Here we are at the end of July, the time when we begin to make the turn to the start of a new school year. For me, it’s a few weeks off, but those weeks will go fast, and before I know it, the endless days of summer will come to an end. It’s a time when I take stock of what I’ve been able to accomplish during the summer months, and, as usual, I think I could have done more. It seems I always think that. I’m rarely satisfied with my productivity, and maybe that’s a good thing; it’s a sign that I’m still driven to get results.

This summer, I wrote two new essays, revised a novel and a memoir, contributed an excerpt from the novel to an upcoming anthology and went through the editing process, and went through the copy edits for my new novel that’ll be out in March.

So why can’t I be satisfied with all that? I think it’s because I don’t know what my next big project will be, and that’s unsettling. I’m happiest when I’m writing something new and working with it day by day. Long ago, I had a writing teacher who talked about earning one’s job. A good first draft, he said, showed you what needed to be done; it laid out your work. That feeling of getting up each day, knowing the work ahead of me, is one I cherish. Without it, I feel a bit lost.

I’m starting to see, though, that teaching can give me a similar feeling. I’ve done a good bit of that this summer. I’ve taught in the low-residency MFA program at the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University, I’ve presented craft lectures at the West Virginia Writers’ Conference, and I’m getting ready to teach a week-long novel workshop at the Vermont College of Fine Arts Postgraduate Writers’ Conference. (By the way, due to the conference, I probably won’t be making a new blog post next week.) I’ll have a week off once I’m done at VCFA before classes begin at Ohio State University where I’ve taught since 2001. I’ll be teaching an advanced undergraduate fiction workshop and a graduate-level seminar in the forms of the short story. I’ll also be directing four MFA theses. I’ve always loved teaching. Helping students develop their craft can be just as satisfying as practicing the craft myself.

To be honest, though, I sometimes complain about the time teaching takes from my own writing. Then, amid my whining, I think of writers who work outside academia, who raise families, take care of loved ones, and pay attention to the countless things our adult lives ask of us. A long time ago, before I determined what my path in life would be, I worked in factories with people who would always work there. I watched how the work broke down their bodies. I listened to the stories of their lives—their divorces, the deaths of their loved ones, their financial struggles, and sometimes their criminal troubles. Day after day, year after year, they did their work because they had no other choice. Their lives passed like that, one sunrise after another, one more pajama yoke sewed, one more tray of tire patches pressed, one more shoe lining cut until the time came when, either due to retirement, or illness, or death, there was no more work. I watched my father’s life pass like this and my mother’s. My father’s heart disease made it impossible for him to keep farming. My mother retired from teaching and went to work as a housekeeper and a laundress at a nursing home until she couldn’t physically do her job.

Maybe this is why I get antsy when I don’t have a clearly defined project in front of me. Maybe I’m afraid, if I stop working, my own end will come sooner rather than later. Maybe I have to keep writing and teaching to avoid thinking about the inevitable—the final end that comes for all of us. As long as I can keep going, I can pretend this day will never come.