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This summer my daughter Annie took an on-line math class. She needed to complete it successfully so that she could begin a “math for educators” sequence this fall. It was a struggle — and it’s not over yet (she didn’t pass with a C, but is trying to make up some assignments). Sometime in the depths of July, I was encouraging her (berating her? it was a fine line) to spend some time on the class, and she accused me of not believing in her. “You don’t think I can do this,” she said. No, Annie, I don’t think you can pass your math class by watching NCIS and CSI obsessively, running around with your friends, going to Yakima without internet access for a week…okay, that sounds like berating.

My older two daughters are not good at math. We’ve hired tutors. We’ve had to deal with remedial classes. We’ve endured many D’s and a couple of F’s. But I do think that Annie can successfully complete college-level math — if she focuses.

And my dreams?

I am returning to the college today — my first contract day of the 2012-2013 academic year. I intend to write my way through this year. I will once again be leading the Writing Lab for faculty and staff. I plan to host a fiction workshop (do you hear that, Beverly?) one evening each week. I have a 9-day writing retreat at the Gell Center in October. But I don’t think it will take tons of heavy-lifting for me to be successful — to finish my novel rewrite, my article for historylink.org, my poetry send-out — it will, however, take focus. Given that I have a family, a house, a mom who needs attention, students — I’m willing to settle (for now) for short bursts of focus.

But I would also like to imagine that next fall I will be embarking on a new career as a full-time writer. A writer who teaches, instead of a teacher who writes.

Here’s one of my all-time favorite quotes from Madeline L’Engle:

We live under the illusion that if we can acquire complete control, we can understand God or we can write the great American novel. But the only way we can brush against the hem of the Lord or hope to be part of the creative process, is to have the courage, the faith, to abandon control.

So it’s 5 a.m. and I got to bed quite late, but here I am, Butt In Chair (BIC, as Jane Yolen calls it), writing.

If this blog has a theme, it’s about how one gets writing done despite having a life. Yes, there is the day job, 75-100 students each quarter, advisees, meetings; and there are the 3 daughters and 1 husband and 1 mother (very much as time-consuming as the day job).

And then there’s little old me who watches television and plays Spider Solitaire and … well, you get the idea. The trick is, how do I get out of my own way and get some writing done, today — not after I retire from teaching and after my daughters grow up?

It’s been a lucky life. There was a time when I wanted to be married — wanted it with a pure and unmixed desire. And I met Bruce. Then I wanted children, and these girls showed up. I wanted to be a teacher, and life handed me that favor, too. But through it all — even before fourth grade (when I got those fabulous glasses) — I have wanted to be a writer. And here I am.

I think there’s a little more here that I’m supposed to notice. I didn’t meet Bruce until I was 27. It took us several years and tons of heartache (failed infertility treatment, one failed adoption) before the girls arrived. The start of my teaching career included teaching as an adjunct and never knowing from year to year (and, often, quarter to quarter) if I’d have work. Not to mention the years I put in before that as a waitress. My path has always been one of fits and starts…being a bit thick-headed about wanting what I wanted and never giving up on it has been the trait that got me through. Getting up every morning and scribbling in a notebook got me through.

It can get you through, too.