The Side Quests Are the Work
As I was going through the complicated process of setting up a new website, I realized how similar the process was to my writing. Starting a website isn’t as simple as dropping some text on a page. In the age of social media, it also means creating handles and accounts across several platforms and connecting everything together. You have to constantly switch back and forth – first you get your domain, then start an Instagram handle and put in your site in your bio. Now go back to the website and add your Instagram account. Now open the next social media account. It’s layers upon layers of back and forth between tabs.
My writing has been the same. I started writing a leadership book about trauma-informed leadership back in 2020. I had a general feeling of what was needed but I couldn’t get it on the page the way I wanted. I put the book aside and did some related conference presentations and integrated trauma-informed practices in my leadership work. My ideas started to become more solid.
I picked the book back up in 2022 but, again, it just didn’t quite jive. I felt like I was forcing ideas together. If it was music it would have sounded like someone smashing their fists on a piano. Back in the black hole of my Drive it went. I turned back to conference presentations and application work.
In 2023 I decided to blow my life up (in a good way!) after my last child moved out on his own. I resigned from my position as chair and tenured professor, sold my house and almost everything inside it, and moved into international teaching. I missed being in the K-12 classroom and I always wanted to live abroad. My first school was in Korea and I loved it! I met my now husband, made deep friendships, and learned more about who I was as a teacher, a leader, and a person.
My next school was in China. Again, new lessons and adventures! I had experiences that finally solidified the heart of what is needed for true trauma-informed leadership (spoiler alert – it’s clarity). I picked up the book again during a solo week in Vietnam. The writing poured out of me this time. I was writing for 12 hours a day every day for the entire week.
The ideas were sound but I started feeling a little knot of frustration. I was writing for leaders, but what about all the teachers impacted by unclear schools? Even if my book magically took off, I was relying on a small subset of educators to make improvements that would take time. Teachers need relief now.
I put aside the leadership book once again. I shifted to a book for teachers. Using the same ideas of ambiguity and chronic urgency as the driving factors of burnout, I wrote a guidebook for teachers about how to reclaim their power, I wrote about how to get clarity when your leadership doesn’t start there and how to set boundaries. It’s a book designed for immediate relief that maybe (hopefully) will also nudge the system a little more towards trauma-informed for teachers.
I picked up my leadership book again. The work I did with Stay Grounded had once again sharpened and clarified my work. I rewrote, reorganized, and refined. I’m getting close to where I want to be with it.
When I look back at the 2020 draft, the books don’t even look like cousins. I can see the journey and think of the stops I made along the way. I needed all of those detours to cut through to the heart of what is needed. I had to go through some unclear leadership situations as a teacher to really see it properly.
The side quests we do as writers are the work. They’re not distractions or avoidance. I believe we need to follow those writing tugs and embrace them. When you’re working on one idea, your brain is busy making connections and organizing another idea. Don’t fight it. It’s OK to put the book down for a bit so you can come back with a new perspective and fresh connections. Just keep writing.
