo on this story collection was taken by my dear uncle, Paul Filsinger, who graciously gave it to me to use after I asked him if he had any sunset or sky photo with shades of blues and pinks in it because those were Amy's favorite colors (hence the color scheme of the cover). Paul died last October from covid-19. This book cover is very special to me.

I also used one of Paul's photos inside Ticker Tape. It's at the very end of the book, and it's of a United States' flag. I put it there to accompany a poem that I also included. It's a patriotic poem that I have dedicated to the memory of (my boyfriend) Kim's son, Trever Erickson, who died by suicide two years ago. 

I plan to use another of Paul's photos for the cover of my next novel, called Twinges. That one is about a teacher who can sense things about her students. She doubts their veracity, but one day she learns that her power is real. She is very concerned because her most recent "twinge" told her that her student was going to grow up to be a serial killer. I will be editing that book next. Look for it to come out by Christmas, I hope. Maybe sooner. Who knows?

I also have two other novels that are about three-fourths complete, a story collection set in a comedy club that is perhaps half done, a smart-ass yet serious advice book for first-year teachers that is about half done, too, and many, many ideas floating around in various notebooks. I'm determined to be the writer I always wanted to be.

Let's get back to the self-publishing topic a bit, though. While I would still prefer to get a major book deal and get published my a big-name publisher, there are things about the self-publishing route that I really like.

One -- I get a bigger piece of the pie, financially. I don't have to split earnings with an agent, an editor, the publisher, etc. Yes, Amazon is getting richer (although only quite nominally so far) from my book sales, and I don't really like that, but it doesn't cost me a dime to publish through them, and since I'm now technically unemployed, I love that I can publish there for free. Also, since so many people do shop on Amazon, there is a better chance of me making some sales. I need those sales right now.

Two -- I enjoy the editing part of the process and having control of all the content. While I realize that a professional editor would probably polish my work better than I do, I also know that I've caught many typos and grammar mistakes in books that are professionally edited and published. After teaching a variety of English and Spanish classes for 30 years, I think I have a pretty solid grasp on language and how to use it correctly. Also, I like knowing that the story is 100 percent mine, that no agent or editor made a gazillion recommendations for changes that I had to do before it could be printed. I want the story to be completely in my voice. I am the author, after all.

Three -- I get to create the cover and make it both personally meaningful and also relevant to the story. 

Four-- I am totally my own boss. Right now, I am sooooo loving that. I set my deadlines. I decide when and if I'm going to release a book. I'm not bound to a contract. I have complete freedom and make all the decisions.

Naturally, there are downsides to self-publishing. One of the big ones is that I am in this alone (even though that's also a positive). My book won't be found on the shelves of chain bookstores like B&N, but independent bookstores can stock it, so if you happen to be a proponent of indie bookstores (as I am), please go to your favorite one and order my books through them. Give them the business. I will get a very tiny royalty from that sale, but I will be thrilled to know that you are helping an independent bookstore thrive. Another major downside is that I don't have a marketing team behind me, so I will never sell the number of books I could through a traditional publisher, but I can (and will) continue to promote all my books, not just the newest, every time I make an author appearance at a library or every time I post on my author website or social media sites. 

So, for now, I am very content to self-publish. After I publish Twinges, I will probably start reaching out to prospective agents in the hopes of landing a more financially lucrative deal for one of the books after that, but we'll see. 

If you are interested in my books or other writings and want to follow my journey online, I have a Facebook page @TammyMarshallAuthor, and I have an author site on Instagram, too, #tammymarshallauthor. Here is the link for my website: https://tammymarshallauthor.wordpress.com

From there, you can find links to my Amazon page, you can read some of my columns, there are links to my two blogs, and you can even contact me.

 Thank you for reading this. I certainly hope you will consider reading my books, too.

Shtick this! Regretting my regret.

Regretfully, I must admit that regretting is my biggest regret. Sometimes, regret consumes me, and I feel extremely depressed. I get mad at myself for wasting my time, my energy, and my thoughts on useless regret, but Regret just laughs at my anger and takes another spin through my mind.

So, in an attempt to reprogram my brain and to expel Regret from my life, I'm going to put a different spin on my regrets and turn them into warm fuzzies (I'm a child of the 80s when that term came into vogue).

The biggest regret I have and that I can't quite seem to rid my psyche of is that I stayed married as long as I did. I think about all those years that could have been spent without him. I'd have far less debt burdening my life, that's for sure, and I could really use less debt right about now. Long ago I stopped regretting marrying him outright because then I wouldn't have my two kids, but I can't seem to stop regretting staying with him as long as I did. Making this giant regret into a warm fuzzy of some sort continues to elude me, but I'll give it a try. 

Hmmm , , , , , , , , , , , , without those agonizing twelve years, I wouldn't truly appreciate every day of freedom since our split? This is true. Not sure if it makes me feel all warm, though. Let's try another approach. In the nine years since he moved out, I no longer live under a soul-crushing sense of dread, I am free of his extreme narcissism, and my world has expanded in ways I could never have imagined or experienced with him. I've traveled more, I got a motorcycle, I met Kim, I've seen my kids work toward their dreams, I have time for new hobbies like painting, etc. That's much better, and I sense Regret wincing a bit at my new outlook. 

When Regret visits me, I find myself first getting so despondent at the feelings he brings. The main one is total disappointment in myself for wasting those years. I dwell on where I could be now if I hadn't stayed in a horrible marriage so long. That disappointment almost crushes me at times. Even when I look around at all I have and all I've accomplished, I get caught up on the wasted time, and then I get even more mad at myself for wasting more time fixating on the time I wasted. Aargh, it's a vicious cycle. When I'm not disappointed in myself, I'm angry at myself and at him. Naturally, I'm angry at myself for staying so long, but I'm angry at him for becoming someone so different from the person I married, or at least the person I thought I'd married. Then I get mad at myself again for wasting time being mad about it all. Aargh! Vicious cycle strikes again.

The second biggest regret I have is that I didn't leave teaching sooner to focus on writing. I don't regret teaching, but I do regret the last four years of it. Financially, I couldn't leave sooner. Financially, I still shouldn't have left. Psychologically, emotionally, mentally, etc., I should have left four years ago or even longer ago. I look at what I've managed to do in just under two months, and I know that if I'd had those four years under my belt by now, maybe I'd be a firmly established author. I'll never know because I didn't give myself those years to write. It's easier to turn this regret around because I did do some good things at school the past four years, and I needed the money to help my kids and my friend, Silvia; but, I still feel Regret niggling at my brain when I think about the time I wasted. Then, again, I get mad at myself for wasting my time, and Regret sits back and laughs and laughs at me.

So, I'm writing this post to effectively tell Regret to take a hike, to go fly a kite, and to take a long walk off a short pier. 

From this moment on, I regret nothing! Nothing! 

All the extra weight I'm carrying? Ha! It shows I'm not starving. It's extra protection against a lengthy illness. It makes me super buoyant when swimming. Everyone should be so lucky as to be chubby like I am!

The friends and family I love who have passed away these past few years? Hmmmm. Well, I certainly don't regret a minute of time I spent with them or that I knew them. I'm a better person for knowing them. They live on through me because I still talk about them. I miss them, and missing someone simply shows that you have a great love for that person, so I'm lucky to have loved them and to have been loved by them.

The books I should have written by now? "Come on," Regret whispers in my ear, "don't tell me that you don't regret that you're not the established writer you wanted to be by now? After all, you're over 50, for Pete's sake. You should have accomplished more by now." First, allow me to duct tape his mouth shut. There.

Part of the beauty of writing a book is that the book can live on long after you're gone, so I'm hopeful that some of my books will still be read years and years into the future. With luck, I have years of writing ahead of me, so I'll be established enough by the time I'm old. Well, by the time I'm older, at least.

Those twelve years I wasted? All right, let's tackle that big regr . . . uh, dilemma. I understand and have a level of empathy for others that I might not have had if I hadn't suffered. I now know everything I don't want in a significant other. I have fodder and material for, like, a million stand-up comedy bits and stories should I choose to milk my experience. Many of his own friends and family like me better. If I can survive marriage to him and come out of it stronger, wiser, and happier, then I can survive other bad things.

So, I hereby renounce Regret. I permanently kick it out of my life, my mind, and my heart. I'm this guy with better spelling and a better choice of tattoo placement.