Welcome to Evening Pages
What are Evening Pages? Who am I? And why should you read my writing?
I’ll start with the second question, who am I?
I’m Ruby. I am a mother, wife, daughter, friend, writer, coach, and teacher. I can speak, read and write Japanese, play violin, and get through most yoga classes. I am always juggling almost too many projects, and try to optimize everything a bit too much. I can’t really categorize myself as a STEM or humanities person. I liked math most as a kid, English most in high school, majored in Statistics in college, taught high school math after that, and am now writing my first book. I think everyone can be creative. I’ve secretly, mildly, wanted to direct movies for at least a decade. I believe in the power of storytelling, and I love to learn. I would say my superpower is making people feel seen and heard.
What are Evening Pages?
First (and I promise it’s relevant,) I should explain that despite my fluency in Japanese and my desire for my kids to speak it, I barely speak to them in Japanese. Why not? You would think that speaking to them in Japanese as much as possible would surely help them pick up the language. This is true. And yet, I am paralyzed by the fact that I cannot give them a “complete” Japanese education. What is a “complete” Japanese education? That would be, my own upbringing of course. I am half Japanese. My mom is from Tokyo. Her Japanese is much better than her English, so although I know she intended for me to be bilingual, my high Japanese exposure also had a lot to do with her own abilities and our life circumstances. I spent my summers in Japan, and attended Japanese Saturday school where I studied math and language arts in Japanese. When I think about that, I can’t help but wonder, what’s the point in even trying with my kids? Instead of thinking about the complete difference in circumstances, or the fact that perhaps, I, a different mother from my own, may bring other strengths to my children’s childhoods, I stop before I can begin.
I have begun my career as a writer in a somewhat busy season of my life. I have two small children with a third on the way, I’m in the process of moving states, putting my kids in new schools, and my husband works long hours. I’m also trying to publish my first book before the third baby arrives. I bought The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (and ambitiously, the accompanying Morning Pages Journal) a couple of weeks ago. It sits on the lower shelf of my coffee table. I don’t think I’ve even finished reading the introduction.
I fantasized to a close friend (hi Aliza!) on the phone last week, “Maybe after I move, I’ll set up a routine where I wake up an hour earlier than the kids, write my Morning Pages or work on my book for half an hour, and then take a walk.” I can tell you right now that I am not going to be able to 5 Second Rule (Great book by Mel Robbins) myself into that morning routine.
As with teaching my kids practically no Japanese, I am the type to write Morning Pages for the prescribed twelve week program, every day, or not at all. But I know that if I showed up to just a few of those 84 mornings (12 weeks times 7), I would get something out of them.
And so I had the idea this evening, as I drove home from Target with some birthday decorations for my daughter’s fifth birthday tomorrow, for Evening Pages. They are basically, my Not Morning Pages (but I thought “Evening Pages” sounded better). Morning Pages are written every morning. My pages may be written at any time of day, and not necessarily every day.
Why should you read my writing?
Separately, for some time now, I’ve been wondering how I should “Show My Work,” as a writer. Writers I’ve spoken to have encouraged me to choose a platform that feels comfortable for me, and start showing my work. So I created an Instagram account, @rubyrybawrites, and made a few posts on there. But you may see how I might have some issue with creating social media content, being that my current book is called How to Stop Scrolling. I think I posted for about a week before throwing in the towel; it just didn’t feel authentic. But I couldn’t forget what I read in Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work:
“If you just focus on getting really good, [Steve] Martin says, people will come to you. I happen to agree: You don’t really find an audience for your work; they find you. But it’s not enough to be good. In order to be found, you have to be findable.”
Knowing that I’m unfindable has made working on my work feel less relevant. Who cares if I write a really useful book that can help people totally change their relationship with technology, if no one’s going to read it?
And even if I am findable, I don’t even think that that is enough. As a teacher, I learned firsthand how much more likely it would be for my students to listen to, trust, and willingly learn from me, if I let myself be known by them. They knew about my three cats, Java, Hugo, and Teacup, who would sometimes make their way into my AP Statistics problems. They would hear stories about my student years, and know what TV shows I was watching. If you walked into one of my classes and heard me use 5 of the 43 minutes of my period examining the pros and cons of nearby lunch spots, you may have thought I was mismanaging the limited time I had to ensure my students could find the zeros of a quadratic equation. But these five minutes were an investment. I earned their trust, and showed them that I valued their time and wanted to spend it on things worth learning. They got to know me as a human, and honestly, I enjoyed the storytelling as well.
And so through this blog, I hope you can get to know me, and decide if my work may be worth reading for you. I will write about my work, my process, and my life. Welcome to Evening Pages.
