Katey Schultz's Blog, page 16

Mentoring & Critique Services for Writers

I'm very excited to share my new business model today, formalizing services I have been offering for four years. Writer at Large has long been my business name for tax purposes, though other than including it on this website banner, I haven't frequently identified my services with this logo or name. And while I've certainly had a bustling monthly critique service going for a while now, many of my agreements with writers that I mentor are made through email and can change month-to-month. After a lot of hard thinking, a lot of assessing my current students' needs, balancing my budget, and considering the things I enjoy doing most, I've created the following four offerings. These new services and rates will launch at the beginning of September and I hope you find something to pique your interest. If there's something you really want that you don't see, drop me a line and I'll consider working it into the program. You can download these services in a handy flyer, or read below:

Weekly Flashes
Register for 4 weeks of detailed flash fiction or flash nonfiction writing prompts and assignments, delivered to your inbox each Friday and due the following Friday. Critical and supportive feedback will be returned within 7 days, establishing momentum and encouraging regular writing habits. More info.
• 4 prompts with assignments, plus feedback for $120
• 4 prompts with assignments, plus feedback, concluding with 30-minute consult for $135
• Payment in full up front; late work accepted with notice
Monthly Critiques
Register for 4, 8, or 12 months of one-on-one monthly critiques for any fiction or nonfiction writing project. Chapter by chapter, a series of short essays, stories, partial manuscripts—any prose is fair game for this personalized mentorship program that includes line-level comments in the margins of your submission, plus a letter detailing craft concerns, strengths, and tips for moving forward. Register to begin in September, January, or May. More info.
• Submit up to 10 pages per month for 4/8/12 months for $240/$480/$720 (with free consult)
• Submit up to 20 pages per month for 4/8/12 months for $300/$600/$900 (with free consult)
• One-month submissions accepted at anytime; up to 10 pages for $60 or up to 20 pages for $75
• Additional pages prorated at $1.50/page; flexibility on page limit with revisions (inquire)
• Payment in full up front; late work accepted with notice

Consultations
Discuss an ongoing project, share materials and outlines, ask follow-up questions, discuss big-picture revision strategies, discuss submission and publication opportunities, review grant or residency portfolios, focus on a particularly challenging craft aspect, or receive general mentoring support. More info.
• In-person or Skype up to 30 minutes for $30
• Additional billing in 15-minute increments rounded up for $15/increment
• Less than 24-hour cancellation notice or no-show fee is $25

Manuscript Critiques
In-depth review of your full or partial manuscript to provide critical outside perspective on the work, with emphasis on line-level mannerisms, overall impact, and thematic concerns. $75 flat fee + per page rate (depending on level of critique). More info.
• $1/page = Once-through reading with craft letter response
• $2/page = Craft letter response with occasional line-level commentary
• $3/page* = Craft letter response with frequent line-level commentary (*most common)
• $4/page = Same as $3/page plus developmental editing chapter-by-chapter
• $5/page = Line-level changes and edits written into the manuscript itself; no letter

Planning it Out

Slow and steady, change flickers on the horizon. By and large, I have been able to stop working after dinnertime for almost one week straight. This is a tremendous step in the direction--toward balance, toward finding my creative center again. In the evenings, I've been readings Sandra Scofield's Beyond Deserving and a collection of quotes from Ernest Hemingway. Occasionally, I also pick up 66 Square Feet, a delightful little narrative, seasonal cookbook. When I drive, I listen to Audible and just finished a recording of Jen Percy's Demon Camp and up next is Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners.

I was challenged this week to make a plan for July and show it to a friend. If she wasn't holding me accountable, I never would have done it. Penciling in deadlines for articles, a trip to Boston, prep for a guest lecture, and student critiques...it all seemed actually do-able. Note, of course, that I've set the novel aside for the summer. But then I added in prep at the end of July for the week I'll be teaching in Michigan in August (I have to ghost-write blog posts for 2 organizations ahead of time, scheduling their publication in advance). I also timed myself this week on email inbox management and am spending a minimum of 45 minutes per day handling basic email tasks, and an average of almost 2 hours  per day actually responding to people in detail for more involved messages. That's 10 hours per week! A second glance at July had my head spinning.
Glad mine doesn't look this bad!
My friend and I looked at the messy pages and agreed: Well, it's not really going to let up until mid-September. Next question? What do I do in order to keep from slipping into the grip of exhaustion between now and then?

I vow to continue taking time off in the evenings, whenever humanly possible. I vow to have 1 sleep-in day a week so that I'm getting 8 hours at least once. I vow to call the local hot soak spa and schedule a mid-day (= cheap) appointment for a soak sometime in July. I vow to keep reading books, because, while it's not writing, it's surrounding myself with what I love and that's a balm.

August will be busy, but comes with the promise of 11 days free from Internet and phone while I backpack The Wonderland Trail with 4 friends. We'll do almost 100 miles in 9 days and I'm looking forward to unplugging. Meantime: Deep breath. Pop the shoulders. Exhale. And...back to work.

Flashes Wins IndieFab Book of the Year Award

View the War & Military fiction winners here.
Here's the official press release from ForeWord Reviews, which announced their IndieFab Book of the Year winners this weekend in Las Vegas. Flashes of War was one of nine finalists in the War & Military Fiction category and won the award alongside other fantastic indie books in various categories. The official press release is below:

June 27, 2014—The Foreword Reviews’ IndieFab Book of the Year Awards, judged by a select group of librarians and booksellers from around the country, were announced this evening at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Las Vegas.
Representing hundreds of independent and university presses of all sizes, IndieFab winners were selected after months of editorial deliberation over more than 1,500 entries in 60 categories. This year’s list of winners includes Garrison Keillor, Barry Lopez, Harvard Business Review, Georgia Museum of Art, B&H Publishing, Rizzoli Publishing, SUNY Press, Loyola University Press, Chicago Review Press, Valentine D’Arcy Sheldon, and Wayne State University Press, among others. The winners exemplify the best work coming from today’s indie authors and publishers.

Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honorable Mention awards, as well as Editor’s Choice Prizes for Fiction and Nonfiction, were determined by a panel of librarians and booksellers in conjunction with Foreword’s editorial staff. The Editor’s Choice prize for Fiction was given to Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail, written by Kelly Luce and published by the young, Austin-based publishing house A Strange Object. MFA Publications, an extension of one of the most comprehensive art museums in the world—Museum of Fine Arts Boston—was honored as the Editor’s Choice in Nonfiction for She Who Tells A Story by Kristen Gresh, Michket Krifa (contributor).

The complete list of winners can be viewed on the Foreword Reviews website.
Cleis Press/Viva Editions was named Publisher of the Year by Foreword Reviews for their significant work publishing provocative, intelligent books intended to provide readers with practical and inspiring tools to improve their lives. As one of a few thriving independent publishers with the original owners at the helm for over forty years, Cleis Press/Viva Editions epitomizes the spirit of today’s indie publishing. Brenda Knight was appointed as publisher in 2013 and continues this small press’ legacy of producing meaningful work.

Foreword’s IndieFab Book of the Year Awards program was created to discover distinctive books from the indie publishing community across a number of genres. What sets the awards apart is that final selections are made by real judges—working librarians and booksellers—based on their experience with patrons and customers.

About Foreword Reviews: The editors and staff at Foreword Reviews love indie books and the art of great storytelling. They discover, curate, critique, and share reviews and feature articles exclusively on indie-publishing trends. Foreword Reviews’ quarterly print magazine is distributed across the United States to librarians, booksellers, publishers, and avid readers and is available at most Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, indie bookstores, and by subscription. Foreword’s website features reviews of indie books written by a team of professional, objective writers.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

**Flashes of War was just given a highly favorable review from esteemed UK author Vanessa Gebbie in Flash: The International Short Story Magazine. Learn more about the publication here.**
Eight hours of sleep per night. I keep repeating this to myself...and still, I can't will it into reality. Up this morning before 6 a.m. with thoughts of uncertainty about how to meet the magazine deadlines I've scheduled between now and August 1st, I inched my way out of the tent and into the Airstream. Sure, I can (and will) meet those deadlines, but at what cost? My next thought, while coffee brewed, was that it's always two steps forward, one step back.
I am not one given to complaints. I am likewise not one to publicize my personal struggles. But I have been known to candidly share the "realistic" sides of the writing life and I feel good about that. It's summer. It's beautiful. I'm engaged and in love and I'm able to have my basic needs met while pursuing a creative life. There is so muchto be thankful for. And in order to remain true to the mission of this blog, all of that can hold true while I also share the realities of transitioning into this next phase of the writing life.
Call it "catching up with myself" or "compulsive Capricornism" or, plain and simple, forgetting how to relax. Whatever it is, when I put my life on the road and upped the ante with the writing life, I simultaneously put a lot of pressure on myself. That pressure took me far. It always has…until one day, eventually, it caught up to me. I’m ready for a different modus operandi but the boil-over from past efforts tugs at my aspirations. So it’s a few days off, which yields being a few days behind. It’s the weekly date night with my Number One, then a rough start the next morning because of overactive-brain-syndrome. Like all good things, I’m telling myself, I usually have to teeter this way and that before achieving balance.
A few hours into my morning and I’ve caught up on my emails. I finished the backlogged student critiques yesterday (What fun, these are! Such richness and connection!) so now I can look ahead to the rest of today. I have a four hour site visit with a client. I have an allergy shot appointment. I have a few hundred calories to burn with weight training. I have a phone conference. I have two essays to begin. I have…

…to stop adding to that list. Onward into the day, one moment at a time. Thanks for reading and riding the wave with me.

A Few Days Off

I'm working on it. I'm getting closer. The 3 1/2 days I had slated to "go after the novel revision" were vastly re-envisioned after my personal reality check and I'm very proud to say that I did yoga 2 out of 3 days, did Feldenkrais 3 out of 3 days, read until I was finished 3 out of 3 days (in other words--I stopped when I felt like it, not when I "had to" because of other tasks), I ate mostly healthy food 3 out of 3 days, and I declined most Internet tasks throughout each day. I have not yet slept 8 hours a night, but I'm getting there. Oh, also: there were baths. Three of them; good, long, hot soaks. Crucial.

During this time, I also wrote, putting in about a day and half on a set of poems I'm calling dead alaska poems for a small, private, letterpressed, handprinted book a printmaking friend and I will collaborate on. These poems are just for me and were written with the pure pleasure of discovery, turning insight into metaphor, and creating something beautiful to mark an emotional experience in my life. I'll never try to sell them, I don't need to teach poetry, and I don't have to submit these. They're mine. They're rich. They're nearly complete. And I've worked them over with a mind of peace and exploration that comes when I do my best work.

Another day went into the novel, but not to revise. I re-read all the feedback I've received thus far--paid, solicited, unsolicited, or otherwise--as well as my synopsis and vision for the work. I then began to re-read my 3rd revision. The good news? While I liked the writing at certain moments, I could feel that it moved too slowly and that the plot needed urgent tending. I'm too subtle, too patient perhaps, and while I may consider that an art of restraint and patience, any value that holds will likely be lost on my readers.

I did experience one crucial moment as I read along: About halfway through the first chapter, I got an idea for the first line of the 4th revision. I know the scene will start with a pick-up football game on base, but I've been trying to hold off on writing that until the fall--only after I relearn to balance and tend to myself again. The line came to me, I opened a new document, and I wrote it down. I saved it and closed it. A few minutes later, several more lines came. I re-opened the document, added to it, saved it, and closed it again. Part of me wanted to push further; to tend the small lines I'd already written and work them over until another opening announced itself, like a spark popping up from the coals. But the quieter part of me, the part that's been getting almost enough sleep and doing yoga, said no.

Now, the idea is mine to let steep. The rhythm and the opening moment is waiting for me to construct it more fully in my mind's eye. I am first and foremost a visual writer--with auditory being a close second--so I trust that I can build the image of this scene in my mind and ponder it patiently without losing it. I hope that I forget it at times, too, leaving it completely to my subconscious. Later, once I've filled my well, I can draw from that without worry about running dry. It's like a sprint versus a marathon. I've been sprinting and my creative mind has trained itself to draw immediately from the well at the first sign of a few, clear drops. But the back and forth of this has exhausted me, despite having gotten me this far.

Were these really "days off"? Just about. Had I allowed myself to sleep in a bit more, I could say "yes" with more confidence. But they were certainly fulfilling and in the right spirit. While I can't continue to keep my other paying duties and logistical life duties at bay to this extent all the time, at least I've gotten a taste of immersion again. Slowly, the water is rising. In time, I'll be able to dive on in.

A Hard Truth to Swallow

I've never been directionless. I can say this with confidence.

And so to be 35...to be on the heels of a year-long book tour...to be fully self-employed...to be very good at never stopping...

While at the same time, to be aiming for a few more book awards...to have one flight a month now through October...to be planning a wedding...to have planted so many seeds that are coming to fruition with more of exactly what I want to do...

Is an odd place to find myself while also feeling...

Utterly, damn near speechlessly...

exhausted. (Hence my overuse of ellipses in this post. Completing a sentence requires caloric output and a conclusion of thought, which seems beyond me right...now.)

The more I say this out loud, the more I believe it and the more my friends kindly agree. They nod their heads and are happy to hear that I've realized how far I pushed myself. They offer space and advice and support. I know what I need to do; I can see it. I need 8 hours of sleep a night. I need to avoid the Internet. I need to do yoga, exercise, and meditation everyday. I need to drink more tea. I need to take weekends off and I need to stop working after dinnertime. No ellipses there, dear readers. Period.

Oh yes, I can envision the importance of doing all these things.

But I have become so practiced in the art of not wasting a single second, that the mere thought of choosing to restore and relax--to learn to care for myself again--feels almost paralyzing.

I'm getting better, though, and what it looks like is something that must be a close cousin to directionless. I'm trying really hard not to go-go-go. So I sit. I refuse the phone, the computer, any written text, damn near everything while I'm eating my breakfast. The effort it takes not to do anything other than eat feels monumental. I fail sometimes. I fail a lot of times. And other times, when I'm forcing myself away from the to-do's to look out the window and put the pen down and unplug and not even exercise and not even read, what I feel is that scary-relaxed edge of coming down. Of letting go. Of what I hope is the beginning of a summer of returning to my center and re-aligning my priorities so that I can write and love and live for the long haul.

DIY Book Tour

I'm very pleased to share an interview that was published at The Billfold today, featuring some of the things I learned doing an average of 1 event per week for an entire year. This is a tell-all, folks, right down to the bitter numbers and the high points.

Here is the link: What it Costs to DIY a First Book Tour.

Meantime, I'm at Interlochen Center for the Arts to direct the annual Writer's Retreat and will be posting notes from what I've learned later this week. For now, sunset on the lake:

The Preamble

Jeff Vandermeer has something very smart to say in Wonderbook  about the fact that it's wise to create the shortest distance between the creative thought and the page. In the context of an essay about "warming up" to writing, or what I call the preamble, he discusses the scenario some writers set up that requires x, y, and z to happen before they can begin "the real" work on a creative project. Here, x, y, and z can suit your fancy: the house must be clean, the to-do list must be checked off, the kids must be out of the house, you must have walked 4 laps around the backyard and crossed your fingers, your must have finished the book you are reading, you must have re-read the last twenty pages you wrote, you must write in your journal first, etc. You get the point.

I have to admit, 90% of the time, I side with Vandermeer. But when I've been away from the novel for six weeks, a little warming up seems the opposite of detrimental--it seems essential. Since I received my editorial feedback, my preamble has involved getting as much paid, contracted work done ahead of time to clear my plate and buy some time. Not entirely inspiring, but necessary all the same. What's fallen by the wayside as a result is two very important things: getting eight hours of sleep a night and reading for pleasure/study every day. I miss these things and am now frantically trying to end the attentions I give to "other" work and zero in on reading. There's nothing that gets me warmed up faster than an inspiring work of fiction (current pick: Bluesman by Andre Dubus III). And in order to listen closely for those first echoes of my own creative voice, I need to be well rested. Five hours last night didn't cut it. In a few days, I have an early morning flight, 4 different planes (don't ask), and a hit-the-ground running day to kick off the Writer's Retreat. Can I find my center before then? 

Tonight, I'll go see Andrew Bird live at The Orange Peel and that will certainly help. Seeing him always fills my soul and opens my mind--I could go on for days about parallels in our creative processes. Friday, unless there's an emergency, the only thing getting my attention are reading, journaling, packing, and centering. Saturday is a chaos of other things, but I will have half the day to re-read some pages of the novel and the editorial feedback to let them steep one more time. Come Sunday, I'm on a plane--my best place to write, hands down--and here's hoping this condensed version of a preamble to my 4th revision on the novel works its magic.

Reading Lists

I want this book so bad, I could eat it.It's a fine balance for me, my reading list, as I'm always juggling three balls in the air: books by authors I will be presenting with, books by other war lit authors, and books I want to read. Sometimes, I find all three of these in one, such as FOBBIT, which is written by David Abrams. I knew I'd meet present with him, he writes about war, and his book was already on my can't-wait-to-read-it list. Other times, I struggle with my reading list, because the order of events in my life doesn't line up with the order my creative mind wants to encounter different narratives.

Next week, I'll be introducing authors Christine Sneed, Matt Gallagher, and Susanna Sonnenberg--three writers I've crossed paths with in the past few years whose talents and personalities I thought would be a good match for our faculty needs at the annual Writer's Retreat I direct. In order to introduce Christine, I've read her short story collection and her novel. I actually started this process back in March, as Christine and I served on a panel together in Chicago. I enjoyed both books, most especially Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry. But reading these in the midst of my own novel revisions was not specifically helpful to my own work. I might have preferred to read her novel, for example, after I finished my own, and not to read short stories at all while I was trying to teach myself how to write longer. Her work made an impression on me, but without being able to apply that impression in some immediate way to my own work, I wonder how deep that impression can go on my writer-self. Likewise, I've just finished She Matters by Susanna and it's an incredible memoir...but I don't teach memoir until August and I'm not currently working on any nonfiction myself. I loved the book, but might have loved it more if I'd read it while sunning on the porch of a lakeside cabin where I teach every August.

What this means is that I end up reading four or five (sometimes six) books at a time. Right now I'm reading one for professional purposes (Her Last Death), one for war professional purposes (Demon Camp), one for leisure (Sixty-Six Square Feet), one for my writer-self (Bluesman), and dreaming of Claire Davis' Season of the Snake (which is in the attic and I can't find it no matter how many times I look) and Stuart Dybek's two newly released books of fiction (which I can't afford until they're paperback or used). After I return from next week's retreat, though, I'll have 3 weeks before sharing a stage with Sandra Scofield and Reginal Harris, whose books I have ordered by not yet read...and so the list of books I'm reading, and must read, and want to read, continues to grow. Sometimes it makes me grumpy; other times I feel rich with words.

Am I over-preparing? Perhaps. In fact, the majority of panels or shared-author events that I've been involved in have been with authors who are not familiar with my work. Typically, I show up with that writer's words fresh in my mind, questions on the tip of my tongue. If I'm going to meet and work with another writer, I want to know what he/she has to offer and how we differ or overlap. I likewise want to ask that author questions that will be meaningful...perhaps a question they're not usually asked, a question only another writer could come up with. I want to do this not only to engage respectfully with another professional and show that I care about their work, but to provide a better experience for the audience that has come to see us. If all the writers on the panel know each other's work well enough, the panelists can make creative connections and leaps more efficiently and tie each other's work together any number of ways that might be useful to the audience.

In time, I might grow out of this. Right now, I'm still working on my street cred, as they say, and it still feel it's really important to be prepared when I meet other writers. I've shaken hands with more than one writer whose work I admired and who I presented equally alongside with, only to have that writer ask me later, something like, "So, you interviewed soldiers, right?" or "Oh...your book is fiction. Gosh. I had no idea. I'll have to check that out." I don't take this personally, but I do find it...a bit, well...unprofessional. I suppose I'm a traditionalist at heart. To each her own. Meantime, back to the reading list...

Reflecting on Next Steps

I used to look at my married friends and want to ask: What part of yourself did you give up when you got married? I know that sounds horrible, but for my artist friends who spent their twenties becoming artists, and then married in their late twenties or early thirties, it didn't seem like such a naive thing to wonder. I felt certain these friends must have sacrificed something they'd worked hard to actualize as artists, in "trade" for the benefit sharing their lives with someone. The way I saw it, I'd spent my twenties leaving one career (teaching) and embracing another (writing). By some accounts, I did this in a rather extreme, time-warp way by putting my life on the road for three years, then going full-bore into a self-funded book tour and fully self-employed work as a writer.

When I finally came up for air, I was in my mid-thirties, still single, and a goddamn survivor of a lot of rejection and heartbreak. I was also the writer I'd hoped to become...not necessarily in terms of skill or renown, but certainly in terms of devotion, discipline, and balance. I knew what it took to do my best work. I knew what it took to overcome challenge. I knew, in short, how to live the writing life. More than anything I've ever done in my life, I'm most privately proud of that. In my heart, I don't see how I could have behaved any other way than I did (the thought of not writing, of not leaping, in fact terrified me more than any of the failures and challenges I dealt with during those three years).

Very suddenly, and still in my mid-thirties, so much has changed: I no longer want to sleep on friends' couches to save a few bucks (friend's spare bedrooms--yes). I'd rather pay for the hotel. I'm no longer willing to drive a car that could leave me stranded at any minute (although THE CLAW mightily did her best). I don't buy many shoes, but when I do they're not cheap. Same for my computer(s) and desk chairs. I also don't shop at grocery outlets for expired food. If i want something organic, I buy it. I also don't skip my friends' registries and offer just a deeply heartfelt card anymore--I bite the bullet, write the heartfelt card, and send the expensive gift along with it. And you know what? I feel good about all that, even if I'm still trying to figure out how the hell to pay for it all. It's as though establishing the writing life and finishing the book tour finally enabled me to exhale and look down at my own feet, instead of breathlessly focusing on the distant horizon. What did I see? I saw that I was standing on a foundation, one I'd built with help and love from family, friends, and teachers.

Eight months later, I got engaged, bought my first "real car," and started spending money like someone with...well...a career. I still "live with less" compared to the average thirty-something middle-class first-world citizen, I bet (284 square feet of living space, for starters; no "data" plan for seconds...) but for me these most recent changes feel like big steps. So, what would my married friends say that they gave up? I've only had the chance to ask one so far, and she said she didn't give up anything and, in fact, she gained a best friend. That sounded about right to me, and it's certainly what I feel so far in this "new life." Another friend called the week after my engagement and asked, "But wasn't there any teensy part of you that was scared to say 'Yes'? That had doubts?" My answer came immediately and wholeheartedly: "No."

All of which is to say, perhaps the thing I thought might mean a loss or a trade in terms of my autonomy as a writer is, in fact, just a shift. If I look down at my feet, I'm still on that foundation. But it's getting wider and I'm working on the first floor now. The most noticeable change I can see? I'm not pounding nails alone. When I think about building a second story or even a third, I don't feel fatigued, I feel...inspired. Supported. Assured. I've got my Number One at my side, and while some days that means putting the writing work aside to put his needs first, that makes me a better person and brings me a different kind of joy. Other days, it means writing from the desk with a warmer heart than I ever knew I could have...and what better way to strengthen the writing life--to imagine characters as wholly, realistically, and vividly as possible--than with a heart that knows deep love?

Feeling grateful.