Five Years

and counting

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

As another school year comes to an end and graduating seniors leave their schools all across the country, I’m reminded of my own exit five years ago when I firmly closed the door on a thirty-year teaching career to venture into a writing career.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years already. Time does fly when you’re having fun, and there is the old adage that if you love what you do then you’ll never work a day in your life — I certainly don’t feel like I’ve been “working” these past five years even though I most definitely have been. I definitely felt like I was working every single day of my career as a teacher — hard, exhausting, soul-crushing work.

Writing, on the other hand, is a different type of hard. It’s a fun hard. It’s a challenge I put before myself and then utterly enjoy working to accomplish. It’s an invigorating hard, and it lifts my soul every day instead of crushing it.

When I left teaching, I had two books out — “The Clearwater House” and “State of Georgia . . . and Other Writings.” I had the beginnings and even some long portions of others written, so my initial focus was on finishing those books. Thus, I quickly did that with two that I’d been working on for quite a while before leaving teaching — “Ticker Tape” and “Twinges.”

Looking back, I should have spaced them out more because I think my readers assumed I was writing each novel in only a few months time, but I wasn’t. I was only rewriting and polishing what I’d previously spent years working on.

Then came “Trouble on Tybee,” the novel I’d started writing during Covid lockdown. Because I made so much progress on that from March until August of 2020, I only needed to finish the novel, get feedback, do some rewriting and edit it; thus, I was able to get that book out soon after “Ticker Tape” and “Twinges.”

“Her Ride or Die” was a story I’d started writing three years before leaving teaching, and I had most of it written when I retired. Because of that, I was also able to put all the finishing touches on it relatively quickly.

“Last in the Class” was the first of my seven novels that was begun and finished entirely during these past five years. It took exactly one year to write and polish it.

Since then, I’ve been working on my eighth novel, which I actually began writing before “Last in the Class,” but the idea for “Last in the Class” kind of grabbed me one day and insisted to be written, so I abandoned what I’d begun on what will now be the eighth novel to work on “Last in the Class.”

Because “Last in the Class” took one year, I assumed this eighth novel would take roughly the same amount of time. However, for various reasons, it has taken longer, and it’s still not done. It’s getting close, though, but I do not yet know when I will publish it. Some of my readers are starting to pester me, wondering why I haven’t released another book because this is the longest I’ve gone in releasing a new book since leaving teaching.

Funnily enough, yesterday I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, “Writer’s Routine,” and the author being interviewed said that the novel he was about to release took him nine years to write. I’ve heard authors on this podcast say that they’ve spent decades on a single novel. Decades! I understand that because “The Clearwater House” took around eighteen years from when I first started writing it until I finally self published it, but I certainly don’t want to spend decades on a single book at this point in my life — I don’t want to spend nine years, either, but hearing that yesterday made me feel better about the fact that this eighth novel didn’t get done in a year and that it will be closer to two years before it’s out.

As a self-published author, I have to do much more than just write the books. I have to do all the marketing and promoting, too, and that is where a lot of my time has been spent over these past five years and especially during the past couple of years. In these five years, I’ve made well around 150 appearances at events. Those take time — time well spent, of course, but time in which I’m not writing, that’s for sure.

When I left teaching, though, I began recording daily everything I do for my writing career. I told myself then that I would have to do at least one thing every single day, no exceptions. I continue to do that, and I credit that habit with helping me put out five novels in these past five years. Now that I’ve completed all the novels that I had begun writing during my teaching career, the rate at which I publish a book will most likely slow to one every other year instead of one each year, but my long-term goal is to have at least 30 books to my name, if not more — one for each year that I spent as a teacher instead of as an author.

Thus, within the next five years, I hope to write and publish at least two more books after I complete this eighth one. Wish me luck on that.

Leaving teaching five years ago to pursue my passion was the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. I love what I do, my days are (mostly) stress free and quiet, and I’m finally becoming known as the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be — an author.

Link to my website in case you’d like to learn more about each book: tammymarshallauthor.wordpress.com

For those of you who are paying subscribers, there is another portion of the working draft of that eighth novel after the paywall. For those of you who are not yet paying subscribers, consider becoming one to help support my writing dream. With the subscription, you have access to the full archive of “Tomes and Topics” as well as to the portions of my work I share here before it’s ever published.

Thanks. Until next time.

Tammy Marshall