Lisa's Blog: Not a Moment Too Soon
“Change, my dear. And it seems not a moment too soon.” -the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker), having just regenerated, Doctor Who episode “The Caves of Androzani” (first aired 1984)
Well, change is scary. We all know this (I think), so that’s not exactly breaking news. So it’s weird that every time I experience a change, I’m surprised by how much anxiety it induces.
2023 has been a year of changes for me. In May, I left my position of associate professor of English to become a full-time author, and followed that up by moving in mid-July from Texas to Little Rock. (Yes, moving in July is terrible. I do not recommend it.)
Despite all the anxiety these changes have caused (and let me tell you, it’s a LOT), one quote keeps coming to mind. It’s what the Sixth Doctor, played by Colin Baker, says to Peri after regenerating at the end of “The Caves of Androzani (Part Four)”: “Change, my dear. And it seems not a moment too soon.” (In my head I usually paraphrase it as “Change, my dear, and not a moment too soon.”)
The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) regenerates (episode “The Caves of Androzani”)
I started watching reruns of Doctor Who as a kid with my dad. The regenerations always threw me for a loop because no other show I was aware of recast its main character like Doctor Who does, but I think watching that show taught me a lot of things. Most of all the magic of storytelling, but also that endings are beginnings too. It’s not always easy to remember that, especially when the endings are rough, but sooner or later I remember (or realize) that as one chapter ends, another has begun.
And so my chapter of being a professor has ended, and a new one has begun: I am now a full-time author. And my Texas chapter has closed so I can start a new one in Arkansas, where I now live next door to my sister and her family, in my dream home, my Storybook House.
My lovely Storybook House in Little Rock, AR
The most common question I get these days is “How does it feel to be a full-time author?” My answer: “I don’t know yet.” We literally just moved and our new house is full of boxes and chaos. I’m not a full-time writer yet, or at least in my head I’m not. I’m in transition until we get settled in. And in the meantime I’m full of so many emotions. I’m happy, scared, hopeful, depressed, celebratory, grieving. I miss my old house—especially that spectacular front porch. I miss the coffee shop in Weatherford where I wrote all of my Alice Worth books so far. I miss teaching (but not grading papers—good lord no). I miss my Texas friends and colleagues.
But I’m also so happy to be in this beautiful house, so close to my sister after living in different states since 2005. And I’m living the dream: working as a full-time author. My so-called “side hustle” has now become my career. Which of course means I need a new side hustle! (More on that later.)
My front yard garden has this lovely little path that I like to imagine leads to a fantasy land of adventures and romance, if I walk it at the right time. Maybe under a full moon?
Maybe I was subconsciously talking to myself in Heart of Lies (Alice Worth Book 7), when Alice tells a fae: “Your kind resists change, even avoids it at all costs. But when you stay the same for centuries or eons, you turn stagnant like a scummy pond instead of a clean flowing river. It’s probably been so long since you’ve changed that you don’t remember how to anymore.”
I wrote that long before we decided to move or I’d decided to leave my professor job, but I sensed both were on the horizon. It’s easier to stay the same, maintain the status quo, let inertia take over. But as Alice points out, that’s how water becomes stagnant and scummy. I want to flow clean and be in motion like a river, even if it’s tough and scary and full of rapids and hidden rocks.
I sensed this change on the wind a few years ago. I didn’t know when, but I knew it would happen soon. When a series of events in my personal, professional, and author lives lined up perfectly, culminating with the “For Sale” sign that went up in the yard of my beloved Storybook House, I knew the time for change had come—and not a moment too soon.