Writing and other stuff.
I’m Katherine, and this is my blog. Mainly, it’s about reading, writing, and being a human (which I’m 95% sure I am). I mostly blog about the ups and downs of trying to be a creative individual living in a consumption-driven, frenetically-paced, capitalistic world. The focus is on creative writing, but I may stray in my musings.
Why am I keeping a blog? Isn’t blogging dead?
Second question first. Yes, I’m pretty sure blogging is dead. Probably. Think of this as me practicing a lost art, like blacksmithing at a Renaissance Fair. I’m blogging in the modern digital era.
Now, the first question. I started this site halfway through a two-year MFA program. Why it didn’t occur to me to start when I was entering the program, I don’t know. It was a bit like when you’re in the middle of class and you suddenly think, Oh, I should probably be writing some of this down. Taking notes, or something. I was doing this (for me) amazing, nutty thing. I was acknowledging (to myself) that I loved writing enough to back it up with a formal degree, and I wasn’t writing any of it down! Thus was borne this blog.
I graduated in 2018, but I’ve continued with my writing adventure and (sporadically) with my blog.
What are my writing adventure goals?
Glad you asked.
It’s a tricky question to answer, actually. Since 2017, my goals have changed. At first, I wanted to become an overnight success. A YA author whose debut novel sold millions of copies and got made into a movie and became a franchise and Unicorns flew down out of the sky and got tattoos of the book’s cover on their backsides. That goal survived most of the MFA program, I’m embarrassed to admit. But by the time I had written three complete novel manuscripts and couldn’t wrestle any of them into anything worth printing, I realized that my path to being a successful writer might be a much longer, slower, rougher, and twistier road than I originally thought. That has definitely proven to be the case for me. My life is messy, but don’t worry. This blog is not about sharing all the nitty gritty little day to day details of my personal life. It’s about documenting my adventure as I strive to write the best stories I can and get them into the world. In that context, I post on pretty much whatever is taking up space in my head.
What am I up to when I’m Not Writing?
Not much and yet SO much. I teach high school science at a small independent school on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Specifically, life science classes–biology, genetics & biotechnology, human physiology, ecology, sustainable solutions. Those aren’t all year-long courses, of course. Some are 12-week-long trimester electives. I also coach sub-varsity volleyball in the fall.
I also parent. I’ve got two kids whom I adore and they keep me quite busy. I work hard to respect and maintain their privacy, so while I reference them from time to time, I do not write about them. Likewise for my spouse.
Beyond teaching, coaching, and parenting, I do lots of other smaller things, which I don’t write about here but do post about on Instagram, Mastodon, and BlueSky. I have a Twitter account that I literally never use, so if you reach out to me there and I never respond, now you know why.
That’s it. Maybe one day there will be more, but for now that’s all there is. I’m just a creative human (probably) living in a consumption-obsessed, live-to-work, capitalistic world, trying to be true to myself without getting chewed up and spit out. I figure I should be writing it down somewhere.