Back to School

I'm returning to teaching at UC Extension tonight, after a hiatus of over a year. Part of me is really looking forward to it, and part of me is asking, why add one more activity to my already busting-at-the-seams schedule?

It certainly isn't for the money. (hahahahahaha!) And it isn't for the glamorous perks. This year they took away my free parking and my speakers' honorarium, two of the nice things I've enjoyed for the past ten years.

It's really the teaching itself. Maybe I'm a born ham. I like being up there, talking about writing and reading and books and words and characters. They're my favorite things to talk about, and when I see peoples' eyes get a little spark, or they start nodding, it is the greatest thing. Of course, when they start snoring in the back of the room, that's another thing.

But I've had some amazing experiences in teaching, and had some incredible students who have gone on to be fabulous writers, wonderful teachers themselves, and just great people. It's a real charge, which I imagine is what editors and agents feel, when I pick up a manuscript and start reading, and my eyes just pop out because it's so good. It's a huge pleasure, just like that first bite of a warm chocolate chip cookie (sorry, I'm thinking about cookies because I just read Libby's great blog on chocolate chip cookies. But really.

Another reason is the company. Writing can be a very lonely, solitary act and when I'm teaching, suddenly I've got fifteen or twenty other people to share the struggles and the joys with.

One thing I'm really excited about is that for the first time ever, after 12 years of teaching (!!), I'll actually have a colleague and friend teaching in the same building at the same time on the same night. Someone to shmooze with in the vending-machine room! Someone to talk to after class when I'm so revved up and can't possibly go home and go to sleep. I'm really happy about this serendipity in our schedules.

And of course, as with any First Day of School, I'm a little nervous. A little hyped up. A little scared. Maybe they are too.