I've Graduated! Now What?
Fuck if I know 🤪
Three years (two years in the program, with a year off for health), gone in a flash. No matter what, the time will pass anyway, so you might as well spend it doing things you enjoy, right?
My time at Stonecoast was truly wonderful. I’ve met some of the best and most talented people I could ever hope to know, let alone have the good fortune to consider friends. They’re my people in this crazy writing world that I always hoped to find, and never want to be without. We support each other, we push each other, and we’re there for each other when we need a shoulder (or 10) to cry on.
Because, unlike baseball, there is always crying in writing.
My friend Matt, from my original cohort, said it best: “Yes, this program is very special because it manages to attract warm, kind, passionate, enthusiastic people. When I hear horror stories from other programs where people compete with each other, I'm so sad. That's not what any of this is about! It’s about helping each other pursue our passions and interests! And I feel like everyone here really understands that and lives that.”
By the way, Matt decided to start his own publication after graduation called:
Typebar Magazine
From their website: Typebar Magazine is an irreverent online magazine publishing literary analysis, cultural criticism, and stories about typewriters. Join their Patreon to keep independent publications alive. Just $5 a month gives you full digital access to this fabulous publication.
How cool is this? And I can point to every single person who’s attended Stonecoast and say, “Look at this cool shit they’re doing!”
That is what I found at Stonecoast. Warmth, kindness, compassion, laughter. Being pushed beyond what I ever thought I was capable of, and trust me, at one sleep-deprived point, I genuinely thought about quitting. I know myself enough to know that if I’m at that point, I need sleep and food, and to not make any rash decisions, but I DID IT. I did the hard things. And the more I do the hard things…well, they won’t be so hard. I wrote a paper that I’m incredibly proud of and is pushing me into an academic research space I didn’t even know existed. I survived gutting 55 pages mid-semester while working on my thesis, and essentially rewriting them from scratch in September, when I should have been almost done.
I fucking DID IT — and so can you.
Leaping off the cliff, Wile E. Coyote-style
I knew the transition into post-grad life was going to be rough. I watched so many friends graduate and then hit a brick wall at full force while strapped to a jet-pack. To combat this, I knew I needed a post-grad plan.
What I didn’t count on was the creative burnout that torpedoed me after handing in my thesis. That was my jet-pack brick wall moment, and the wall won.
For the first time in quite possibly decades, I couldn’t write. Not a word. As soon as my day was over at work, I closed my laptop and didn’t look at it until I was forced to the next morning. I’ve had bouts of creative burnout before, but this was like a soul death.
And, for the first time, I wasn’t sure that I would ever write again.
I wondered why I chose this life; why didn’t I want to be an accountant, whose life seemed so much simpler when you’re crunching numbers, being busy during tax season, and hopefully going home at the end of the day to live the rest of your life. Maybe write that novel you’ve been daydreaming about over Mrs. Cauldwell’s tax returns.
I knew it would come back, so I did things other than writing. I played cello more regularly. I cleaned and organized my apartment after two intense semesters while juggling a job and chronic illness. I started taking vocal lessons again. And, my dear Glitter Gremlins, slowly but surely, I wanted to write again.
Xipe Totec: The Flayed God
It started off slow, with a short piece about Xipe Totec, also known as The Flayed God from Aztec and Toltec mythology. Looking back, I see why I was so drawn to this figure. Xipe Totec is the god of spring and renewal, but he wears the skin of a sacrificial victim on his back.
I was preparing for my final writing workshop at residency, which happened to be mythology, when I discovered Xipe Totec. How divinely poetic. I’m entering my own phase of spring and renewal while also wearing my old skin. The skin that will eventually shrivel up and discard itself, but that I must carry in this state of transition.
One of my friends pointed out at residency that I speak of my body as “we,” and, as someone with a chronic illness herself, she never noticed anyone else who had that quirk. It’s easier to think of myself as “we”: there’s the “me” who exists inside my head and who wants to do all the things yesterday, and there’s the body I’m attached to who requires much more care than I ever needed before.
So I gave my own sacrificial victim what she needed the most: rest. My office shuts down between Christmas and New Year’s, and I actually took that time off. I spent two days in my pajamas, listening to the Howl’s Moving Castle audiobook and catching up on some TV series. I read. I painted. I waited for my own Xipe Totec to return and trusted that the fallow ground wound once again bud and bloom.
No really, what’s next?
I have many goals for 2025, some of which I’ll share here and some that I want to keep to myself. One of those goals was reviving and committing to this newsletter. I have a short story that needs to be edited and hopefully sent around on submission. I have the first half of my novel to edit and the second half to finish. I have piles of secret projects that I can’t talk about yet but that I’m excited to share when I’m able to.
But the real goal for me is to write daily and live this writing life. I’m only truly at peace inside when I’m writing and being creative. As much as I can say that I wish I was an accountant, I don’t. I wouldn’t trade this creative life for anything.
Shine on, Glitter Gremlins
I truly didn’t want to address anyone as a “dear reader,” so welcome to the Glitter Gremlin Gang. We have cookies, coffee, and lots of sparkles, with a few dashes of existential dread, and sparklers to light up the abyss.
Not knowing what’s next and the feeling of being in transition is so uncomfortable. Everything feels too small and claustrophobic, but lurking in those cracks (besides the Glitter Gremlins) is space to just be and breathe. Breathing into the discomfort, and the not knowing is a fabulous place to be.
Does it feel good? Not particularly. Necessary? Absolutely. We’re not machines who can just keep running eternally (as much as I wish I was sometimes), and these are the necessary valleys of rest and reflection. Embrace the valleys and the rest; you need both of them for the journey ahead.
But the most difficult part is to trust yourself. Trust that you will figure it out, that you will be creative again, if you just focus on what the next right step is.
Decision fatigue, burnout, body sacrifice. I’m back now, but needed months of processing time for sure!