Kathy L. Salt's Blog, page 8

Happy New Year

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2017 was one of the best years of my life. It was the year I was hungover for the first time (the morning after my 28th birthday). The year I learned to blow bubbles with bubblegum. The year I signed with a publisher. The year I went to Universeum three times. The year I made so many new friends. It was a year of happiness. Of stability.

Welcome to 2018! Hopefully a year of action. Of being a more prolific writer even during working weeks. A year of no procrastination. A year where I’m hoping to bullet journal properly. A year where maybe I… learn to play the piano? I don’t know. But I love the feeling of January 1st!

We have a friend over and she’s dying to go and watch The Last Jedi again so that’s what we’re doing with today and later I’m going to do some writing as well.

Let’s look at last years goals:

Revise and self-publish “Out of Hand”.

Revise and send “Stargazing” to a publisher.

Try to update my blog once a month.

Not let my tumblr die. If I have one, I need to use it.

Finish The New Story, another contemporary romance.

Please, please, please finish Never break a leg before Christmas, (Come on, Kathy, this is getting ridiculous).

Start the sequel for State of Emergency.

How did I do?

I revised and published (not self-published!) “Out of Hand”. I’m almost done with “Stargazing” and I hope to send it to my publisher later in January, maybe the beginning of February. I didn’t update my blog once a month. My tumblr is not dead. Instead I’m actually using it quite a lot, so that’s good. I *haven’t* finished “The New Story”. I haven’t finished “Never Break a Leg Before Christmas”. I haven’t started a “State of Emergency” sequel.

How do I feel about this?

Perfectly okay. This has been one of my most stimulating but difficult years of my life. I want to write more during 2018, but I’m perfectly fine with my input during 2017.

Author goals for 2018:

*Finish and publish “Stargazing”.

*Finish and publish “The New Story”.

*Be braver and more active on Twitter, probably on Facebook too.

*Read more books. And not just the same books over and over.

*Read more books about writing.

I feel that these goals are attainable and I’m excited to start.

Happy January 1st everyone!

My Main Protagonists as Songs

It’s no secret that I’m slightly obsessed with Marina and the Diamond songs. I don’t know if it’s her lyrics or her voice or the fact that she’s half-Greek and half-Welsh and as a half-Swedish, half-Turkish girl I feel a sense of kinship. Whatever it is that has caused it, the end result is the same – I am obsessed with Marina and the Diamond songs.

Now that I have two novels out I have found the four perfect songs to represent my protagonists from “Out of Hand” and “State of Emergency”. Please ignore that it’s just a silly excuse to put more music on my blog.

Out of Hand:

Leo:

 

Mimi:

 

State of Emergency: 

Mercedes:

 

Idun:

Out of Hand is here!

Pick up your kindle copy here.

Your physical copy here.

Or at Smashwords.

If you leave a review, you get a gold star

“Out of Hand” teaser.

This is a teaser for my novel “Out of Hand” that will be out tomorrow! 

“Mimi sank back into her seat and looked out of the window. The trees were still flying by. She was still feeling a bit queasy, but her head was pounding a little bit less and her mind was clear. Her only goal had to be to earn her freedom.

And then never drink again. Whether her drink had been spiked or not, her mother had been right, drinking never led to anything good and was definitely not becoming of young ladies. Apparently, it led to their kidnapping. Mimi snorted.

She turned to her side and observed her kidnapper. The idiot. The creep. The liar. It really was too bad that she was also so gorgeous. Strong, slender arms, a dangerous look in her eyes, and a hard line for a mouth. Mimi shook her head and looked away. She must be sicker than she thought to be thinking something like that in a time like this.

She glanced at her purse that lay abandoned by her feet. Maybe she could reach for her phone and call someone? Paige was the obvious answer. Mimi didn’t think that her brother would take her serious, and she would rather let Leo steal her away than call her parents. No, the only one she could call was Paige.

Maybe the key to getting away was acting completely normal. She leaned down and reached for her phone inside the purse.

“What are you doing?” Leo asked without taking her eyes off of the road.

“I just want to call Paige and tell her I’m away on an excursion. As exciting as it is travelling with a handsome stranger, I can’t let my friends worry.” She had barely finished her sentence when Leo’s large hand came as if out of nowhere and took her phone from her hands.

Mimi could only stare while Leo opened the window and threw her phone out of it.

“That was a gift,” she growled, furious with Leo. Inside her ribs, her heart fluttered with fear. Before, she could have almost believed that this was some sick practical joke, but Leo’s actions proved otherwise. For the first time, real fear gripped at Mimi’s insides.

“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. I have seen her face, she’s going to have no choice but to kill me,” she mumbled to herself.

“I’m not going to kill you.” Leo’s voice suggested that it was an absurd idea, but Mimi wasn’t so sure.

“Steal my organs and sell them on the black market?”  Panic was settling in the pit of Mimi’s stomach, and she searched her mind for any other reasons that Leo might have kidnapped her. “Sell me as a slave to the highest bidder? Rape me?”

Mimi’s last question seemed to punch Leo as she produced an angry sound somewhere between a snort and growl.

“Of course not,” she snapped. “I’d never hurt anyone that way.”

Mimi wasn’t convinced but knew she needed to calm down.  She looked out of the window instead, trying to focus on a single point, but it was hard. The trees were flying past too quickly outside, making her head spin again. She fell forward, cradling her head in her hands and whimpered.  

“You’re not dying on me, are you?” Leo said. “Come on, you think I’m that gullible?”

Mimi could only groan in reply. If Leo thought she was dying, maybe she would stop the car and Mimi could escape. She let her body go limp and fell forward. She stayed like that, hanging lifeless in her seat belt.

Leo swore and she snickered silently to herself. Even if she didn’t manage to run away, making her kidnapper panic was worth the extra vertigo that she felt in this position.

“What the hell did you give her, Mila?” Leo muttered.

Mimi wrinkled her eyebrows. Who is Mila? Then the words slowly sunk in. She sat up.

“You!” She pointed a finger in Leo’s wide eyes and open mouth. “You are the one who drugged me last night! You are the reason that I’m ill!”

Anger replaced relief in an instant as Leo’s expression went from light to dark.  

“If you pretend like that.” Her voice was stone cold. “I won’t believe you if you actually need help. Don’t cry wolf.”

Mimi snarled. Like she cared about that. She wasn’t planning to be with Leo long enough for something like this to be needed a second time.

“Answer my question,” she demanded. “Did you drug me last night?”

Leo turned her gaze back on the road.

“No.”

“No?” Mimi didn’t believe her. Not in the least. “I’m not an idiot.” She pursed her lips, reveling in the fury that rose within her. Anger was nicer than fear.

She was fed up with the situation now. She wanted to go home, drink a large cup of coffee, and put an ice pack on her head. And then do a lot of sewing.

“I hate you.” The words probably meant nothing in Leo’s ears. But it felt good to say.”

Announcement!

A few months ago I signed with Triplicity Publishing and on Monday the 18th of December “Out of Hand” comes out!

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“Mimi Adam lives in a shabby London apartment with an old sewing machine and unpaid bills, learning that working as a modern day seamstress is not what she imagined as a child. Leo lives as a smuggler without a proper home; she wouldn’t call herself a criminal, but she doesn’t shy away from crime.

When Leo is ordered to kidnap Mimi and take her out of the country, the situation quickly gets out of hand. Leo isn’t good at the job and Mimi is bratty, demanding and difficult. A story about cautious friendship and aggressive attraction while on journey across Europe.”

The Story of an Educational Disaster

This is a huge post but I needed to write it. Read it if you want.

When I started school I wasn’t ready. I’m a December child and like most December children I was small and immature. I didn’t want to learn anything. I had already decided that I wanted to be an author, but that didn’t mean I wanted to learn to read and write. My name (not my pen name) has nine letters and next to all the Swedish Emmas and Annas and Sandras and Linas my name was so difficult. I remember feeling like a failure in kindergarten for being unable to write my own name. And even when I had it in front of me I struggled with that pesky G in the middle.

In first grade I continued. I just didn’t want to. I wanted to climb trees and play make-believe. I didn’t want to do math or learn cursive writing. I have a distinct memory of my teacher handing me a math paper and as soon as she had her back turned I went to throw it away. I didn’t want to do it. It was too hard. I couldn’t focus and what’s even worse is I didn’t want to.

I only went to that school until fourth grade. After that we moved from Sweden to the United Arab Emirates where I went to two schools. First Al Ain English Speaking School and then International School of Choueifat. This is where I learned to speak proper English, learned a bit of French, not to mention discipline and a bit of a work ethic. I’d always been a dreamer in the classroom but in Choueifat it wasn’t possible. The teacher demanded more of me. I learned to listen. Finally.

We moved back to Sweden after 9/11 and I was thrown back into a different school system again. I got reverse culture shock. In UAE I had been going to school with kids who were two years younger (to match knowledge rather than age) and when I came back everyone was twelve or thirteen and I was used to playing with kids who were nine and ten. All my peers had gone through some kind of societal puberty and I was left behind still playing with dolls and speaking some kind of mix between English and Swedish. I’m not an introvert but the situation forced me to be. I couldn’t relate and I just… retreated into my own head. This is when I properly started writing. I had started when we lived in UAE, but being unable to relate to the young people around me made me retreat. I read so many books. Mainly in English, so that didn’t help my Swedish. (Harry Potter, seriously).

My parents moved me again in seventh grade, from private to public school. This was better. Easier. I made some friends again. And even though I was still stuck inside my own head most of the time it got better. I was behind in most subjects since I hadn’t done much during the first year back in Sweden, but I kind of caught up. I didn’t have good grades but it was okay.

The following years were stormy. In Sweden we change school at the age of 16 to start an upper secondary school called Gymnasium. I started one at 15, disliked it for reasons I’m not going to go into now, and changed to another one. On the first day at my new gymnasium I was handed a leaflet on being an exchange student. Since I had struggled to feel at home in Sweden since coming back in 2001, I took the chance.

In August 2007 I went to Britain to do one year, and I ended up staying for three. Living in Britain was great. And the system was easy. I did my AS-levels, my A-levels and started university, aiming for a bachelors in theology. I was home there. I met my wife during the first year and we’ve been together since then. For reasons I’m not getting into now, we left Britain after just one year of uni and moved to Sweden.

The trouble with my education started when I went back to Sweden. First they said I wasn’t eligible to go to university here since I only had A-levels from Britain but not GCSEs. They said I hadn’t even graduated gymnasium aka ”high school”. They still refuse to acknowledge my British A-levels in psychology, sociology and English literature. In Sweden when we graduate from Gymnasium our grades create a numerical value that we use to apply to university. My number today is still 0. It sucks.

The first six months back were spent in desperation. I worked as a nursing assistant and tried to figure out what I should do with my life without a university degree. Eventually the powers that be agreed that I was eligible for university, but my numerical value still remained as 0.

The wife (then girlfriend) and I moved to Sundsvall in 2011 and I studied biology, physics, chemistry and math, dreaming about somehow getting credentials to become a midwife. But to study midwifery you needed better grades, and I had no grades at all to get into the midwifery or nursery program. Luckily I was able to take the Swedish version of non-obligatory SATs so that I had a numerical value to apply with. But it didn’t open all doors, since most programs are so competitive that they take both grade and test values, or only grade values.

Eventually I took the only thing that was open for me. The only program that was crying so hard for applicants that even I could get in. And that’s how I wound up in teaching school to become a K-3 teacher. It was great. Honestly great. It turns out it was precisely what I was supposed to be doing all along.

Everything probably would have been fine… if it hadn’t been for the fact that we moved south in 2014. And me, the idiot, decided that I wanted to transfer to university. Because people do that all the time right? And it works out?

And it did work out. Almost. Then my final struggle started. And I’m telling you know, boys and girls, I don’t think I’ll ever go back and study again. It isn’t worth it. It doesn’t work for me.

I agreed to start Högskolan Väst with the knowledge that I would have to do two years together with the class who had started in 2012, and then in April 2017 I’d have to do one final class that they had already taken. I agreed. It didn’t feel so bad. I would study with this class for two years, then work for nine months, then take some time off to take the final class.

And that’s sort of what happened. Until the time came for me to write my second thesis, and I was contacted and told that I wasn’t eligible. That I was missing classes. That I had to study A, B or C. After a couple of meetings and some forms sent in, I got the okay. I started writing my second thesis on outdoor mathematics. And this is when hell started.

I’ve never been failed so many times on the same thing. I’m not going to downplay my own part in it, some of the complaints I agree with. What I didn’t deserve was a thesis partner who abandoned me, who I couldn’t count on. What I didn’t deserve was an incapable mentor whose ideas clashed with the examiner. We—or I should say I, since my ‘partner’ only helped with the study itself, while I write and re-wrote every single part of the thesis—failed five times before finally, finally passing it a few months ago.

In the meantime I had started working, even changed jobs and towns. I had completed the class in April 2017 and passed it, I was just waiting for the thesis to be accepted so I could apply officially to graduate and get my degree. This was in October, over a year since the rest of my class had graduated.

I got it. I was so happy, it was a victory.

This was when the university dropped the next bombshell. I applied to graduate and received the reply that I, sadly, didn’t have everything I needed for a teaching degree. In spite of five years at uni and two theses. In spite of working for over a year. I had to wait until January 2018 and take two more classes in general pedagogy.

I lost it. I contacted the teachers’ union. I contacted my boss. I wrote an angry email back saying that I wouldn’t accept it. I had done everything they asked me to do. I cried for a whole weekend.

I got an email back the same night saying that they would fix it. I don’t know if my angry email helped or if they would have fixed it either way. But they reversed their decision completely and agreed that I don’t have to study anything more to graduate.

I haven’t received my degree yet, but it’s getting there. Maybe I’ll have it in my hands in December, hopefully in time for my birthday. Then I’ll receive the first paper proof that I have studied for most of my life since, according to Sweden, my British A-levels didn’t mean anything.

So that’s my story. Before the age of 18 I had changed school 11 times and it took me almost six years to get a degree that should have taken four. Claiming to be an educational disaster is strong, and I apologize for that. It’s just been such a trial for me.

My next fight is to one day be a full-time author because that seems pretty impossible too. Not now, I love my job too much for that and considering how hard I’ve fought for my degree and teaching licence I want to enjoy it for a while. But maybe later. In ten years. In fifteen years. Who knows?

Seven years ago I was still adamant that I would be a midwife and that didn’t happen. Like they say, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.

 

Adventures in Teaching First Graders

…or the story on how time flies when (a million things happen at once) you’re having fun.

Because I am having fun. Honestly. Even when it’s hard. Even though I’ve had to scale down in my personal life just to survive the wear and tear of this term. There just isn’t much brain power left when you’re part-time parent to 25 six-year-olds. To those who don’t know it I’m a primary school teacher in my second year of teaching.

I want to share the story of one chaotic afternoon from a few weeks ago. All kids’ names have been changed.

After recess we usually have circle time. That means we sit on the carpet in front of the white board, we talk about the coming lesson or maybe why the floor in the toilet is wet or perhaps about current events (like the scary Nazi demonstrations we had recently). It’s also a way for me to give everyone time to find their way to the classroom, take off their shoes etc. This part of the day can usually get a bit a messy, but not outright chaotic. Except for this afternoon.

They’re supposed to come in at 12.20 when the bell rings, usually everyone is in by 12.25. I’m waiting as one by one drop in… all except two. I put on my shoes and go looking for them. Finally I find them, hiding inside some bushes in the school yard. Okay, fine. We talk and eventually I convince them to come inside. We are inside and back on the carpet by 12.30.

We’re about to sit down when Vera gets up, walks to me and showes a nasty looking scratch. It looks quite dirty so I send her to the school nurse with a friend. I walk into the hallway with them, talking and giving instructions.

When I come back to the classroom, the rest of the kids are getting impatient. Some of them are rolling around on the floor, wrestling, most are talking, two are crying because it’s gotten too loud for their comfort. So we have to talk about silence and sound and that even if it’s okay to talk a bit while I’m not in the classroom they cannot yell and not wrestle in the middle of the circle. While I’m talking I’m interuppted a couple of times which means we need to talk about not interuppting the teacher. Which might seem tedious to you, but it’s so necessary, they need to learn now so we’ll have a smoother ride after christmas.

Now the time is 12.40 and we really need to start the lesson. So Benny looses a tooth. And of course he needs to show and tell everyone.

I finally say “okay everyone, now it’s time to….” and that is when Annie accidently pushes Fiona’s water bottle that was standing on top of the desks. Why Fiona put her bottle on her desk and when Annie stood up, I don’t know. But now there is water everywhere. 

When that’s wiped up and the kids have left circle time and are sitting at their desks it’s 12.50 and in just 30 minutes the day is finished. They are six years old. We need more than 30 minutes to do the math lesson I had planned. At this point I give up, put on a film about “more or less than the number five” and question my career choice.

Seriously, I really, really love my job. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but also the most fulfilling. I find joy in ABC and 1+2=3. I must have been made for patience and wiping tears. And singing the same song over and over. But there is not much energy for anything else and I need to respect that. At least I’m still writing, albeit a bit slowly.

“Fröken (that’s what they call me, related to “miss” “teacher” or the German “fräulein”) fröken Kathy, I have a mosquito bite, it’s itching.” “Fröken, my stomach hurts.” “Fröken, guess what I did this weekend!” “Fröken, fröken, she pushed me.” “Fröken, it would be so strange if dogs had two legs.” “Fröken, what does criminally gifted mean?” (believe it or not, one of my boys asked this.)

I am tired when I get home. It’s hard to let go of my teacher face, my teacher voice. The vigilance.

It’s who I am. I’m 1Bs fröken. I’m a teacher. I’m a teacher who needs to learn to relax and forget about the 25 little pieces of my heart during the weekend and evenings. And somehow everything is worth it when I’m handed a bracelet that one of them has made:

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It’s all good really. Some nights I’m just a bit of a zombie. I’m sure I’ll adapt eventually.

(And in other news I’ve been picked up by a publisher!! But more on that in another post.)

Goodnight!

 

 

 

It’s been ten years

You’ve told me you love me 365000 times.

Probably more than that. Some days you say it more than once.

Does that seem about right my love?

“I love you.”

There. That’s 365001.

 

For my wife

Summer…

What can I do now? What can I do to keep every single moment in my mind forever?

How is it possible that Daniella (my student assistant) and I no longer work together every day? How is it possible that I will never again enter 3B’s classroom and greet the sixteen little souls that I had been entrusted to look after and teach every day?

How can I keep the memories? What can keep me from forgetting? Deirdres smile every time she saw me and how we struggled to make sense of math problems. Luke’s tantrums. Even Jake’s stupid comments or how he insisted on bringing a fidget spinner into the classroom even though we had had no choice but to ban them.. Or how the majority of my kids seemed incapable of learning to stay quiet. Or stay seated.

Please help me remember. Playing games. Reading the fourth Harry Potter book for them.  Marvin’s childish charm which made it impossible to stay mad at him no matter how difficult he had been. Katie and Maisie, my darling girls who have helped me so much. How Phoebe’s anger could be turned into creativity. How I’ve gotten at least one hug from Tina.

Or how when we were going to go and sing for the parents on the last day, I didn’t need to tell them – they just lined up behind me like a row of ducklings.

Or how Louise, one of my younger coworkers, would light up my day with a hug or even just a smile.

My classroom is so empty now. I cleaned all the text from the whiteboard. Took their drawings down. Cleaned. Wiped away our memories of tears and yelling and laughing and smiling. And learning of course.

How can it be over? Why isn’t it still January?

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I seriously, seriously, seriously love my job.

(All kid’s names are changed)

So I Went Anyway!

…thanks to wife and sister (who is gay too btw!).

We were caught in the rain by the end of it but it was so much fun.

Some photos:

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There were police horses (which you can kind of see in the photo above) which were wearing rainbow flags! But Sheeba kept barking and sometimes it was hard to take photos from where we were standing. (Plus I pretty much suck with a camera so…)

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But yeah, it started pouring down. We ran down to the tram station but we still had to wait without cover for ten – fifteen minutes, we arrived home completely drenched. But enjoy my silly face.

Time to take it easy now, drink some tea and play some video games.

Have a good weekend everybody!