It’s always funny—by which I don’t mean ha-ha funny, more like “I want to bury my face in your ratty sweater and wail like a banshee” funny—when people ask if my winter break was restful. No, it was not restful. It is never restful. I was playing catchup the whole time and almost—almost!—managed to get everything done. One collaborative proposal in, one collaborative proposal underway, major revisions of two papers returned, two new paper drafts, and so, so many journal manuscripts handled as editor. The organization of a conference, all the reviewing duties. The tail end of the extra service duties I took on last semester. Then there’s my own fiction writing, which, granted, is entirely self-inflicted, but is just about the only thing that I crave to be doing these days.

Then, of course, there are family demands on my time, even though the kids aren’t little, but now it’s helping with AP Physics or AP Calculus or middle-school essay writing, and it’s managing everyone’s disparate nutritional needs (middle-aged people having an ever-increasing list of food sensitivities, high-school people having food allergies, middle-school people still having issues around the tastes and textures of common foods).

So no, the winter break wasn’t relaxing. It was productive, though, so while I haven’t exactly entered the new semester all fresh and dewy like a newborn filly, I have shown up with a mostly clean plate and steely resolve, because I have teaching overload yet again.

This weekend isn’t going to be relaxing, either, and it’s making me a little twitchy. Yesterday and the day before, I reviewed an author friend’s book as a beta-reader and sent her my comments, which happened in the pockets of time around teaching two classes, holding group meeting and individual technical meetings with students, and some conference organization stuff. This morning I worked on a fellowship application for one of my undergrads; this afternoon will be devoted to commenting on a junior colleague’s proposal that’s due Monday. Tomorrow, I have to read and comment on another friend’s book, which I’ve been sitting on for two months, and I know this isn’t for work, but this person has read both my finished books and is a very supportive in general, so it’s important to me to return the favors.

I haven’t touched my manuscript (Book 3) in several weeks. Originally I thought I’d have a full draft by this time, but, alas, it’s at only 50%. The good news is that I got another piece of short fiction picked up by a pro-paying market. It’s been a while since that happened and I needed a win. I also have at least half a dozen shorts that have good bones and need to be edited before submission, but I’ve had neither the time nor the headspace.

I guess I do a lot of service, both for work and as a fiction author. Occasionally I get irritated because these feel like things I should eschew in order to focus on my own goals. But giving back is important. For example, by helping edit other people’s short fiction and novels, I’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t and why. Helping others literally makes me a better writer. Also, there’s the benefit of having other writers be willing to read and engage with your work, which cannot be beat and is something that would otherwise have to be heftily paid for. Most importantly, these people have become my friends, and let me tell you, in any endeavor that blends creativity and business, supportive friends who understand exactly what you are going through are priceless.

And this holds for service in my job, too. I like service tasks where I can do concrete good. Stuff that helps propel junior people, stuff that enables us to recruit and retain the best people, stuff that enables other access to the resources they truly need for the work in the classroom and in the lab, stuff that strengthens my technical community.

So yeah, I get growly or whiny when I get overwhelmed and it feels like everyone else’s needs come before mine, and maybe I would benefit from having an assistant whose role would be to decline all requests on my behalf, but at the end of the day, the work for others is aligned with my values, and it creates a better work environment at my job and a better writing community for my (increasingly important) creative outlet turned side hustle. And the forced time away from my manuscript will enable me to re-approach it with a fresh outlook.

How was you winter break, blogosphere?