OK, here we go! I registered for my first two classes at Wayne State University today, in pursuit of a master’s degree in library and information sciences.

Time to evolve, finally, and this feels like exactly the right direction. I stay connected with the world of kid lit, but am not looking ahead to years of the wild ups and downs of freelance writing. When I started my college career twenty-four years ago, I briefly flirted with the idea of a degree in technical writing, with the idea that I would love to write text books, but after I really looked hard at the daily life of that type of profession, I shied away and moved toward something more stable and predictable. At 17 years old, I knew that I was just not cut out for the capricious vagaries of life as a professional writer. And after five years of actually living it, I KNOW that I need a day job. Bad.

It should take me two years to complete this degree, if I go in the summers, too, and take a manageable 6 credits at a time. And of course, I’ll continue working during that time, so my writing days are far from over. I’d give it all up, though, for a part-time job at Barnes & Noble! Imagine it, all you tormented freelancers out there: you go in, you work, you leave, YOU’RE DONE. Boggles the mind.

In the mean time, I’ve got work through November, at least, and can start subbing as soon as that slows down. That terrifies me, now that it is actually a possibility, but that is a post for another day.