Katey Schultz's Blog, page 18
April 28, 2014
Airstream Living: #LiveRiveted
It's been a while since my last Airstream update but that doesn't mean the home improvements have stopped. It's come a long way since that first video tour! Here's a recap:
Leaks
Dad and I have resolved the minor leaks issue down to, well, just one or two stubborn ones. They're small and unpredictable--drops or a narrow stream, only in certain wind and angles of downpour. A few drops never hurt anyone, but when those drops happen to fall right over my library...well, you can guess how this here writer feels about that. If anyone knows of some miracle sealant, do comment.
Polar Vortex Recovery
Yep. I lost the mixing valve in the shower during the first polar vortex. An $85 part and far less damaging that what I had envisioned that first go round when the pipes froze--terrified the ice had reached my hot water heater. Given that we had the coldest winter in 30 years and multiples nights below zero, I think the Airstream faired pretty well. Dad kicked in his smarts, skills, and time this week for the Polar Vortex Recovery by re-designing the shower/bath system so that the same problem doesn't happen again next year.
Carpet
Did I mention I got new carpet for my living room/office/dining room? It's glorious and really helps the space feel like its own "room." It's all about storage, borders, and usage when it comes to maximizing Airstream living space. The carpet is aesthetically pleasing, affordable, easy to install, and provides a great visual barrier leading up to the kitchen.
Out Back
Perhaps my favorite thing about this time of year is that my living space doubles...quadruples, even! Warmer weather means I get to eat meals on the picnic table outside, host friends outdoors around the campfire, and even tend to my "lawn." Out back, Dad and I are building a 14'x10' tent platform. This can be used for yoga, hosting friends, and even seasonal living space with the family-sized tent that I just ordered.
Landscaping
This is the most challenging area for me, as I'm $75 into grass seed (last season--and yes, I used straw and lime) and just can't get much to grow. I'm going to give it another go this season and after that, may have to look at alternatives. Meantime, I've put in for a truckload of mulch and bark chips. The mulch will go under the Airstream where Gus the Superdog makes his summertime bed. This will keep him cooler and cleaner (not dirty or muddy, just pleasantly mulchy) and help create a little more of a vapor barrier between the ground and the belly of the Airstream. Dad did some mold prevention research and found that some folks even put tarpaper down on the grown for a heftier vapor barrier, so I may try that, then the mulch. The back chips will go along a narrow path around the campfire to the tent platform, to keep things tidy and avoid muddy spots during summer rains.
Oh, sad grass!Summertime
For the first time in four years, I get to remain home during the summer. I have a few small trips, including two trips to Interlochen to teach for 1 week each time...but I'm not moving my life anywhere for three months and that feels really, really good. My sweetie is moving here for the summer, too, to cut back on our commutes and give us more time together. I hate the heat and humidity and find that I'm more sensitive to it than others due to my Pacific Northwest upbringing, but I'll be just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the South Toe River and some darn good swimming holes. Let's celebrate!
Leaks
Dad and I have resolved the minor leaks issue down to, well, just one or two stubborn ones. They're small and unpredictable--drops or a narrow stream, only in certain wind and angles of downpour. A few drops never hurt anyone, but when those drops happen to fall right over my library...well, you can guess how this here writer feels about that. If anyone knows of some miracle sealant, do comment.
Polar Vortex Recovery
Yep. I lost the mixing valve in the shower during the first polar vortex. An $85 part and far less damaging that what I had envisioned that first go round when the pipes froze--terrified the ice had reached my hot water heater. Given that we had the coldest winter in 30 years and multiples nights below zero, I think the Airstream faired pretty well. Dad kicked in his smarts, skills, and time this week for the Polar Vortex Recovery by re-designing the shower/bath system so that the same problem doesn't happen again next year.
Carpet
Did I mention I got new carpet for my living room/office/dining room? It's glorious and really helps the space feel like its own "room." It's all about storage, borders, and usage when it comes to maximizing Airstream living space. The carpet is aesthetically pleasing, affordable, easy to install, and provides a great visual barrier leading up to the kitchen.
Out Back
Perhaps my favorite thing about this time of year is that my living space doubles...quadruples, even! Warmer weather means I get to eat meals on the picnic table outside, host friends outdoors around the campfire, and even tend to my "lawn." Out back, Dad and I are building a 14'x10' tent platform. This can be used for yoga, hosting friends, and even seasonal living space with the family-sized tent that I just ordered.
Landscaping
This is the most challenging area for me, as I'm $75 into grass seed (last season--and yes, I used straw and lime) and just can't get much to grow. I'm going to give it another go this season and after that, may have to look at alternatives. Meantime, I've put in for a truckload of mulch and bark chips. The mulch will go under the Airstream where Gus the Superdog makes his summertime bed. This will keep him cooler and cleaner (not dirty or muddy, just pleasantly mulchy) and help create a little more of a vapor barrier between the ground and the belly of the Airstream. Dad did some mold prevention research and found that some folks even put tarpaper down on the grown for a heftier vapor barrier, so I may try that, then the mulch. The back chips will go along a narrow path around the campfire to the tent platform, to keep things tidy and avoid muddy spots during summer rains.
Oh, sad grass!SummertimeFor the first time in four years, I get to remain home during the summer. I have a few small trips, including two trips to Interlochen to teach for 1 week each time...but I'm not moving my life anywhere for three months and that feels really, really good. My sweetie is moving here for the summer, too, to cut back on our commutes and give us more time together. I hate the heat and humidity and find that I'm more sensitive to it than others due to my Pacific Northwest upbringing, but I'll be just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the South Toe River and some darn good swimming holes. Let's celebrate!
April 24, 2014
Revising the Novel: On Sewing, Surgery, & Equations (Part 2)
Earlier in the week, I promised some sample sentences that feel like equations during revision. Now, I'm feeling that's a tall order, but it's worth a try. In order to demonstrate, I think I'm going to have to position the sentences in context within their respective paragraphs, because the balancing is easier to "see" in relation to other things. Here goes:
EXAMPLE 1
Aaseya saw two boys standing across the narrow village street, brown eyes as wide as grapes. A third, the smallest, crouched around the corner of a building like a shrew. The sun threw light across them in a wash of pale yellow, illuminating their black-topped heads into little, golden orbs. Almost like desert flowers, but no, there was nothings sweet about these boys.
This paragraph used to be simply two sentences long--the opening two sentences--followed by dialogue. By adding two more sentences of description, I felt I balanced the paragraph both visually as well as emotionally. The first two sentences are direct and descriptive, and because this is a limited 3rd narrator on Aaseya, the use of "grapes" and "shrew" suggest that she is in touch with her earthly surroundings. But the sentences don't necessarily offer an emotional quality, nor do they seem infused with action. They're frozen and don't hit at anything more to come. I didn't like that when I was revising, nor did I like the sparse description, because this location and scenario of boys beneath Aaseya's window is going to play out several more times in the novel. I added the light, because the sun has a different relationship to each character in the novel and I wanted to be sure to include it. (Although looking at that image now, it seems a bit clunky.) I added the comparison to flowers and the emotional turn--"but no"--because it felt right for my character, Aaseya, and it also suggests that there will be action soon. Those two little words add tension to the entire paragraph, which is now a vivid image on the cusp of breaking into movement. The paragraph is balanced in terms of description, but the emotion remains unbalanced and makes the entire energy of the paragraph teeter on two words, "but no," which are also physically weighted or located near the bottom half of the paragraph. The foundation is shaky, in other words, and that teetering is good. It keeps readers reading, I think.
EXAMPLE 2
The boy stood hesitantly and crossed the street. Aaseya marveled at his little brown calves as flat as kebabs, his twiggy arms hanging from shoulders that jutted outward like wings. That orphan looks half dead, she thought. She watched as he moved the pump slowly, his tiny frame working hard against the pressure. Within moments, water sputtered and hissed, then sang in a stream across his tongue. The boy gulped, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gulped some more.
The change I added to this paragraph during revision is right in the middle: "She watched as he moved the pump slowly, his tiny frame working hard against the pressure." On a literal level, I wanted to more clearly indicate the action in the paragraph and I felt the leap from Aaseya's thought to the water flowing to be too quick. The boy needed to (and did) move during that time, but I hadn't written that movement into my paragraph. Not all movement can, or should, be written...but in this case, I wanted to characterize the boy. The added sentences reveals his physical size and characterizes him as struggling, two important things that matter in this novel in particular. In terms of balancing sentences, the last sentence used to read, "The boy gulped, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand." I added "and gulped some more" for both realistic portrayal of his thirst and for the rhythmic quality the repetition of "gulped" adds to the sentence.
It's worth saying that none of this is really conscious in my mind when I'm revising. I'm not thinking any of the thoughts I have written just now, nor am I actively strategizing. I'm subconsciously strategizing, sure, but on the level of present thought in the moment of typing or handwriting those revised words, I'm really not paying attention to any sort of internal chatter about why things need to be written the way that they do...only how those things feel once they come out. When academicians argue about whether or not creative writing is a skill that can actually be taught, sometimes I think that feeling is what they're talking about. You can't teach it. It's very personal and abstract. But you can absolutely inspire it, you can bring your students to the cusp of it, and you can give them exercises that mimic that feeling by way of imitating others until they start to get an understanding for it on their own and eventually find their way to something that's in their own voice.
The wind kicks up and the ground seems to move along with them. It’s easy to feel hypnotized by that sand, the way the topmost layer will suddenly lift and glide like a creamy brown, horizontal waterfall. There is nothing to stop the sands from blowing over the steep rims of these mountains, all the way to the next continent. Who’s to say there’s anything to stop the men from such disappearance, either.
EXAMPLE 3
That was how the mind worked in such moments. Twisted, private humor, like a teen jerking off in his parents’ bed. A curious sickness that makes Nathan shrink in shame and feel charged with life all at once. The nose went one direction. The ear went the other. The memory almost makes him laugh and before he knew it, he applied well-aimed, direct pressure to the wounds until Doc took over, then wiped the blood onto his DCU’s as he high-tailed it over to the two insurgents his men cuffed. He would kill them. But of course he wouldn’t, the two of them kneeling at his boots with bags over their heads, one of them just having shat himself and the other wailing some tinny, syllabic prayer into the hot air and how different was that, really, from Nathan’s own pitiful shortcomings leaking into this forward march of war?
This is from a section of the novel that is limited 3rd person on Nathan, the protagonist soldier leading his platoon on their last mission outside the wire. He's remembering in this paragraph, so it might seem a little confusing without the rest of the chapter, but I think it still works as an example here. What I want to point out is the balance between sentences and sentence length in this paragraph. There are very short sentences that call attention to themselves and demand two short stops in the middle of the rhythm of the paragraph: "The nose went one direction. The ear went the other." These are meant to be shocking both in terms of length and rhythm as well as content. The next sentence is quite long, perhaps even a run-on, and that is also intentional. The action Nathan is remembering was like a run-on, in a way--very rushed and heated, very fast and full of multiple actions stacked together. In this way, the length of the sentence complements the content, just like it does for the shorter ones, only this time it goes long and for good reason. The effect of these three sentences all in a row is one of tension. The reader is jerked to a stop, jarred by the content, then running to catch up. That's how Nathan felt, too, and that's punctuation working at its best. Doing the job it was meant to do, far above and beyond any actual rules about "proper" use.
After the run-on, another short sentence shocks: "He will kill them." This is followed by a reversal of that sentiment and here we go, see-sawing with emotion and tension and now the rhythm is all over the place as that reversal turns into another run-on sentence that resolves with...a question. A question! And a needling, accusatory, pinpointed one at that. Here, the emotion that was going every which way all of the sudden spirals back toward Nathan and gets him where it counts. The paragraph has come full circle, from Nathan remembering and almost laughing to himself, to Nathan silenced by the way his own mind has just pulled one over on him...a gesture that is not unlike war itself.
EXAMPLE 1
Aaseya saw two boys standing across the narrow village street, brown eyes as wide as grapes. A third, the smallest, crouched around the corner of a building like a shrew. The sun threw light across them in a wash of pale yellow, illuminating their black-topped heads into little, golden orbs. Almost like desert flowers, but no, there was nothings sweet about these boys.
This paragraph used to be simply two sentences long--the opening two sentences--followed by dialogue. By adding two more sentences of description, I felt I balanced the paragraph both visually as well as emotionally. The first two sentences are direct and descriptive, and because this is a limited 3rd narrator on Aaseya, the use of "grapes" and "shrew" suggest that she is in touch with her earthly surroundings. But the sentences don't necessarily offer an emotional quality, nor do they seem infused with action. They're frozen and don't hit at anything more to come. I didn't like that when I was revising, nor did I like the sparse description, because this location and scenario of boys beneath Aaseya's window is going to play out several more times in the novel. I added the light, because the sun has a different relationship to each character in the novel and I wanted to be sure to include it. (Although looking at that image now, it seems a bit clunky.) I added the comparison to flowers and the emotional turn--"but no"--because it felt right for my character, Aaseya, and it also suggests that there will be action soon. Those two little words add tension to the entire paragraph, which is now a vivid image on the cusp of breaking into movement. The paragraph is balanced in terms of description, but the emotion remains unbalanced and makes the entire energy of the paragraph teeter on two words, "but no," which are also physically weighted or located near the bottom half of the paragraph. The foundation is shaky, in other words, and that teetering is good. It keeps readers reading, I think.
EXAMPLE 2
The boy stood hesitantly and crossed the street. Aaseya marveled at his little brown calves as flat as kebabs, his twiggy arms hanging from shoulders that jutted outward like wings. That orphan looks half dead, she thought. She watched as he moved the pump slowly, his tiny frame working hard against the pressure. Within moments, water sputtered and hissed, then sang in a stream across his tongue. The boy gulped, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gulped some more.
The change I added to this paragraph during revision is right in the middle: "She watched as he moved the pump slowly, his tiny frame working hard against the pressure." On a literal level, I wanted to more clearly indicate the action in the paragraph and I felt the leap from Aaseya's thought to the water flowing to be too quick. The boy needed to (and did) move during that time, but I hadn't written that movement into my paragraph. Not all movement can, or should, be written...but in this case, I wanted to characterize the boy. The added sentences reveals his physical size and characterizes him as struggling, two important things that matter in this novel in particular. In terms of balancing sentences, the last sentence used to read, "The boy gulped, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand." I added "and gulped some more" for both realistic portrayal of his thirst and for the rhythmic quality the repetition of "gulped" adds to the sentence.
It's worth saying that none of this is really conscious in my mind when I'm revising. I'm not thinking any of the thoughts I have written just now, nor am I actively strategizing. I'm subconsciously strategizing, sure, but on the level of present thought in the moment of typing or handwriting those revised words, I'm really not paying attention to any sort of internal chatter about why things need to be written the way that they do...only how those things feel once they come out. When academicians argue about whether or not creative writing is a skill that can actually be taught, sometimes I think that feeling is what they're talking about. You can't teach it. It's very personal and abstract. But you can absolutely inspire it, you can bring your students to the cusp of it, and you can give them exercises that mimic that feeling by way of imitating others until they start to get an understanding for it on their own and eventually find their way to something that's in their own voice.
The wind kicks up and the ground seems to move along with them. It’s easy to feel hypnotized by that sand, the way the topmost layer will suddenly lift and glide like a creamy brown, horizontal waterfall. There is nothing to stop the sands from blowing over the steep rims of these mountains, all the way to the next continent. Who’s to say there’s anything to stop the men from such disappearance, either.
EXAMPLE 3
That was how the mind worked in such moments. Twisted, private humor, like a teen jerking off in his parents’ bed. A curious sickness that makes Nathan shrink in shame and feel charged with life all at once. The nose went one direction. The ear went the other. The memory almost makes him laugh and before he knew it, he applied well-aimed, direct pressure to the wounds until Doc took over, then wiped the blood onto his DCU’s as he high-tailed it over to the two insurgents his men cuffed. He would kill them. But of course he wouldn’t, the two of them kneeling at his boots with bags over their heads, one of them just having shat himself and the other wailing some tinny, syllabic prayer into the hot air and how different was that, really, from Nathan’s own pitiful shortcomings leaking into this forward march of war?
This is from a section of the novel that is limited 3rd person on Nathan, the protagonist soldier leading his platoon on their last mission outside the wire. He's remembering in this paragraph, so it might seem a little confusing without the rest of the chapter, but I think it still works as an example here. What I want to point out is the balance between sentences and sentence length in this paragraph. There are very short sentences that call attention to themselves and demand two short stops in the middle of the rhythm of the paragraph: "The nose went one direction. The ear went the other." These are meant to be shocking both in terms of length and rhythm as well as content. The next sentence is quite long, perhaps even a run-on, and that is also intentional. The action Nathan is remembering was like a run-on, in a way--very rushed and heated, very fast and full of multiple actions stacked together. In this way, the length of the sentence complements the content, just like it does for the shorter ones, only this time it goes long and for good reason. The effect of these three sentences all in a row is one of tension. The reader is jerked to a stop, jarred by the content, then running to catch up. That's how Nathan felt, too, and that's punctuation working at its best. Doing the job it was meant to do, far above and beyond any actual rules about "proper" use.
After the run-on, another short sentence shocks: "He will kill them." This is followed by a reversal of that sentiment and here we go, see-sawing with emotion and tension and now the rhythm is all over the place as that reversal turns into another run-on sentence that resolves with...a question. A question! And a needling, accusatory, pinpointed one at that. Here, the emotion that was going every which way all of the sudden spirals back toward Nathan and gets him where it counts. The paragraph has come full circle, from Nathan remembering and almost laughing to himself, to Nathan silenced by the way his own mind has just pulled one over on him...a gesture that is not unlike war itself.
April 21, 2014
Revising the Novel: On Sewing, Surgery, & Equations (Part 1)
I made a big push on the novel revisions this week, through the wee hours of Easter Weekend and into Monday morning. It felt invigorating; thrilling, even. I was immediately reminded of my time on the road when I was able to reside in this state or uninterrupted focus for weeks at time while supported by a residency. I've been posting word counts or snippets of thought in a small social media group of writers and been observing the members' word counts a lot, lately. It has forced me to look at my own word counts and, rather than feel swayed by high or low numbers, what it taught me is all those little stitches into the sentences that I'm making along the way really do add up.
Add up to what, you might ask? As I've reverse outlined and found my way back into my old scenes, teaching myself how to accordian them out, I've been cutting useless words or untrue sentiments and adding sensory detail, line-level metaphor, and place-based depth. I've been trying to create natural tension between the characters on the page by making them talk just a little bit more, or by making them express one thing (but really desire another). So far, these moves have felt surgical to me, like conducting minor alterations that no one will notice by name, but everyone will notice by feel or by some sort of general energy shift and change overall. Perhaps a better analogy is quilting. At first glance, I don't think you can really see the differences. But a closer look reveals an intricate, hand-crafted pattern. Even I don't know what that pattern will look like when it's all said and done, but it does have a bit of its own internal logic...
...Which brings me to another analogy: math. Equations, to be more specific. I've always felt that revision is like balancing equations, but I've never tried to articulate this analogy before. Each sentence has a certain weight and feel and can be balanced or unbalanced depending on the needs of the plot and characters at the time. There's the internal structure of the individual sentence, and there's also the overall balance of that sentence within the context of the paragraph in which it resides. Micro and macro math; tiny decisions with weighty implications. If it's all sounding a little abstract right now, that's because it is (and because I'm sleep-deprived). But I have a hunch that more than a few readers out there know what I'm talking about. Writing is mathematical, for much of its drafting, and I'm enamored with that part of the process. It's absolutely satisfying to feel the imbalance and make it right. Conversly, to feel where an imbalance would produce greater dramatic affect, and to refuse resolution of the equation (and therefore of the emotion, of the tension) on purpose.
In the coming posts, I'll look for verbatim sentences of this in my novel draft to try and demonstrate what I'm talking about.
April 17, 2014
Foreword Review's 2013 Book of the Year Finalists Announced
READERS: I'll be on air at 10am Alaska time, 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern TODAY with Radio Free Palmer. Click the link and then click the tab that says "Listen to FM Stream."
Today's post is a reprint of the press release published this week by Foreword Reviews, announcing this year's Finalists in this very honored competition...including Flashes of War listed as a Finalist in the War & Military Fiction category along with 8 other authors! Winners are announced in July -- let's celebrate and also hold our breath, cross our fingers, and our toes. This one's a biggie for my little green-pea-of-a-book. Feels good...
REVIEW JOURNAL NARROWS THE FIELD IN ITS SEARCH FOR THE BEST INDIE BOOKS OF 2013
TRAVERSE CITY, MI, March 13, 2014 — Foreword Reviews , the only review magazine solely dedicated to discovering new indie books, announced the finalists for its 16th Annual Book of the Year Awards today. Each year, Foreword shines a light on a small group of indie authors and publishers whose groundbreaking work stands out from the crowd. Foreword’s awards are more than just a shiny sticker on the front of a book; they help connect the best indie books to readers eager to discover new stories written by previously unknown authors.In the next two months, a panel of over 100 librarians and booksellers will determine the winners of these prestigious awards. A celebration of the winners will take place during the American Library Association Annual Conference in Las Vegas on Friday, June 27 at 6 p.m. with awards in over 60 categories, cash prizes for the best in fiction and nonfiction, and widespread recognition.
Ready to read the best indie books of the year? Here is the complete list of Foreword Reviews’ 2013 Book of the Year Award Finalists.
Today's post is a reprint of the press release published this week by Foreword Reviews, announcing this year's Finalists in this very honored competition...including Flashes of War listed as a Finalist in the War & Military Fiction category along with 8 other authors! Winners are announced in July -- let's celebrate and also hold our breath, cross our fingers, and our toes. This one's a biggie for my little green-pea-of-a-book. Feels good...
REVIEW JOURNAL NARROWS THE FIELD IN ITS SEARCH FOR THE BEST INDIE BOOKS OF 2013
TRAVERSE CITY, MI, March 13, 2014 — Foreword Reviews , the only review magazine solely dedicated to discovering new indie books, announced the finalists for its 16th Annual Book of the Year Awards today. Each year, Foreword shines a light on a small group of indie authors and publishers whose groundbreaking work stands out from the crowd. Foreword’s awards are more than just a shiny sticker on the front of a book; they help connect the best indie books to readers eager to discover new stories written by previously unknown authors.In the next two months, a panel of over 100 librarians and booksellers will determine the winners of these prestigious awards. A celebration of the winners will take place during the American Library Association Annual Conference in Las Vegas on Friday, June 27 at 6 p.m. with awards in over 60 categories, cash prizes for the best in fiction and nonfiction, and widespread recognition.
Ready to read the best indie books of the year? Here is the complete list of Foreword Reviews’ 2013 Book of the Year Award Finalists.
April 7, 2014
In His Own Words: A Veteran Listens to Flashes of War
Last month in Alaska, I had a few readings in the smaller towns around Anchorage. Little did I know that, when the dates were booked, it was the first weekend of spring break. Add crystal clear sunshine and five inches of powdery snow to that glitch and suffice it to say I had a few events that were very slimly attended. But if I've learned anything on book tour, it's that no matter who comes or how many people make it to your event, you always learn something from the experience. It was my honor and privilege to meet one veteran in particular while I was there, writer and radio personality Dan Grota. Here's what he has to say about his experience with Flashes of War at Fireside Books in Palmer, Alaska--his first time attending an author reading.
At the Bookstore on Flashes of Warby Daniel D. Grota, Retired Army, Operation Iraqi Freedom '04 & '05 Veteran (among many other tours)
Earlier this month I was in Fireside books for some R&R after my Thursday stint volunteering at KVRF Radio Free Palmer. I go there to unwind a spell, talking to the staff about the shared love we all have for anything about books. Dave Cheezem was there, as per usual. The tiny store was quiet as Dave came up to me bearing a book.
"You should be here this Sunday. I'm having this author here for a book reading," he said. Dave held up a book with a dark green cover. The image of a plastic Army man toy (like those I played with as a kid) graced it. I took it, trying to hold it at arm's length so I could read the title (my glasses were buried in my pack at the time). Once things came into focus, I could read the title print which read "Flashes of War-- Short Stories by Katey Schultz."
Dave pointed out a round, yellow label on the cover saying, "Check it out. She won the 2013 Book of the Year from the Military Writers Society of America for Literary Fiction."
I replied, "Really Dave? Cool."
Dave smiled saying, "I think this is right up your alley. It's about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can you be here this Sunday to meet her?"
I mulled it over for a bit. "I don't know Dave, I work on Sundays. When is she going to be here?"
Dave looked at me through those thick glasses of his. "About 2 o'clock. Does that work for you?" He asked.
"Sure, I get off at that time and it is only a five minute drive from work to here. So yeah, I'll be here Sunday a little after two." I put the book back on the shelf and headed out the door of Fireside Books waving goodbye to all. Bundled up for the cold chill of winter that was still on at the time, I headed out to my car for home.
Sunday rolled on in. A quiet day at work with little to do.Time dragged on until the appointed hour of two pm. The painter showed up at the last minute for some work inside the building. After making sure all was ok leaving her there to do her thing, I left late and in a rush for downtown Palmer. Lucky for me, there was parking right in front of the store, free. It was still quite cold outside as I got out of the car. My Army OD Green field jacket was zipped up. The darn thing is beginning to look a little on the worn side, matching the owner's looks on wear and tear. With my Army logo hat, I looked every part of an old veteran grizzled and grey. A proud one at that too.
Once in the store, a tall young woman with long brown hair in a blue down vest greeted me with a warm smile. She was standing next to Dave along with another woman. The woman in the vest was Katey Schultz. She was talking to the other lady who was leaving before turning towards me.
"You must be Dan. Dave was hoping you would be here. He has been telling me all about you," she said, warmly shaking my hand. I smiled and apologized for being late, while giving Dave the "What did you tell her about me?" look at the same time. Dave, trying to look innocent, could only shrug and smile. Katey went on tell me that these were a series of short stories about GI's, their families, and some of the people in the caught up in the middle of the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan. And they were all works of fiction. "Would you like to hear a few read to you?" she asked.
Well, after all, this was a reading--my first, by the way--and I was more than intrigued at what this soft spoken lady from North Carolina could write about war. Dave and I sat down in the little alcove just off to the left of the front door of the bookstore. Katey sat across from us and began to read out loud from the first of the short stories in her book.
After the first story was read, I was impressed. Really impressed. She got into her characters' heads as well as the environment of life in the war and at home after it. The characters were so real to me I asked if she interviewed GI's for her stories. They walked and talked like most GI's did. She said no. It was based on her research and her imagination. She went on to read a few more and I began to tell her some of my stories. Pretty soon we were swapping tales like two old soldiers telling war stories. If someone could have walked in on us they would have sworn it was all real. Except hers were works of brilliant fiction, mine born from a hard reality. No wonder her book won that award.
And it wasn't just stories about GI's in her work, but family members of those that served and even those natives caught in the middle of wars lighting up in their back yards. Katey wrote from the heart and a vivid yet very realistic imagination. A rare thing; a civilian who truly gets it.
At the end of reading session, I had Katey autograph a copy of her book for me. She asked for a photo of the both of us with Dave trying to work the digital camera she had. Now we have a picture of me with a goofy grin in that old field jacket holding the book in my hand and Katey standing next to me with a smile. It was later posted on all our Facebook pages for all to see. I read the book from cover to cover in short order. A good read altogether; worthy of the award it earned.
At the Bookstore on Flashes of Warby Daniel D. Grota, Retired Army, Operation Iraqi Freedom '04 & '05 Veteran (among many other tours)
Earlier this month I was in Fireside books for some R&R after my Thursday stint volunteering at KVRF Radio Free Palmer. I go there to unwind a spell, talking to the staff about the shared love we all have for anything about books. Dave Cheezem was there, as per usual. The tiny store was quiet as Dave came up to me bearing a book.
"You should be here this Sunday. I'm having this author here for a book reading," he said. Dave held up a book with a dark green cover. The image of a plastic Army man toy (like those I played with as a kid) graced it. I took it, trying to hold it at arm's length so I could read the title (my glasses were buried in my pack at the time). Once things came into focus, I could read the title print which read "Flashes of War-- Short Stories by Katey Schultz."
Dave pointed out a round, yellow label on the cover saying, "Check it out. She won the 2013 Book of the Year from the Military Writers Society of America for Literary Fiction."
I replied, "Really Dave? Cool."
Dave smiled saying, "I think this is right up your alley. It's about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can you be here this Sunday to meet her?"
I mulled it over for a bit. "I don't know Dave, I work on Sundays. When is she going to be here?"
Dave looked at me through those thick glasses of his. "About 2 o'clock. Does that work for you?" He asked.
"Sure, I get off at that time and it is only a five minute drive from work to here. So yeah, I'll be here Sunday a little after two." I put the book back on the shelf and headed out the door of Fireside Books waving goodbye to all. Bundled up for the cold chill of winter that was still on at the time, I headed out to my car for home.
Sunday rolled on in. A quiet day at work with little to do.Time dragged on until the appointed hour of two pm. The painter showed up at the last minute for some work inside the building. After making sure all was ok leaving her there to do her thing, I left late and in a rush for downtown Palmer. Lucky for me, there was parking right in front of the store, free. It was still quite cold outside as I got out of the car. My Army OD Green field jacket was zipped up. The darn thing is beginning to look a little on the worn side, matching the owner's looks on wear and tear. With my Army logo hat, I looked every part of an old veteran grizzled and grey. A proud one at that too.
Once in the store, a tall young woman with long brown hair in a blue down vest greeted me with a warm smile. She was standing next to Dave along with another woman. The woman in the vest was Katey Schultz. She was talking to the other lady who was leaving before turning towards me.
"You must be Dan. Dave was hoping you would be here. He has been telling me all about you," she said, warmly shaking my hand. I smiled and apologized for being late, while giving Dave the "What did you tell her about me?" look at the same time. Dave, trying to look innocent, could only shrug and smile. Katey went on tell me that these were a series of short stories about GI's, their families, and some of the people in the caught up in the middle of the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan. And they were all works of fiction. "Would you like to hear a few read to you?" she asked.
Well, after all, this was a reading--my first, by the way--and I was more than intrigued at what this soft spoken lady from North Carolina could write about war. Dave and I sat down in the little alcove just off to the left of the front door of the bookstore. Katey sat across from us and began to read out loud from the first of the short stories in her book.
After the first story was read, I was impressed. Really impressed. She got into her characters' heads as well as the environment of life in the war and at home after it. The characters were so real to me I asked if she interviewed GI's for her stories. They walked and talked like most GI's did. She said no. It was based on her research and her imagination. She went on to read a few more and I began to tell her some of my stories. Pretty soon we were swapping tales like two old soldiers telling war stories. If someone could have walked in on us they would have sworn it was all real. Except hers were works of brilliant fiction, mine born from a hard reality. No wonder her book won that award.
And it wasn't just stories about GI's in her work, but family members of those that served and even those natives caught in the middle of wars lighting up in their back yards. Katey wrote from the heart and a vivid yet very realistic imagination. A rare thing; a civilian who truly gets it.
At the end of reading session, I had Katey autograph a copy of her book for me. She asked for a photo of the both of us with Dave trying to work the digital camera she had. Now we have a picture of me with a goofy grin in that old field jacket holding the book in my hand and Katey standing next to me with a smile. It was later posted on all our Facebook pages for all to see. I read the book from cover to cover in short order. A good read altogether; worthy of the award it earned.
April 3, 2014
Revising the Novel: Logistics on the Screen
Earlier in the week, I discussed the logistics of drafting the novel on paper. When it came time for my second pass-through on the work, I was screenward bound! Even though I wrote by hand, I had also been going back every few days and typing my handwritten pages into the same document in Word and saving it. After some time and space away from the work, I went back to this document and took a long, heavy breath. Time to get messy...
The second pass through kept me working with that same, original, single Word document. In retrospect, maybe that wasn't the best choice--as a lot can be learned by retyping (and inevitably changing) lines. That said, I felt I was under pressure to produce a draft or at least a strong first fifty pages, and so I forged ahead. My revisions were mainly at the line level and dealt also with section breaks, chapter breaks, and parts of the novel. In other words, I was making large-scale structural decisions and constantly tinkering with the table of contents to keep it updated. (Again, here's where Scrivener might have helped.) I did not question the major premises of my characters or plot at all, which was also a bummer. But you can only hold so much in your mind at once, and perhaps this is why novels take so long to write.
Then I sent out that fifty pages to a few kind folks, and those kind folks told me it wasn't ready yet but that they really cared about the work and would truly, honestly be waiting for it when I had it more fully developed. Oh, kind folks. Thank you for existing. And I'm sorry I sent you what I did--I didn't know what I didn't know, you see, and therein lies every novelist's struggle.
Much more time passed. Months and months and months and a lot of my book tour for Flashes of War, in fact. Finally, I came back around to make a third pass on the novel, and this is the process I've been documenting in posts this year. This time around, I did not work in the same, single document in Word. Instead, I opened the main document and then a new document, and literally typed each new word and sentence from the beginning. I did not cut and paste and I still refuse to do so. I work with both documents open side by side on my screen, like this:
I'm going painfully slowly, working scene by scene, line by line, looking for windows and openings where before I had breezed over something. I'm thinking critically about structure on a small scale, the level of scene once again, and tearing without hesitation into later parts of the novel to bring them forward, forcing action and reaction sooner. I'm opening, I'm closing, I'm cutting, I'm adding. It's surgical and intimate and that feels right--and for the first time in a while, it's also exciting. Is it also hard? Hell yes. I don't think that will ever go away.
I couldn't be doing this without all the work I did on paper after that second pass through but before this third pass. What work? This work, and this work here.
The second pass through kept me working with that same, original, single Word document. In retrospect, maybe that wasn't the best choice--as a lot can be learned by retyping (and inevitably changing) lines. That said, I felt I was under pressure to produce a draft or at least a strong first fifty pages, and so I forged ahead. My revisions were mainly at the line level and dealt also with section breaks, chapter breaks, and parts of the novel. In other words, I was making large-scale structural decisions and constantly tinkering with the table of contents to keep it updated. (Again, here's where Scrivener might have helped.) I did not question the major premises of my characters or plot at all, which was also a bummer. But you can only hold so much in your mind at once, and perhaps this is why novels take so long to write.
Then I sent out that fifty pages to a few kind folks, and those kind folks told me it wasn't ready yet but that they really cared about the work and would truly, honestly be waiting for it when I had it more fully developed. Oh, kind folks. Thank you for existing. And I'm sorry I sent you what I did--I didn't know what I didn't know, you see, and therein lies every novelist's struggle.
Much more time passed. Months and months and months and a lot of my book tour for Flashes of War, in fact. Finally, I came back around to make a third pass on the novel, and this is the process I've been documenting in posts this year. This time around, I did not work in the same, single document in Word. Instead, I opened the main document and then a new document, and literally typed each new word and sentence from the beginning. I did not cut and paste and I still refuse to do so. I work with both documents open side by side on my screen, like this:
I'm going painfully slowly, working scene by scene, line by line, looking for windows and openings where before I had breezed over something. I'm thinking critically about structure on a small scale, the level of scene once again, and tearing without hesitation into later parts of the novel to bring them forward, forcing action and reaction sooner. I'm opening, I'm closing, I'm cutting, I'm adding. It's surgical and intimate and that feels right--and for the first time in a while, it's also exciting. Is it also hard? Hell yes. I don't think that will ever go away.
I couldn't be doing this without all the work I did on paper after that second pass through but before this third pass. What work? This work, and this work here.
March 30, 2014
Revising the Novel: Logistics on Paper
I've received a few questions about whether or not I revise by hand, cut and paste on the computer, use Pages or Word or Scrivener, etc. when drafting the novel. Today, I thought I'd take a moment to give a quick play-by-play of how physical composition is working for me these these drafts.
I wrote most of the first draft by hand, sometimes using shorthand or abbreviations (N for Nathan, b/c for because, etc.). I wrote on blank, white pieces of paper that were in my "seconds" pile next to the printer--pages I had printed for something or other at one point in time, but no longer needed. Keeping this early drafting process as informal and "un-precious" as possible helped me take my own expectations down a notch. After all, I was just scribbling on the back of recycled paper, wasn't I? Just leaning into the couch still wearing my pajamas, scribbling away on a clipboard, seeing what would happen. No pressure.
Technically, the Pilot G2 Retractable Gell RollerballI did, however, number my pages and occasionally re-read them, making scribbles and small line-level edits as I went along, then picking up where I'd left off the day before. This was a sort of warm up for me, and over time I added a few complementary sheets of paper to help organize my thoughts--I listed character names and ranks, places, significant dates or events that had happened in the novel so far, and even a few stick figure sketches of physical arrangements for more technical scenes. I had to store the information some place, but wasn't yet ready to leap onto the computer.
Oh, and I did it all with my blue, black, or red Pilot G2 Rollers, of course. They write like a Uniball (my former favorite) but don't explode on airplanes (boo Uniball) and they don't have caps you can lose. Also, they come with handy refills, which I feel quite righteous using. Just don't get the "fine point" version because they lose that Uniball-floaty-feel and start to take on the "over-sharpened pencil" feel.
I wasn't a complete Luddite during all of this, however. After a few days of successful sessions drafting by hand, I found it very helpful to go back to my shorthand writings (which now had added, small changes etched over the top of them), and type what I had drafted into the computer. Inevitably, more small changes were made during this process and in that way, the "real first draft," I believe, is damn near impossible to ever pinpoint. Sentences begin before we even put them on the page, and the very act of writing or typing them changes how they come out from thought to breath to ink. Add in the re-reading and tinkering, then the leap from paper to computer, and somewhere in the middle there's this abstract concept of a "First Draft."
I continued this process until I wrote my way--still by hand--to the every end of the novel in its first run-through. As I was coiling back and typing the scenes from the days or week prior, I used Microsoft Word. I considered Scrivener but decided, ultimately, that it would distract me more than help me. I didn't want to lose my forward momentum by having to learn a new software program. Knowing what I know now, however, I might have taken the time to look into Scrivener more carefully. Writers I know and love, such as Shannon Huffman Polson and Molly Gloss, use this program and swear by it. Certainly now, many drafts later as I'm working scene-by-scene, I realize it might have been helpful.
That's how it worked on paper. next up I'll discuss how revision works for me on the screen!
I wrote most of the first draft by hand, sometimes using shorthand or abbreviations (N for Nathan, b/c for because, etc.). I wrote on blank, white pieces of paper that were in my "seconds" pile next to the printer--pages I had printed for something or other at one point in time, but no longer needed. Keeping this early drafting process as informal and "un-precious" as possible helped me take my own expectations down a notch. After all, I was just scribbling on the back of recycled paper, wasn't I? Just leaning into the couch still wearing my pajamas, scribbling away on a clipboard, seeing what would happen. No pressure.
Technically, the Pilot G2 Retractable Gell RollerballI did, however, number my pages and occasionally re-read them, making scribbles and small line-level edits as I went along, then picking up where I'd left off the day before. This was a sort of warm up for me, and over time I added a few complementary sheets of paper to help organize my thoughts--I listed character names and ranks, places, significant dates or events that had happened in the novel so far, and even a few stick figure sketches of physical arrangements for more technical scenes. I had to store the information some place, but wasn't yet ready to leap onto the computer. Oh, and I did it all with my blue, black, or red Pilot G2 Rollers, of course. They write like a Uniball (my former favorite) but don't explode on airplanes (boo Uniball) and they don't have caps you can lose. Also, they come with handy refills, which I feel quite righteous using. Just don't get the "fine point" version because they lose that Uniball-floaty-feel and start to take on the "over-sharpened pencil" feel.
I wasn't a complete Luddite during all of this, however. After a few days of successful sessions drafting by hand, I found it very helpful to go back to my shorthand writings (which now had added, small changes etched over the top of them), and type what I had drafted into the computer. Inevitably, more small changes were made during this process and in that way, the "real first draft," I believe, is damn near impossible to ever pinpoint. Sentences begin before we even put them on the page, and the very act of writing or typing them changes how they come out from thought to breath to ink. Add in the re-reading and tinkering, then the leap from paper to computer, and somewhere in the middle there's this abstract concept of a "First Draft."
I continued this process until I wrote my way--still by hand--to the every end of the novel in its first run-through. As I was coiling back and typing the scenes from the days or week prior, I used Microsoft Word. I considered Scrivener but decided, ultimately, that it would distract me more than help me. I didn't want to lose my forward momentum by having to learn a new software program. Knowing what I know now, however, I might have taken the time to look into Scrivener more carefully. Writers I know and love, such as Shannon Huffman Polson and Molly Gloss, use this program and swear by it. Certainly now, many drafts later as I'm working scene-by-scene, I realize it might have been helpful.
That's how it worked on paper. next up I'll discuss how revision works for me on the screen!
March 27, 2014
Revising the Novel: Expanding a Scene
I'm home after 11 events in 4 weeks, from Alaska to Illinois to South Dakota. I'm determined to stay on track with the novel and, in that vein, I'd like to continue my series of posts about revision. So far, I've discussed reverse outlining, character and setting maps, writing poetry instead, refusing to look back, ruts and subzeros, early reflections, and thawing things out.
Today, I'm going to go out on a limb and offer a before and after glimpse at two scenes from Chapter 1 that I revised this winter. I'm not putting this in the public forum for critique, as even the "finished" draft I have now will most certainly change again. I'm sharing it, rather, by way of demonstration to reveal how expanding a scene worked for one writer--this writer--and am indeed open to information and responses about how others may have handled these same challenges in their own work. What I was toying with when I made the decisions to cut or expand where I did, were some of the following suggestions:
Details need to build character or advance plot.If a setting is going to be returned to later in the novel, focus on it more initially. If it's not going to be returned to again, don't let your details clog your narrative.Characters need to be distinct and clearly differentiated from each other at the outset.Within the opening pages, it should be evident where we are, who the protagonist is, who/what the antagonist might be, and what one (of potentially many) problems could be faced by the protagonist.A book should "tell" a reader how it needs to be read within its opening pages; therefore narrative voice needs a lot of attention: tone should be readily conveyed through word choice, rhythm, and observation, and allegiances should be clarified as readily as possible.I am writing in limited 3rd point of view, but my narrator also maintains a tone that is always just a beat or two ahead of Nathan. In this way, the narrator can occasionally hint at how people or things Nathan interacts with will play out in the future. I wanted the reader to have a sense for those narrative powers in the opening pages, so I worked on that a bit as I revised, too.
These are long excerpts, but I hope you find them demonstrative and have input or queries about your own experiments with scene expansion! Read on:
The Longest Day of the Year: Chapter 1, Scenes 1-2 [DRAFT, (c) 2014 KMS]
Another fetid sunrise in Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan—this one orange, molten—and if Second Lieutenant Nathan Morris knew enough to stop the spread of today right here, without consequence, he most certainly would. But he does not, and he watches from a security tower inside the wire of this Multi-National Army Base, while sunlight seeps across the modest city as if from a wound. In the distance, mourning doves teeter on electric wires connecting family compounds. Curtains flap in the wind; thin linen in reds, purples, and emerald greens waving like hands from the upper stories of the wealthier family homes. Nathan would like to wave back, to imagine he has done good for the citizens of this city, of this country for that matter, and that this is one small way they have come to greet each other at the break of day. Just as quickly, the thought tires him. Too much has happened; he knows that now. There is no such thing as winning. There is only surviving and even that is uncertain. He watches as a coil of dirt rises from a narrow alley: a male civilian driving a scooter on his way to work, Nathan guesses, and he is right. Block by block, the city alights. Airborne particles of sand catch the sun’s rays, mother nature’s tracer fire, until Tarin Kowt appears lit by a sparkling, muted Armageddon. The view is almost peaceful in its contradiction and, for a moment, Nathan wishes this mess of a war would just stay put in time—frozen, like a postcard for him to ponder a safe distance from its troubling beauty.
Four tours and it has come to this, the last mission on the last day for Nathan and the men of Spartan Platoon. They have seen their own blown to bits: a leg, a torso. One time, a gunner’s nose and ear blown right off his face from the force of a blast. Mr. Potato Head, Nathan remembers thinking, I need Mr. Potato Head and his bucket of parts. That was how the mind worked on you in such moments. Twisted, private humor that made you want to giggle and cry and look the other way all in one breath and before you know it you’re applying well-aimed, direct pressure to the wounds until Doc takes over, then wiping the blood off your hands and onto your DCU’s as you high-tail it over to the two insurgents your men just cuffed. You will kill them. But of course you won’t, the two of them kneeling at your boots with bags over their heads, one of them just having shat himself and the other wailing some tinny, syllabic prayer into the hot air.
Perhaps the best part about today is simply to have made it this far. The last day, a day Spartan Platoon has counted on for nine months. Nathan moves from the tower, the clap of his boots echoing down the stairs like a confirmation. Those are his own feet walking, aren’t they? His own breath coming short and quick across his lips? How can this be, that he is still here and so many others are not? That he sees himself from outside of himself all the time now? Turn it off. There is no time for this today. Nathan has made it this far and that should be enough. He heads toward the staging area where his men have gathered, not a minute behind schedule. 0530 hours. The tick of the second hand. The beat of their hearts. They will complete this last mission and then they will be done.
It is always the smell of diesel fumes, first. Then the men. They gather around their vehicles and wait for orders. If they’ve been out on patrol the night before, which is often the case, there hasn’t been time to shit, shower, or shave before this next mission and here they are in all their glorious funk. Body odor like a cloud of smog. Salt-encrusted, dust-stiffened uniforms. Tiny, pre-game rituals as each man mentally prepares. Specialist Reynolds and the thick plink of tobacco juice spit into a Mountain Dew bottle. PFC Nacho Supreme, polishing his Oakleys like a weapon, cracked thumbs rubbing smooth cloth across mirrored, plastic lenses. These are the two who socked each other that first week on base. Too much alike, both bull-headed and loud but soft as a baby’s ass when it came to stray dogs or little kids begging for chocolate. Inseparable now, juking through conversations like an old married couple and just as dependable. More than once, these two saved a fellow soldier’s life. More than once, albeit indirectly, Nathan has not.
Nathan can feel his platoon’s energy even before the first man speaks. It is as though they’ve already stepped onto the plane, all thirty of them, homeward bound. Questions come quick as bullets, zipping past his ears:
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do, Lieutenant Morris?”
“How long will processing take in Kuwait?”
“I’m hitting the beach, that’s for sure.”
“We don’t have to go through that psych stuff, do we? Those mental tests, on our way out?”
“I just want better chow. Soon as I get home. Better chow.”
Nathan resists the urge to turn back and feels embarrassed. They’re just his men. The same platoon he’s been with the entire tour, give or take. From mindset to mission, he’s responsible. He’s got this. He’d better. He steps into the middle of their circle and begins.
“It’s bad luck, gentlemen.” He tries to calm them, to calm himself. “Home’s a hell of a lot further than a day away. Now—to business…” But the platoon is too amped. Nathan feels their hope like static in the air, the way they lean on every word. He used to love that. They’ve all heard about guys getting chopped up their last day in country. Nathan figured they knew better than to count down, red X’s on calendars like harbingers of death. Apparently some don’t get superstitious, the ones talking now. Others know better than to test chaos; John Boy with the baby face that got him his name, or Private Caldwell whose entire fire team exploded around him (their bodies were like trees, that’s what he told Nathan, like dead trees that fell on top of him and protected him from the blast). “Now—to business…” the lieutenant repeats. Nathan hopes his voice is steady, practiced.
Surely his men want to trust him. He’s gotten them this far. He makes them better than they are on their own. Also—and this they don’t know, should never know—he thinks of his own wife, Tenley, with every stomp of his boot heels, every gulp of water from his Camelback, every needling grain of sand that cuts his concentration. Every cell, every moment leaning closer to her. It takes skill to do this, a leader who gets the killing done, keeping silent vigil for life all the while. Lately, that skill eludes him.
Nathan eyes his men; sees the way they’re expectant—not a liability among them save, perhaps, PFC Rauchmann. Everyone calls him Rock, as in dumb as a—. But what Rock lacks in battlefield skills he overcompensates for in insight, always bugging Nathan about the intentions of a mission or, more and more, the lieutenant’s own inability to fuse one moment with the next. “It’s like you’re sparking, LT,” Rock had said. “Like two wires that shouldn’t be crossed, but they just keep crossing…Sir, that is, I mean, respectfully, Sir.” Nathan had only nodded, as he is nodding now, Rock staring back at him with those my-mother’s-a-psychiatrist-eyes resting inside a skull that contains no decent understanding of hierarchy. An obnoxious little burr planted into the lieutenant’s heel. Nathan opens his mouth to speak, but dry air swallows his voice. His men carry on:
“Shit, at least you guys got homes you want to go back to.”
“I still have a home, but no one’s in it anymore.”
“My wife says she decorated already, hero banners and everything.”
“I still have two years.” This from Huang. Bless him. Barely old enough to vote. The youngest of five brothers; doctors, engineers, and then, Huang: Kevlar bobbing over his eyes, a constellation of pimples across his cheeks. The lieutenant has always felt an affinity for Huang, like rooting for the underdogs in college football. It would be great, wouldn’t it, to see the kid surprise them all?
But most of Spartan Platoon is not like Huang. They wear their excitement during these fat seconds before their lieutenant announces the mission. Nathan remembers that excitement. In high school, he met with the recruiter who came to the assembly hall and gave the big presentation about signing bonuses and world travel. He trained on weekends using the school track and an old set of free weights he found in the garage. Push-ups, sit-ups, a timed two-mile run—all of it with the sweet smell of Indiana corn filling the air around him and the sun burnishing his skin to perfection. He counted down the days to graduation, to enlistment, to freedom. Tossing his cap into the blue sky, tassel rioting through the air, he couldn’t have known that millisecond was all the freedom he’d get. From then on it became his job to bring freedom to others. Eight years in and still, he’s not sure such a thing is possible.
The Longest Day of the Year: Chapter 1, Scenes 1-2 [EXPANSION, (c) 2014 KMS]
Another fetid sunrise in Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan—this one orange, molten—and if Second Lieutenant Nathan Morris knew enough to stop the spread of today without consequence, he most certainly would. But too much has happened. He can do everything right and still be wrong. He knows this now. There is no such thing as winning; there is only surviving and even that is uncertain.
He watches from a security tower inside this Multi-National Army Base while sunlight seeps across the modest city as if from a wound. Coils of dirt rise from a narrow alley below; a male civilian driving a scooter on his way to work, Nathan guesses, and he is right. Block by block, the city alights as airborne particles of sand catch the sun’s rays, mother nature’s tracer fire, until Tarin Kowt appears lit by a sparkling, muted Armageddon. The view is almost peaceful in its contradiction and for a moment, Nathan wishes this mess of a war would just stay put in time—frozen into a postcard for him to ponder a safe distance from its troubling beauty.
Four tours and it has come to this: the last mission on the last day for Nathan and the men of Spartan Platoon. He has gotten them this far and will not stop now, though some have seen their own blown to bits: a leg, a torso. One time, a gunner’s nose and ear blown right off his face from the force of a blast. Mr. Potato Head, Nathan remembers thinking, I need Mr. Potato Head and his bucket of parts. That was how the mind worked in such moments. Twisted, private humor, like a teen jerking off in his parents’ bed. A curious sickness that makes Nathan shrink in shame and feel charged with life all at once. The nose went one direction. The ear went the other. The memory almost makes him laugh and before he knew it, he applied well-aimed, direct pressure to the wounds until Doc took over, then wiped the blood onto his DCU’s as he high-tailed it over to the two insurgents his men cuffed. He would kill them. But of course he wouldn’t, the two of them kneeling at his boots with bags over their heads, one of them just having shat himself and the other wailing some tinny, syllabic prayer into the hot air and how different was that, really, from Nathan’s own pitiful shortcomings leaking into this forward march of war?
Nathan moves from the tower, the clap of his boots echoing down the stairs like a confirmation. His own feet walking. His own breath quick across his lips. For quite some time, he has experienced himself as if from outside of himself, an entertaining little mindfuck, though the jury’s still out on whether this renders him more effective. In either case, there is no time to find out. He crosses the courtyard, returns a few salutes to new recruits in line outside the phone center, and flashes for a moment on his wife, Tenley. He really ought to call. He aims for the staging area and there, at the end of a long row of concrete bunkhouses, Spartan Platoon loads their Humvees.
They haven’t noticed their lieutenant yet, and even he can’t hear himself approach with the air conditioners humming like spacecraft as if the whole tour has been an alien visitation any Afghan would just as soon forget. Hot exhaust swirls at Nathan’s face as he walks down the corridor flashing between slanted, bunkhouse shadows and bright sunlight. It could be Kansas, it could be Oz, it could all be about to blow away and what’s real in war, anyway? Laughter breaks through the pasty air and Nathan recognizes First Sergeant Pilchuck’s snare-drum bray, second in command and the platoon is better for it. Around him, twelve more Spartans work like colony ants to load their Humvees, not a minute behind schedule. 0530 hours. The tick of the second hand. The beat of their hearts. Nathan will get them through this final mission and then he can say it: He did it. They all did. They finished. The smell of diesel fumes hits him then, his throat tightening against the invasion. The human body can be so needy, so easily rattled. It’s all a wonder to the lieutenant as he steps through the last patch of shade and into the open, hot light of that ever-racing sun to greet his men.
Spartan spots their lieutenant and gathers around the Humvees. Three rigs gussied in desert brown, shit brown, and beige—the difference between shades a topic of unending debate. Bullet holes and veiny scratches of rust mottle the side doors and gunner hatches, lending a vintage look that would make AM General manufacturing proud. A caked, desert gumbo has dried on the undersides of each vehicle in the most invasive places. Specialist Reynolds stands on one foot in the center of it all, balancing his Kevlar on the tip of his boot, leg outstretched as if to juggle a soccer ball. His black mop of hair holds the shape of sleep from the night before and whether or not this soldier is trimmed and tied to regulation is of no concern. Combat infantry has bigger bones to pick and Nathan is not the kind of leader with a hard on for boot laces.
Reynolds flicks the Kevlar playfully and Nathan snatches it, mid-air. He feels Spartan’s energy encircle him before the first man speaks and when the questions come, they’re quick as bullets:
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do, LT?”
“How long will processing take in Kuwait?”
“I just want better chow, soon as I get home. Better chow.”
Nathan tosses the Kevlar back to Reynolds and shakes his head. “It’s bad luck, gentlemen,” he tries to calm them. “Home’s a hell of a lot farther than a day away. Now—to business…” But the Spartans are too amped, their hope like static in the air.
Private First Class Nacho Supreme yanks the Kevlar from Reynolds’ hands, his boots knocking over a Mountain Dew bottle of tobacco spit in the process. A viscous, brown pool forms in the dust at the center of the hustle as Supreme, whose eyes remain hidden behind a coveted pair of silver Oakleys, lobs Reynolds’ Kevlar over the Humvees shouting “Go long, go long.” And to think these two socked each other that first week on base nine months ago. Too much alike: attention-seeking and loud up front, but soft as a baby’s ass when it came to stray dogs or kids bumming chocolate. Inseparable now, juking through conversations like comedians and just as dependable on delivery. More than once, these two have saved a fellow soldier’s life.
“I gotsta, gotsta, gotsta get me suh-uh-ome,” Pilchuck croons and as smooth as the college ball star the Spartans swear he must have been before enlisting, he sprints around the head of the line and palms Reynolds’ helmet like he was born holding it. Pilchuck. Upchuck. Everybody calls him Yak but he’s Nathan’s right hand man, so here is where the game stops, all 6’4” of this lean, big-eared First Sergeant ambling back to the huddle with a pink-faced grin that says, Now now…
The Spartans have heard about guys getting chopped up their last day in country. Nathan figured they knew better than to count down, red X’s like harbingers of death. Apparently some don’t feel superstitious, the ones talking now. But others know better than to test chaos; John Boy with the baby face and blond hair that got him his name, or Sergeant Caldwell whose entire fire team exploded around him. (Their bodies were like trees, that’s what he told Nathan, like dead trees that fell on top of him and protected him from the blast.)
“Now, to business…” Nathan repeats, a practiced steadiness in his tone. He’s got the voice. The one that makes them believe. He’s coached them this far, hasn’t he? There is so much they don’t know, but that their LT makes them better than they are on their own is not disputed. Also, this: that Nathan thinks of Tenley with every stomp of his boot heels, every gulp of water from his Camelback, every needling grain of sand that cuts his concentration, every cell, every moment leaning closer to her. It takes skill to do this, a leader who gets the killing done, keeping silent vigil for life all the while. Lately, that skill eludes him.
Yak rejoins the circle and passes Reynolds his Kevlar. Settled, Nathan scans the Spartans, nodding with reassurance. Not a liability among them save, perhaps, Private Rauchmann, and here, the lieutenant’s eyes pause a beat too long. Supreme and Reynolds catch the burr. Rauchmann is Rock, as in dumb as a—, and what Rock lacks in battlefield skills he overcompensates for in insight, always pushing his lieutenant about the moral intentions of a mission or, more and more, Nathan’s inability to fuse one moment with the next. “It’s like you’re sparking, LT,” Rock had said. “Like two wires that shouldn’t be crossed, but they keep crossing…Sir, that is, I mean, respectfully, Sir.” Nathan had rolled his eyes at the Sir, though the other part dug in, leaving a stain of resentment that even now, as Rock stares at Nathan with his liberal-arts-education-eyes, makes the hair on Nathan’s forearms tingle and triggers a tightening of his fists. Nathan makes a move to speak, but dry air swallows his voice and there it is…maybe he is sparking. Spartan carries on:
“Damn, at least you guys got homes you want to go back to,” Corporal DeShawn Taylor says, punctuating the sentiment with the smack of Ice Breakers Peppermint between his teeth. DeShawn is average-looking, but his wide-shoulders and narrow waist lend a superhero look that begs to differ.
“Home’s an interesting concept, isn’t it? There’s a physical home, like the actual structure. But then there’s the feeling of home, the fantasy and the reality. ‘There’s no place like home,’ but I’d posit that—” Rock’s rhetoricals are quickly neutered by a chorus of groans from the rest of the Spartans.
“It’s like, couldn’t they give soldiers some sorta waiver from the recession or whatever?” DeShawn leans against the side of his Humvee and crosses his arms over his chest. A fat clump of dirt drops from the undercarriage onto the ground. “Fuckin’ foreclose on my ass while I’m fighting the hajis. Man, that’s bigger than bull shit. That’s like…T-Rex shit.”
“Dude. Prehistoric dooks,” Reynolds says, pondering.
“I still have two years,” a small voice breaks through the huddle. This, from Huang. Bless him. Barely old enough to vote. The youngest of five brothers. Doctors, engineers, and then, Huang: Kevlar bobbing over his eyes, a constellation of pimples across his cheeks. Nathan has always felt an affinity for this one, like rooting for the underdogs in college football. It would be great, wouldn’t it, to see the kid surprise them all?
But most Spartans are not timid like Huang. Or Sergeant Caldwell, for that matter, who hasn’t been the same since he outlived his fire team, a nervous chatter narrated under his breath as he details his own actions in real time. When the dictation stops, Nathan has seen Caldwell dip his head and cross himself, offering a prayer to the ones he lost, the soldiers who died and left him so obsessively haunted. It’s the others the lieutenant relates to more, recognizing the iizz of excitement in their eyes during these fat seconds before their final mission. Nathan remembers the feeling with the same affinity he might confess to having once reserved for his childhood blankie. A cell-level sort of knowing that, however short-sighted, made him who he is for better or worse. In high school, Nathan met with the recruiter who came to the assembly hall and gave the big presentation about signing bonuses and world travel. Remembers the bell ringing, how half the graduating class stayed put, lured by the idea of something bigger than all the corn fields in their home state of Indiana combined. Seventy-eight days to graduation, fourteen more to enlistment, to freedom, and as the husk-scented air whisked around Nathan in front of the graduation stage, the sun burnishing his skin to a young, hornball perfection, he tossed his cap into the air with a big-sky wish and a fuck-it smile. The tassel rioted toward the clouds and he couldn’t have known that millisecond was all the freedom he’d get, that from then on his job would be to bring freedom to others. Eight years in and still, he’s not sure such a thing is possible.
Today, I'm going to go out on a limb and offer a before and after glimpse at two scenes from Chapter 1 that I revised this winter. I'm not putting this in the public forum for critique, as even the "finished" draft I have now will most certainly change again. I'm sharing it, rather, by way of demonstration to reveal how expanding a scene worked for one writer--this writer--and am indeed open to information and responses about how others may have handled these same challenges in their own work. What I was toying with when I made the decisions to cut or expand where I did, were some of the following suggestions:
Details need to build character or advance plot.If a setting is going to be returned to later in the novel, focus on it more initially. If it's not going to be returned to again, don't let your details clog your narrative.Characters need to be distinct and clearly differentiated from each other at the outset.Within the opening pages, it should be evident where we are, who the protagonist is, who/what the antagonist might be, and what one (of potentially many) problems could be faced by the protagonist.A book should "tell" a reader how it needs to be read within its opening pages; therefore narrative voice needs a lot of attention: tone should be readily conveyed through word choice, rhythm, and observation, and allegiances should be clarified as readily as possible.I am writing in limited 3rd point of view, but my narrator also maintains a tone that is always just a beat or two ahead of Nathan. In this way, the narrator can occasionally hint at how people or things Nathan interacts with will play out in the future. I wanted the reader to have a sense for those narrative powers in the opening pages, so I worked on that a bit as I revised, too.
These are long excerpts, but I hope you find them demonstrative and have input or queries about your own experiments with scene expansion! Read on:
The Longest Day of the Year: Chapter 1, Scenes 1-2 [DRAFT, (c) 2014 KMS]
Another fetid sunrise in Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan—this one orange, molten—and if Second Lieutenant Nathan Morris knew enough to stop the spread of today right here, without consequence, he most certainly would. But he does not, and he watches from a security tower inside the wire of this Multi-National Army Base, while sunlight seeps across the modest city as if from a wound. In the distance, mourning doves teeter on electric wires connecting family compounds. Curtains flap in the wind; thin linen in reds, purples, and emerald greens waving like hands from the upper stories of the wealthier family homes. Nathan would like to wave back, to imagine he has done good for the citizens of this city, of this country for that matter, and that this is one small way they have come to greet each other at the break of day. Just as quickly, the thought tires him. Too much has happened; he knows that now. There is no such thing as winning. There is only surviving and even that is uncertain. He watches as a coil of dirt rises from a narrow alley: a male civilian driving a scooter on his way to work, Nathan guesses, and he is right. Block by block, the city alights. Airborne particles of sand catch the sun’s rays, mother nature’s tracer fire, until Tarin Kowt appears lit by a sparkling, muted Armageddon. The view is almost peaceful in its contradiction and, for a moment, Nathan wishes this mess of a war would just stay put in time—frozen, like a postcard for him to ponder a safe distance from its troubling beauty.
Four tours and it has come to this, the last mission on the last day for Nathan and the men of Spartan Platoon. They have seen their own blown to bits: a leg, a torso. One time, a gunner’s nose and ear blown right off his face from the force of a blast. Mr. Potato Head, Nathan remembers thinking, I need Mr. Potato Head and his bucket of parts. That was how the mind worked on you in such moments. Twisted, private humor that made you want to giggle and cry and look the other way all in one breath and before you know it you’re applying well-aimed, direct pressure to the wounds until Doc takes over, then wiping the blood off your hands and onto your DCU’s as you high-tail it over to the two insurgents your men just cuffed. You will kill them. But of course you won’t, the two of them kneeling at your boots with bags over their heads, one of them just having shat himself and the other wailing some tinny, syllabic prayer into the hot air.
Perhaps the best part about today is simply to have made it this far. The last day, a day Spartan Platoon has counted on for nine months. Nathan moves from the tower, the clap of his boots echoing down the stairs like a confirmation. Those are his own feet walking, aren’t they? His own breath coming short and quick across his lips? How can this be, that he is still here and so many others are not? That he sees himself from outside of himself all the time now? Turn it off. There is no time for this today. Nathan has made it this far and that should be enough. He heads toward the staging area where his men have gathered, not a minute behind schedule. 0530 hours. The tick of the second hand. The beat of their hearts. They will complete this last mission and then they will be done.
It is always the smell of diesel fumes, first. Then the men. They gather around their vehicles and wait for orders. If they’ve been out on patrol the night before, which is often the case, there hasn’t been time to shit, shower, or shave before this next mission and here they are in all their glorious funk. Body odor like a cloud of smog. Salt-encrusted, dust-stiffened uniforms. Tiny, pre-game rituals as each man mentally prepares. Specialist Reynolds and the thick plink of tobacco juice spit into a Mountain Dew bottle. PFC Nacho Supreme, polishing his Oakleys like a weapon, cracked thumbs rubbing smooth cloth across mirrored, plastic lenses. These are the two who socked each other that first week on base. Too much alike, both bull-headed and loud but soft as a baby’s ass when it came to stray dogs or little kids begging for chocolate. Inseparable now, juking through conversations like an old married couple and just as dependable. More than once, these two saved a fellow soldier’s life. More than once, albeit indirectly, Nathan has not.
Nathan can feel his platoon’s energy even before the first man speaks. It is as though they’ve already stepped onto the plane, all thirty of them, homeward bound. Questions come quick as bullets, zipping past his ears:
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do, Lieutenant Morris?”
“How long will processing take in Kuwait?”
“I’m hitting the beach, that’s for sure.”
“We don’t have to go through that psych stuff, do we? Those mental tests, on our way out?”
“I just want better chow. Soon as I get home. Better chow.”
Nathan resists the urge to turn back and feels embarrassed. They’re just his men. The same platoon he’s been with the entire tour, give or take. From mindset to mission, he’s responsible. He’s got this. He’d better. He steps into the middle of their circle and begins.
“It’s bad luck, gentlemen.” He tries to calm them, to calm himself. “Home’s a hell of a lot further than a day away. Now—to business…” But the platoon is too amped. Nathan feels their hope like static in the air, the way they lean on every word. He used to love that. They’ve all heard about guys getting chopped up their last day in country. Nathan figured they knew better than to count down, red X’s on calendars like harbingers of death. Apparently some don’t get superstitious, the ones talking now. Others know better than to test chaos; John Boy with the baby face that got him his name, or Private Caldwell whose entire fire team exploded around him (their bodies were like trees, that’s what he told Nathan, like dead trees that fell on top of him and protected him from the blast). “Now—to business…” the lieutenant repeats. Nathan hopes his voice is steady, practiced.
Surely his men want to trust him. He’s gotten them this far. He makes them better than they are on their own. Also—and this they don’t know, should never know—he thinks of his own wife, Tenley, with every stomp of his boot heels, every gulp of water from his Camelback, every needling grain of sand that cuts his concentration. Every cell, every moment leaning closer to her. It takes skill to do this, a leader who gets the killing done, keeping silent vigil for life all the while. Lately, that skill eludes him.
Nathan eyes his men; sees the way they’re expectant—not a liability among them save, perhaps, PFC Rauchmann. Everyone calls him Rock, as in dumb as a—. But what Rock lacks in battlefield skills he overcompensates for in insight, always bugging Nathan about the intentions of a mission or, more and more, the lieutenant’s own inability to fuse one moment with the next. “It’s like you’re sparking, LT,” Rock had said. “Like two wires that shouldn’t be crossed, but they just keep crossing…Sir, that is, I mean, respectfully, Sir.” Nathan had only nodded, as he is nodding now, Rock staring back at him with those my-mother’s-a-psychiatrist-eyes resting inside a skull that contains no decent understanding of hierarchy. An obnoxious little burr planted into the lieutenant’s heel. Nathan opens his mouth to speak, but dry air swallows his voice. His men carry on:
“Shit, at least you guys got homes you want to go back to.”
“I still have a home, but no one’s in it anymore.”
“My wife says she decorated already, hero banners and everything.”
“I still have two years.” This from Huang. Bless him. Barely old enough to vote. The youngest of five brothers; doctors, engineers, and then, Huang: Kevlar bobbing over his eyes, a constellation of pimples across his cheeks. The lieutenant has always felt an affinity for Huang, like rooting for the underdogs in college football. It would be great, wouldn’t it, to see the kid surprise them all?
But most of Spartan Platoon is not like Huang. They wear their excitement during these fat seconds before their lieutenant announces the mission. Nathan remembers that excitement. In high school, he met with the recruiter who came to the assembly hall and gave the big presentation about signing bonuses and world travel. He trained on weekends using the school track and an old set of free weights he found in the garage. Push-ups, sit-ups, a timed two-mile run—all of it with the sweet smell of Indiana corn filling the air around him and the sun burnishing his skin to perfection. He counted down the days to graduation, to enlistment, to freedom. Tossing his cap into the blue sky, tassel rioting through the air, he couldn’t have known that millisecond was all the freedom he’d get. From then on it became his job to bring freedom to others. Eight years in and still, he’s not sure such a thing is possible.
The Longest Day of the Year: Chapter 1, Scenes 1-2 [EXPANSION, (c) 2014 KMS]
Another fetid sunrise in Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan—this one orange, molten—and if Second Lieutenant Nathan Morris knew enough to stop the spread of today without consequence, he most certainly would. But too much has happened. He can do everything right and still be wrong. He knows this now. There is no such thing as winning; there is only surviving and even that is uncertain.
He watches from a security tower inside this Multi-National Army Base while sunlight seeps across the modest city as if from a wound. Coils of dirt rise from a narrow alley below; a male civilian driving a scooter on his way to work, Nathan guesses, and he is right. Block by block, the city alights as airborne particles of sand catch the sun’s rays, mother nature’s tracer fire, until Tarin Kowt appears lit by a sparkling, muted Armageddon. The view is almost peaceful in its contradiction and for a moment, Nathan wishes this mess of a war would just stay put in time—frozen into a postcard for him to ponder a safe distance from its troubling beauty.
Four tours and it has come to this: the last mission on the last day for Nathan and the men of Spartan Platoon. He has gotten them this far and will not stop now, though some have seen their own blown to bits: a leg, a torso. One time, a gunner’s nose and ear blown right off his face from the force of a blast. Mr. Potato Head, Nathan remembers thinking, I need Mr. Potato Head and his bucket of parts. That was how the mind worked in such moments. Twisted, private humor, like a teen jerking off in his parents’ bed. A curious sickness that makes Nathan shrink in shame and feel charged with life all at once. The nose went one direction. The ear went the other. The memory almost makes him laugh and before he knew it, he applied well-aimed, direct pressure to the wounds until Doc took over, then wiped the blood onto his DCU’s as he high-tailed it over to the two insurgents his men cuffed. He would kill them. But of course he wouldn’t, the two of them kneeling at his boots with bags over their heads, one of them just having shat himself and the other wailing some tinny, syllabic prayer into the hot air and how different was that, really, from Nathan’s own pitiful shortcomings leaking into this forward march of war?
Nathan moves from the tower, the clap of his boots echoing down the stairs like a confirmation. His own feet walking. His own breath quick across his lips. For quite some time, he has experienced himself as if from outside of himself, an entertaining little mindfuck, though the jury’s still out on whether this renders him more effective. In either case, there is no time to find out. He crosses the courtyard, returns a few salutes to new recruits in line outside the phone center, and flashes for a moment on his wife, Tenley. He really ought to call. He aims for the staging area and there, at the end of a long row of concrete bunkhouses, Spartan Platoon loads their Humvees.
They haven’t noticed their lieutenant yet, and even he can’t hear himself approach with the air conditioners humming like spacecraft as if the whole tour has been an alien visitation any Afghan would just as soon forget. Hot exhaust swirls at Nathan’s face as he walks down the corridor flashing between slanted, bunkhouse shadows and bright sunlight. It could be Kansas, it could be Oz, it could all be about to blow away and what’s real in war, anyway? Laughter breaks through the pasty air and Nathan recognizes First Sergeant Pilchuck’s snare-drum bray, second in command and the platoon is better for it. Around him, twelve more Spartans work like colony ants to load their Humvees, not a minute behind schedule. 0530 hours. The tick of the second hand. The beat of their hearts. Nathan will get them through this final mission and then he can say it: He did it. They all did. They finished. The smell of diesel fumes hits him then, his throat tightening against the invasion. The human body can be so needy, so easily rattled. It’s all a wonder to the lieutenant as he steps through the last patch of shade and into the open, hot light of that ever-racing sun to greet his men.
Spartan spots their lieutenant and gathers around the Humvees. Three rigs gussied in desert brown, shit brown, and beige—the difference between shades a topic of unending debate. Bullet holes and veiny scratches of rust mottle the side doors and gunner hatches, lending a vintage look that would make AM General manufacturing proud. A caked, desert gumbo has dried on the undersides of each vehicle in the most invasive places. Specialist Reynolds stands on one foot in the center of it all, balancing his Kevlar on the tip of his boot, leg outstretched as if to juggle a soccer ball. His black mop of hair holds the shape of sleep from the night before and whether or not this soldier is trimmed and tied to regulation is of no concern. Combat infantry has bigger bones to pick and Nathan is not the kind of leader with a hard on for boot laces.
Reynolds flicks the Kevlar playfully and Nathan snatches it, mid-air. He feels Spartan’s energy encircle him before the first man speaks and when the questions come, they’re quick as bullets:
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do, LT?”
“How long will processing take in Kuwait?”
“I just want better chow, soon as I get home. Better chow.”
Nathan tosses the Kevlar back to Reynolds and shakes his head. “It’s bad luck, gentlemen,” he tries to calm them. “Home’s a hell of a lot farther than a day away. Now—to business…” But the Spartans are too amped, their hope like static in the air.
Private First Class Nacho Supreme yanks the Kevlar from Reynolds’ hands, his boots knocking over a Mountain Dew bottle of tobacco spit in the process. A viscous, brown pool forms in the dust at the center of the hustle as Supreme, whose eyes remain hidden behind a coveted pair of silver Oakleys, lobs Reynolds’ Kevlar over the Humvees shouting “Go long, go long.” And to think these two socked each other that first week on base nine months ago. Too much alike: attention-seeking and loud up front, but soft as a baby’s ass when it came to stray dogs or kids bumming chocolate. Inseparable now, juking through conversations like comedians and just as dependable on delivery. More than once, these two have saved a fellow soldier’s life.
“I gotsta, gotsta, gotsta get me suh-uh-ome,” Pilchuck croons and as smooth as the college ball star the Spartans swear he must have been before enlisting, he sprints around the head of the line and palms Reynolds’ helmet like he was born holding it. Pilchuck. Upchuck. Everybody calls him Yak but he’s Nathan’s right hand man, so here is where the game stops, all 6’4” of this lean, big-eared First Sergeant ambling back to the huddle with a pink-faced grin that says, Now now…
The Spartans have heard about guys getting chopped up their last day in country. Nathan figured they knew better than to count down, red X’s like harbingers of death. Apparently some don’t feel superstitious, the ones talking now. But others know better than to test chaos; John Boy with the baby face and blond hair that got him his name, or Sergeant Caldwell whose entire fire team exploded around him. (Their bodies were like trees, that’s what he told Nathan, like dead trees that fell on top of him and protected him from the blast.)
“Now, to business…” Nathan repeats, a practiced steadiness in his tone. He’s got the voice. The one that makes them believe. He’s coached them this far, hasn’t he? There is so much they don’t know, but that their LT makes them better than they are on their own is not disputed. Also, this: that Nathan thinks of Tenley with every stomp of his boot heels, every gulp of water from his Camelback, every needling grain of sand that cuts his concentration, every cell, every moment leaning closer to her. It takes skill to do this, a leader who gets the killing done, keeping silent vigil for life all the while. Lately, that skill eludes him.
Yak rejoins the circle and passes Reynolds his Kevlar. Settled, Nathan scans the Spartans, nodding with reassurance. Not a liability among them save, perhaps, Private Rauchmann, and here, the lieutenant’s eyes pause a beat too long. Supreme and Reynolds catch the burr. Rauchmann is Rock, as in dumb as a—, and what Rock lacks in battlefield skills he overcompensates for in insight, always pushing his lieutenant about the moral intentions of a mission or, more and more, Nathan’s inability to fuse one moment with the next. “It’s like you’re sparking, LT,” Rock had said. “Like two wires that shouldn’t be crossed, but they keep crossing…Sir, that is, I mean, respectfully, Sir.” Nathan had rolled his eyes at the Sir, though the other part dug in, leaving a stain of resentment that even now, as Rock stares at Nathan with his liberal-arts-education-eyes, makes the hair on Nathan’s forearms tingle and triggers a tightening of his fists. Nathan makes a move to speak, but dry air swallows his voice and there it is…maybe he is sparking. Spartan carries on:
“Damn, at least you guys got homes you want to go back to,” Corporal DeShawn Taylor says, punctuating the sentiment with the smack of Ice Breakers Peppermint between his teeth. DeShawn is average-looking, but his wide-shoulders and narrow waist lend a superhero look that begs to differ.
“Home’s an interesting concept, isn’t it? There’s a physical home, like the actual structure. But then there’s the feeling of home, the fantasy and the reality. ‘There’s no place like home,’ but I’d posit that—” Rock’s rhetoricals are quickly neutered by a chorus of groans from the rest of the Spartans.
“It’s like, couldn’t they give soldiers some sorta waiver from the recession or whatever?” DeShawn leans against the side of his Humvee and crosses his arms over his chest. A fat clump of dirt drops from the undercarriage onto the ground. “Fuckin’ foreclose on my ass while I’m fighting the hajis. Man, that’s bigger than bull shit. That’s like…T-Rex shit.”
“Dude. Prehistoric dooks,” Reynolds says, pondering.
“I still have two years,” a small voice breaks through the huddle. This, from Huang. Bless him. Barely old enough to vote. The youngest of five brothers. Doctors, engineers, and then, Huang: Kevlar bobbing over his eyes, a constellation of pimples across his cheeks. Nathan has always felt an affinity for this one, like rooting for the underdogs in college football. It would be great, wouldn’t it, to see the kid surprise them all?
But most Spartans are not timid like Huang. Or Sergeant Caldwell, for that matter, who hasn’t been the same since he outlived his fire team, a nervous chatter narrated under his breath as he details his own actions in real time. When the dictation stops, Nathan has seen Caldwell dip his head and cross himself, offering a prayer to the ones he lost, the soldiers who died and left him so obsessively haunted. It’s the others the lieutenant relates to more, recognizing the iizz of excitement in their eyes during these fat seconds before their final mission. Nathan remembers the feeling with the same affinity he might confess to having once reserved for his childhood blankie. A cell-level sort of knowing that, however short-sighted, made him who he is for better or worse. In high school, Nathan met with the recruiter who came to the assembly hall and gave the big presentation about signing bonuses and world travel. Remembers the bell ringing, how half the graduating class stayed put, lured by the idea of something bigger than all the corn fields in their home state of Indiana combined. Seventy-eight days to graduation, fourteen more to enlistment, to freedom, and as the husk-scented air whisked around Nathan in front of the graduation stage, the sun burnishing his skin to a young, hornball perfection, he tossed his cap into the air with a big-sky wish and a fuck-it smile. The tassel rioted toward the clouds and he couldn’t have known that millisecond was all the freedom he’d get, that from then on his job would be to bring freedom to others. Eight years in and still, he’s not sure such a thing is possible.
March 20, 2014
Great Plains Writers' Conference 2014: War, Healing, and American Culture
Please join me in person or in support through social media this coming Sunday, March 23 through Tuesday, March 25th for the 38th annual Great Plains Writers' Conference. I'm very excited to finally meet fellow war-lit author David Abrams in person (see my guest blog post on Airstream libraries here) and esteemed poet and memoirist Brian Turner, as well. I'm not as familiar with the other featured presenters, Ron Capps (director of Veteran's Writing Project) and author Patrick Hicks, but I'm learning that is the joy of traveling to present on panels and at conferences. I get to study up on people working in the same field as myself and see what they're adding to the dialogue--in this case, the conversation focusing on war, healing, and American culture.
Full flyer here: http://greatplainswritersconference.f...
Full flyer here: http://greatplainswritersconference.f...March 17, 2014
Story Week Festival of Writers 2014
Please join me this week, March 16-21, for Story Week Festival of Writers 2014 sponsored by the Columbia College of Chicago Fiction Department. It's dynamic, free, and open to the public with everything from book signings to panel discussions, plus workshops and agenting or publishing tips. The full schedule is here, and if you're in the area I'd be thrilled to meet you Monday, March 17th at 2pm in the audtorium at the Harold Washington Library on 400 S State Street for a panel discussion titled "Why the Short Story?" One of my all-time favorite authors, Stuart Dybek, will be on the panel alongside dynamic writer and personality Christine Sneed, new (to me) award-winning author Roxane Gay, myself, and panel moderator and friend Patricia Ann McNair.Someone pinch me, please, as I'll be the only single-book author up there by several books and reading for 10 minutes before Stuart Dybek. This is the kind of event I'd honestly find myself going to so that I could learn something, so being on the panel is not only an honor, but a good challenge. I've been pondering "Why the short story?" all week and hope to have a great conversation up there, in front of hundreds, alongside authors whose careers I hope to someday mirror in my own way.
Meantime, stay tuned for more #AWP2014 conference notes in the near, blogging future!
