Carol Newman Cronin's Blog, page 40

High Summer, 2018 Style

I have a sailing friend who—every time I see him—mentions a post from four years ago called High Summer. When I sat down this morning, I realized that I wanted to write that post all over again. So I’m going to revisit the theme and see if four summers of perspective have brought any changes.

Each summer is a promise of pleasure that brings different priorities and challenges, and yet the images that carry me through the winter are the same; long, lazy afternoons on the water. Watching the sunset dressed only in a light t-shirt and shorts. Diving into a glassy mirror of a harbor after a sweaty paddle around Dutch Island. Eating raspberries off a backyard bush. Heading to Maine for some cooler air, pine-scented harbors, and “getting away from it all.” Racing within easy driving range of home.

This year all of that was postponed as the rain and chill lasted well into June—and then started, quite suddenly, in Portugal at the Snipe Masters Worlds; perfect summer days, every single day. I came home to finish a big writing job and a much-postponed canvas job, and now that I have a little time to breathe, I am looking around and realizing: it is already mid-July. The sun is noticeably south of its all-time June high in the morning and evening sky. The days are noticeably shorter, though there’s still plenty of daylight to fit in that long lazy afternoon. The garden has rioted into mid-summer colors, and weeds. We’ve already eaten our first tomatoes (and quite a few raspberries), and lived through our first heat wave.

This is always the time of year when summer reality sets in; how many weekends (and weekday evenings) are left before the weather cools again, and how much have I already committed to that will take me away from lazy afternoons and sunsets at home? It’s all too short, this season of sun and fun. So I’m going to work toward achieving the same goals I had in July 2014:

Take advantage of living so close to the ocean.
Balance the demands of work with the seasonal potential for play.
Spend as much time on the water as possible without letting too many things slide.

Each summer is a gift, and though this one started late for me that’s no reason to let the rest of it slip away. By consciously reaching out for the joys of this playful season, I’ll once again build up a nice reserve of memories—which will definitely help keep me warm once February rolls around again.

Racing Outside the Comfort Zone

“Want to go sailing tonight?”

That question is one of my summer favorites. Last Monday, the text came in from an out of town friend who had stayed over after a weekend regatta; he wanted to sail the evening race series out of Sail Newport. It was going to be a perfect summer evening—breeze, low humidity, sunshine, warm—so I mentally put aside everything I’d planned for the late afternoon and evening and texted back, “yes.”

Photo Courtesy Sail Newport

I admit, I’ve been stuck in a very nice rut the past few years. I’ve gone sailing on plenty of boats besides a Snipe, but I’ve rarely raced anything else—and then it was as a crew. Steering a VXOne was a chance to step into the twenty-first century, on a boat that could be seen as a modern evolution of the Snipe. Thanks Jeff!

When we first went out, I was not at all sure that the evening was going to be a success—or that we should actually try to race the thing, even in a small, local, and quite patient fleet. It was windier than ideal for two people (you can sail the boat with three, and it’s recommended over ten knots of breeze) and I was dropping both tiller and mainsheet and falling down just about every time we tacked. When we set the spinnaker the first time, we almost wiped out—but Jeff saved us. And I learned how to bring us back from the edge, which proved useful later in the evening.

Jeff also took care of the myriad of details in the front of the boat—like getting the enormous spinnaker up and down. He knew where I’d trip up, because he’d sailed with a lot of other people who were new to the boat, and he gave constant feedback about trimming, angles, and how fast we should be going upwind or down.

Slowly, I grew more comfortable with the steering, line handling, and speed. We sailed our first race—and, as one of our former skippers used to joke when things didn’t go too badly, “nobody got hurt.” I began to enjoy “riding the edge” off the wind, steering up to keep the boat moving fast and jibing whenever we felt like it. (I wouldn’t recommend trying that in a Snipe.)

We were far more competitive than expected—thanks to excellent boat handling. Sailing back to the dock just before sunset, we were smiling. As the saying goes, it’s the crews that win races and the skippers that lose them. So the next time I get that call to go evening racing, I’ll make darned sure I’m in the company of equally qualified friends.

Stars and Snipes Forever

This week we’re celebrating our nation’s birthday under the stars and stripes. I’m noticing the flags more this year for two reasons: the battle over honoring five Capital Gazette shooting victims; and because I just got back from sailing the Snipe World Masters in Portugal. Out of seventy-eight boats from fifteen countries, only five teams were American. On the water and around the boat park, USA sail numbers were vastly outnumbered by three-letter codes of the Snipe-strong: POR(tugal), ESP(ana), ARG(entina), BRA(zil), and ITA(ly). We are NOT the most important country in the world of Snipe.

When we first arrived at the regatta site, I was proud to see the stars and stripes flying at the far end of a fifteen flag lineup—and also mindful that it was no bigger and no more glamorous than the others. For a week, seventy-eight teams raced under the common flag of SCIRA International. We toasted, argued, and laughed together, identifying ourselves by nationality but also knowing that how we sailed and treated our friends is what would be remembered once we all headed home.

We tend to over-glorify the stars and stripes, making rules about how and when it can be flown or burned or dipped. We also tend to over-glorify our importance in the world. On our nation’s birthday, I find myself missing the international perspective of last week—which, ironically, was a timely reminder that the USA is still widely admired. I only hope we can find a way to once again feel worthy of that admiration.

Photo courtesy Ted Morgan

Variety: Books, Meet Boats

A few Saturdays ago, I began the day with a standup paddle, went sailing twice (morning and afternoon), and then ended the day with another standup paddle. It was a great day.

It also highlighted the way two experiences can be completely different, even if they occur on the same day with the same people. (This isn’t a new thought; read Boats Make Memories.) And since everything these days brings me full circle back to novels, it occurred to me how different two book experiences can be, even for the same reader.

The morning sail was on Paul’s Archambault 31. We sailed out of Woods Hole and close-reached west, against the Sound’s flooding current, almost to Tarpaulin Cove. When the A5 spinnaker was ready, we tacked and set and five minutes later we were dousing to head back in the channel again. This would be the “beach read” equivalent; simple, quick, and satisfying without leaving any lingering thoughts behind to stew over.

The afternoon sail was on Katrina, the boat I grew up on. (For more detail, read Slowing Down, Down East.) The current was running west, so we reached out toward Tashmoo (a favorite destination) and tacked to reach home again. The course was simpler, but the sailing was more like a literary novel (at least for me); every fitting and fiber of that boat sparks a memory. And after almost five decades of customization, there’s nothing simple, or particularly quick, about her.

Sometimes, when there’s too much else on our minds, we just need a beach read. But when we have the mental bandwidth, literary novels are more deeply satisfying, especially the ones that linger with us long after the story ends.

Once in a great while, we might even get to enjoy both ends of this spectrum on the same day.

It’s hard to describe what I like about sailing for the same reason it’s hard to describe what I love about books; there are so many different aspects to both. Fortunately, I get to puzzle all of it out here on the blog, discovering as I write some of the many, many ways in which Books Meet Boats.

Book Comparison: Still Water Bending and Happiness

Over the years, I’ve reviewed books, compared e-books to paper, and talked about the relative merits of self-publishing and traditional publishing. What I’ve never done before is compare two different books that represent opposite ends of those two approaches. So here goes.

Still Water Bending

I stumbled onto this book in the newsletter of Boating Writers International. Author Wendy Mitman Clarke is a familiar name to anyone in the boating journalism world, and I’m always eager to read novels based on the water. So as soon as I read the book’s description (“In the river-born community of Ophelia, Virginia, on the Chesapeake Bay, there are three religions: The Water, The Family, and The Land.”) I hopped over to her site and hit the “buy now” button. $5.99 later, a Kindle copy automagically downloaded to my iPad. (It’s also available in paperback for $13.60.)

Happiness

A short New Yorker review is what sparked my interest in prize-winning author Aminatta Forna’s fourth novel, which I checked out of the library. Hardcover, published by Bloomsbury (UK) and Grove Atlantic (US), and based in central London rather than the watery creeks of the Chesapeake, it could not have provided a stronger contrast to the previous week’s novel. The ebook version would’ve cost me $14; the price inside the hardcover’s jacket is $26.

Reading

I read the two books back to back without intention; that’s just how they stacked up in my To Be Read pile. I devoured Still Water Bending, eager to find out what happened next to characters who quickly seemed like people I might meet at a coffeeshop the next time I get to the Chesapeake.

A week later, I sipped nightly at Happiness, enjoying the word choices and imagery but often tempted to skip ahead, in search of the next plot point—and usually forced to start off my pre-sleep reading with a skip back to the previous chapter, to refresh my memory about what had happened the night before. Two days ago, I reluctantly decided to abandon Happiness halfway through; I’ve just added it to my “not-finished” list on Goodreads (where it has some fantastic company). Despite excellent design, formatting, and writing, the story just didn’t tick enough of my What Makes a Book Memorable boxes. 

Still Water Bending had some formatting issues right from the first page. It reeked of self-publishing and could definitely have benefited from a copy editor’s sharp eye. But that’s what I noticed as a fellow author; as a reader, I didn’t care, because I was too busy getting lost in the story and the characters and the setting. It stuck with me during the day, so I never had to struggle to remember who the characters were or reread a few pages to get going again.

Both novels could be considered “literary.” Both include fresh descriptions and analogies that paint a clear picture of their worlds. Both are about places I love to explore, either through books or in person—though admittedly, if I had to choose between living in London and living in Ophelia, Maryland, small waterfront town would definitely win out.

One author garnered a traditional publishing contract and a review by Salman Rushdie. The other published under the imprint “Head to Wind,” and (guessing here) had a family member do the cover illustration—which is lovely, but probably wouldn’t have passed muster with a traditional publisher’s marketing department. And yet the less polished ebook is the one that kept me up too late, the last night of reading.

Format counts, but story counts more

Clarke would’ve received a five star review if not for the sloppiness that distracted my author’s eye from her story. Just like grade school, spelling counts. But the most important thing is telling a tale well. I read to escape, and it simply doesn’t matter who published a book or how well it’s polished if it takes me effortlessly into a different world.

Have you read something recently that seemed better (or worse) than its formatting led you to expect? I’m always looking for book recommendations, so share away in the comments below.

Why Hire an Editor?

A friend recently asked me, “what would you, an editor, get out of hiring a book editor?” Now that I’m almost through the process, I can tell you the short answer: A LOT.

I could talk all day about my first time hiring an editor and how wonderful it’s been, but most of the details are way too specific to be useful to anyone else. Instead I’ll limit myself to five tips that will help you choose the right book editor—and also help you decide when it’s time to do so.

1. Hiring an editor is like hiring a house builder; you probably don’t want the same person who frames it to do the finish carpentry. (I’ve used the editing/house-building analogy before; read Editing Best Practices.) Developmental editors are like editorial house framers; they will ask, and ideally help answer, big picture questions about what is (and even better: what isn’t yet, but should be) on the page. Do you really need this character, fun as she is? Does that scene detract or add to the main theme of the book? Shouldn’t we be hearing directly from the bad guy? And so on.

2. Copy editors, line editors, and proofreaders are like finish carpenters; they make sure grammar, punctuation, and wording will enhance the work rather than distracting the reader. Most manuscripts I see (and many of the books I read) need this help; luckily it’s one of my strengths.

3. Editors don’t have to love your book, just as your carpenter doesn’t have to love your new house, but they do have to “get” what they’re working on. It’s hard enough to figure out a book’s central theme without having another vision overlaid at this critical step in the process. The role of editor is to make your book the best it can possibly be—not create a new story with your words and characters.

4. Finding the right editor is a challenge for sure; you can’t just search on “the perfect editor for my book.” Sites like Reedsy make it possible to check out hundreds of editors (and other book professionals as well), but it’s both difficult and time-consuming to get a feel for their previous work through a resumé (or even from books they’ve edited, because you probably  haven’t read them yet). I found my editor through word of mouth, but hiring her still involved a rather large leap of faith—which fortunately was rewarded. Before signing anyone on, make sure to ask pointed questions up front about experience (fiction, non-fiction, memoir?) and billing, which can vary enormously.

5. Two other large variables are “when to hire” and “how long will this take.” When should you hire an editor? Two answers: “much later than you think,” and “once you can’t make any more progress on your own.” I thought this story was ready to publish months ago, though looking back now I can see it was still a hot mess of a first draft. I’m glad I waited until I’d “finished” it (a few times), got some feedback that made it clear it still wasn’t focused enough yet, so I could give the editor some concrete direction about what I was looking for.

As to “how long does the editor take,” two to four weeks seems like an average turnaround, though it may be worth waiting longer to get the right person. Though that seemed like forever up front, it was very helpful to get away from my WIP for a month—which was easier to do, knowing someone else was moving the project forward.

This was my first time hiring a developmental editor, and it came at the perfect time; overlapping with a trip to Ireland that was completely distracting. When I received the editor’s feedback, I was able to look at my WIP with fresh eyes. Combined with her brand-new perspective, I’m now creating the structure for a much more solid manuscript. And fortunately, unlike house framing, with novels you can get away with adjusting the framing, even after the finish carpentry is completed and the characters have moved in.

Supplementing Success

Last weekend Kim Couranz and I won the Colonial Cup, beating 26 other Snipes by posting the most consistent scores over Saturday’s four light air races. (Sunday’s racing was cancelled due to high winds and rain.). It was hot and extremely humid, described by one Chesapeake local as “like living in a wet lint trap,” and even the puffs didn’t provide much cooling. In short, it was a really tough day to stay hydrated.

Note: I try not to talk too often on this blog about supplements and nutrition, because I figure you come here to read about books and boats. That said, I consider Hammer Nutrition products such an integral part of my success—both on and off the water—that, occasionally, I have to rave a little and share some insights. So if you’re interested in hydrating well, or just feeling and performing better, read on. If not, here are some other posts about books and boats, and I’ll be back on topic next week.

Thanks to Ted Morgan for this photo, which was taken during the much windier 2017 Colonial Cup.

Good fueling wins

There’s no way to prove that good fueling won us the last race of the day, but I believe that’s the case. When the breeze shut down on the last leg, we were still thinking and working and looking around, trying to line ourselves up with the next puff and puzzling out how the current was affecting our apparent wind. Talking to other teams back on shore, it sounded like most weren’t functioning quite as well as they had at the beginning of the day.

The best tomorrow starts today

Looking back, the key to a successful Saturday began the day before; staying hydrated while rigging the boat on an extremely hot Friday afternoon. By “hydrated,” I don’t mean just water; too much of that without enough electrolytes will just create uncomfortable belly sloshing. While rigging in the hot parking lot at Severn Sailing Association (sunny, 82 degrees, and 93 percent humidity), I added a Fizz to my water bottle two of the three times I refilled it; that means I consumed 96 ounces of fluid in three hours. I also fended off the “hot and grumpies” with a couple of Endurolytes Extreme when I finished up for the day. That made me a much more pleasant dinner companion that evening, and a better skipper the next day.

Thanks to overcast skies that kept Saturday’s air temperature (77 degrees) just under its relative humidity (80-85 percent), we didn’t drink as much as expected during our four one-hour races. We each brought three water bottles with us but ended up pouring out the third before the last start. What I did consume a lot of was Endurolytes Extreme; three per one hour race. That’s on top of a Fizz in each water bottle, which also replenishes electrolytes.

FYI, temperature and humidity information come from the NOAA Annapolis buoy.

It’s personal

Fueling is highly personal; it took me a few years to figure out that I need to consume more electrolytes than most people. If I don’t, I start making (even more) dumb mistakes on the race course. Thanks to Hammer’s easy to carry supplements and fuels, I never hesitate to bring along more fuel and supplements than I’ll need each day—even on a weight-sensitive boat like the Snipe. By customizing my fueling to the weather and exertion levels, I stay hydrated no matter what combination of wind and heat and humidity each day brings.

Of course there’s a lot more to winning a regatta than just staying hydrated; training, fitness, and experience also play their parts. But none will work if we don’t bring it on “the day.” For more information about fueling, visit Hammer Nutrition. Include my customer number 84385 on your first order, and both of us win; you’ll receive a 15% discount, and I get a referral credit toward my next purchase—which will help me stay hydrated at my next regatta.

Read more posts about fueling

Transcription: Manual or Auto?

A few weeks ago, we talked about recording interviews. This week, I’ll tackle a related topic: transcribing that recording into text, which requires both accuracy and speed.

There are two basic transcription methods: do it yourself, or farm it out to an automated service. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Here are the top three questions I ask before deciding:

How long is the interview? For anything less than 30 minutes, I prefer to transcribe manually since it gives me another chance to mull over what was said and how it will fit into a story.
How strong is the voice in my head? Transcribing by hand takes me about twice as long as the original interview, but it refreshes my aural memory and gives me a chance to woolgather about the story.
What’s the end goal? If I’m writing a single-person profile, manual transcription can serve as a first draft. If the story will include only a quote or two from each interviewee, dutifully capturing each word by hand will be a waste of time.

Transcription Simplified

The only automated transcription service I’ve used is Rev.com, because so far they’ve met or exceeded my expectations. Their turnaround time is amazingly quick, and the result is surprisingly accurate—though specialized sailing terminology always has to be cleaned up. (That can be improved by remembering to create a custom dictionary when the order is placed.)

For the manual approach, Transcribe puts all the tools on one screen—an improvement I only really appreciated after an hour of toggling back and forth between recording and note-taking windows.

Interviews are the voices that help bring stories to life. The auto-magic of auto-transcription definitely simplifies the process, but it can also interfere with “listening.” For some projects, there’s just no substitute for typing out talk the old-fashioned way.

Spring Sailing Fever

It’s been 53 days since I last went sailing, the longest break I can remember in several decades. And while it’s been a fantastic time full of progress on many fronts, I’m hungry to make sail. It’s like the last day of sixth grade, times ten; adrenaline thumping, eyes jumping from creeping clock to the window full of blue sky and bending trees. As Jimmy Buffett likes to say, It’s five o’clock somewhere.

My characters (and my husband) get grumpy when they’re not able to see the horizon. So do I. Stand up paddling is a great cure for winter’s cabin fever, because simply getting on the water is a large part of the sailing addiction. But there’s still no substitute for making progress without direct physical effort, for harnessing the wind and adjusting course for set and drift. Whether racing or just out for an evening cocktail cruise, the basic appeal is the same; white bow slicing a fresh path through blue water. No matter how crowded or familiar the waterway, I feel like an explorer discovering new territory, because every single sailing experience is slightly different.

Sailing teaches us so many life skills; humility, patience, vectors. The three most important are these:

We are not the center of the universe.
We can’t control wind, waves, or happenstance.
We are happiest when we live in the present.

From the moment we let go of mooring or dock, both safety and happiness are directly dependent on being aware of our immediate surroundings. Which is why conversations in the cockpit are so rich and full and memorable, even when they focus on day to day minutiae. Sailing brings us perspective, which helps us slow down enough to breathe in the beauty all around us.

So now, if you’ll excuse me…

Imagination Creates Reality: Irish Travel Story

When the local artist shares her first choice of painting locations, you just go. That’s how we first “discovered” Clogher Beach, a horseshoe-shaped cove on the west coast of the Dingle Peninsula, which itself sticks out from the southwest corner of Ireland. The sun was shining, punctuated by a few easily spotted rain showers that constantly changed the colors during our hike up onto the bluff. As far as we could see south and north, rocky points jutted out into the ocean. (As the locals phrase it, “next parish west is Manhattan.”) Below, our old friend the Atlantic crashed white against the dark rocks, constant as a beating heart, ready to soothe, annoy, or mesmerize—depending entirely on the viewer’s mood.

Both light and scenery were incredible, and Paul quickly pulled out tripod and camera. But looking around the bluff, my strongest feeling was an uncanny sense of familiarity. There was an obvious explanation (this place had inspired one of my favorite Carol Cronin paintings)… but there was more to it than that. After several minutes, I “recognized” the features of Monument Point on Brenton Island, an important location in my WIP—which meant I’d stumbled onto a real-life version of a peninsula previously seen only inside my head. All it needed was a stone monument to duplicate the place my characters came to when they needed a refreshing view of open horizon.

It’s hard enough for novelists to explain where ideas come from; it’s even harder to explain where we pick up the details that turn those ideas into stories. I created Brenton Island to dodge the restrictions of an “actual” island setting, wanting to adapt its terrain as necessary to fit the story. Out of that necessity grew a point at the southwest tip, which provides both escape and thinking point for various characters. It was only when I got to Dingle that I discovered it already existed—in a place I’d never been before.

A few days later, I found the monument. Another hike on the other side of the peninsula took us up to Eask Tower. Dingle, it turned out, had graciously collected several pieces of this island I’d created in my head—and then scattered them at random, as if to safeguard Brenton’s secrets until it’s ready for its own visitors.

And one more thing: the best local coffee shop in Dingle is called “The Bean.” Guess the name of Brenton Island’s “best” (read, only) coffeeshop!

If I’d been to Dingle before I started writing about Brenton, it would be easy to chalk all of this up to memory. Instead all I can do is marvel at the impossibility of it all: traveling three thousand miles from home, only to find a rocky bluff and a monument (and a coffeeshop name) that so closely resemble a place I built with my imagination. Usually the most important gift of travel is stepping into the unknown; this time, in this particular place, it felt like coming home.