Katey Schultz's Blog, page 19

#AWP2014 Recap: The Sessions

Two weeks of conference and touring: from the 17th floor of a hotel in Seattle to the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska and then some, The Writing Life is back on the blog and ready to re-cap. This is as much for me as for my readers out there because summarizing key points from some of the incredible panels I attended helps me solidify the learning. The conference was packed full with over 10,000 attendees and even held fast as the #1 trend on Twitter after the first day. It was everything AWP always is: thrilling, informative, exhausting, and essential--as well as a reunion with friends and networking with many newly made ones. I can't cover it all, but here's the Cliffs Notes from the panels I attended for my own writing's benefit. I also attended panels to learn about teaching methods and content, but want to prioritize the writing aspects here. Next post, I'll write about some key encounters with people that I had, including some surprising moments of fulfilling support that got me through some more difficult social moments.


Another Voice in My Mouth: Persona in Poetry & Prose
I most appreciated Virginia Schenk's assertion that authenticity when writing in persona comes from the details. When I teach flash fiction, I teach that the truth is in the immediate details of our lives and when I wrote Flashes of War, I reminded myself of that daily as I wrote in voices very distant from my own personal experience. Panelist Kathryn Henion shared that, "When we align different perspectives along shared circumstances, we get spectrum and layering, expansion and complexity, that provides more questions than answers. That's a dynamic experience and we do this to see where the overlaps are, to experiment with empathy, to study change and deconstruction, and to offer a focused practice in persona." Finally, Deborah Poe said that "empathy has a dual structure of moving towards and moving away," which I really appreciated hearing because Flashes of War has been called the literature of empathy (a much preferred label than, say, political fiction).

You Can't Go Home Again: Post-Iraq Assimilation
I most appreciated the insight that war is, generally speaking, pretty far away from our current, American, dominant narrative and that because of this, it's challenging to create literature that joins that narrative or gets away from it. This gap is only going to widen as we move more toward kill/capture methods and drone strikes, etc. that increase the physical distance between ourselves and the enemy. If anything, new war literature will be literature that addresses this disconnect between reality and the general public's assumptions. As interesting as that was to hear, half the panelists were missing from this presentation, yet there were five (by my count) other war writers and editors in attendance who easily could have added to the conversation. I wish that a more informal modification had been made in light of the cancellations, so that an organic conversation could have taken place.

Where Witness Meets the Page
I attended this session because I wanted to see author (and presenter) Lorraine Adams at work. She wrote Harbor, among other novels, and I read the first 80 pages of this book in one sitting. She literally swept me away, and as someone who constantly reads writing like a writer and analyzes it, when I find a writer who can carry me swiftly into story, I make a point to read everything they've ever written. Lorraine Adams is such a writer, and the panelists at this session were all writing fiction that pays witness to atrocity. Lorraine talked about artistic empathy and dramatizing complexity. She briefly addressed the idea that writing about war from the outsider's perspective is sometimes impossible--which she, myself, and of course all the other panelists disagreed with. When writing "outside the fog of war," Lorraine contended, we can often "manage the context and the more complicated ideas at play in the larger sphere with more precision than those who are firsthand witnesses of war." On this panel, I also appreciated Ru Freeman's suggestion that "If you don't have a great love for the people you are writing about, you can't write a good story about them." Julie Wu also mentioned the idea of a "seminal moment" as a writer, that is, the moment in which you realized you had to tell the stories you were going to tell. For me, that moment happened in a hotel room off the Atlantic Ocean en route to my cousin's high school graduation. I wrote "While the Rest of America's at the Mall" in that hotel room and I knew there was no going back. I simply had to write about these wars and I would do it until I'd come at it from every angle I felt I needed to explore.

Ben Fountain & Amy Tan
I went to hear Ben Fountain read and Amy Tan was, of course, an incredible bonus. Six or seven years ago, I read Ben's Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, a collection of short stories that's in my Top 10 of contemporary, American collections. Since then, his novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk has received much acclaim and Ben has joined the ranks of us civilian war lit authors adding to the dialogue. I admire his work tremendously. Here are a few quotes I had time to jot down between tears as I was moved by his reading: "The only thing you can control is getting the words on the page. There are so many things you can't control but that will always be in your favor...You figure out the story by writing it. We go on faith that the story will reveal itself if we're diligent and the gods are with us...You follow your interest where it leads you. You don't have a boss, so if you can keep body and soul together and deal with the finances, you're going to be ok...Writers are desperate people. We need everything we can get our hands on."

Pacific Northwest Authors on Their Landscape
I attended this session because, obviously, it felt like coming home. Mentor and friend Claire Davis was one of the presenters and she's the writer I carried with me on my shoulders as I wrote Flashes of War. Her advice came whispered in my ear again and again, and she knows how much that has meant to me, so I wanted to make a point to see her. I really enjoyed her suggestion to consider how comfortable our characters are (or are not) in a given landscape and to ask ourselves, "What is it within the landscape that defines this character becoming an insider?" She also suggested that writers find each character's central association within a particular landscape feature and then build interaction and metaphor from there." Kim Barnes was also on this panel and she suggested that writers "think physically about how a particular landscape feature gets into each individual character's life (ex. sand in a character's pockets) and into that character's experience of each scene. How does the landscape manifest? Does it comfort or harass?" Finally, Kim said that "characters do not belong to the landscape until they have experienced loss there."

Structuring the Novel
Author Tara Conklin suggested that if the structure of your novel draws attention to itself, you need to figure out why and articulate that reason to yourself as a writer. Being aware of this will help you finesse decisions and smooth things out in the long run. She also said that if your narratives are interlocked or interwoven, "know why that is so and how that relates to your personal themes of exploration or interest." Jenny Shortridge offered a host of structural suggestions, including using a hybrid of the three act play and the hero's journey structures. Act one is the set up, act two is the seeking, act three is when the character has to engage with the world in a new way, and act four deals with the outcome or the pull away. If you can know where you are within this structure and understand what your character is up to, you can also start to see the holes in your own work. "Most stories are mysteries," Shortridge reminded, "there's always something to be revealed." Look for mood cues, compression opportunities, and emotional mileposts and then deal with the little touches such as rhythm, echoes, and threads that can later become organic organizing features in the novel (ex. my use of the sun in my current novel-in-progress and how various characters' reaction to it and interaction with it could be written both lyrically and thematically).

Panelist Summer Wood reminded the audience of a Richard Bausch quote: "Every single aspect of constructing a novel is terribly difficult." She said that in her experience, using counterpoint narratives is powerful because it offers energy that single point of view novels don't. She quoted Marylinn Robinson's novel Home, in which a character says that "soul is what you can't get rid of." If we can revise our novels with that in mind, keeping only what we can't get rid of, then the soul will more readily come forth on the page. Ask yourself: "What won't I let go of? What do I insist on keeping?" and then re-examine the manuscript with that in mind so that you can know your power source and organize the work around that. Once we start paying attention to that deep structure and soul of the story, we can look for connections and build our foundation. Later, we can ask ourselves, "Is my narrative strategy sufficient to my novel's deep structure?"

Plotting the Realist Novel
First, the panelists spoke to their methods for coming up with plot, which included: thinking in terms of cause and effect in relation to a specific character; seeing what characters do to further complicate their own lives; beginning with a small instigating incident that sets things in motion and gets you to the second act; having a sense of what feeling you want the reader to have and writing your main scenes around that, then dealing with what grows between them; or to pose a question and spend the novel answering it. Second, they discussed handling problems unique to different novels and shared suggestions to: read The Art of Time in Fiction by Joan Silver; consider what individual parts need to be dramatized in the novel and then invent reasons for those parts to interplay and grow; and to be upfront about the issue in your novel immediately and then go from there--don't make a big secret out of it. Third, the panelists explained what they have learned from their failures: don't over-tend certain parts of the novel by constantly polishing or re-working them because it calcifies your ability to see other things and move forward or in new directions; make a wrong turn if you must, but plow ahead anyway and don't be perfect; when your opening premise has gone thin around page 70-100, you need to keep writing anyway; don't start a book without a sufficient scope; remember that each scene should set up a question and answer a different one and if you get stuck, go back to your overarching question and scope as a motor to propel you forward. Finally, panelists discussed whether plot comes from character or character comes from plot and offered the following insights: plot comes out of the way a character sees the world; look for plot by considering which events allow you to explore the aspects of a particular character that you are most interested in looking at; and, plot creates investment at the beginning of a novel but from there the writer must write to flip that investment to the character.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Subtext
At first, panelists tried to define subtext by describing it as the thing we stumble upon when we trust that our subconscious is a better writer than our conscious mind. One panelist said that "Dialogue is the way in which we say 'no' to each other, so if you get to the 'no' then your subtext is working." Subtext is what goes on in spite of the story and yet it often collides at the end of the story by bursting into something even bigger, where images and nouns that we have been building and repeating all along finally lend themselves to something larger and in your (character's) face. So, how is subtext part of composing a draft? Panelists shared that we need to trust our words and images even if they're flat at first because they come with a sort of kinesthetic feel and eventually we can move them toward a deeper (and perhaps subconsciously intended) meaning. "Trust your sloppiness," said one panelist, and then later you can go back and look at those details that seem to hook and see what you can make of them. Another panelist offered: "Deeper meaning cannot be taught; it has to start with the writer actually caring about the characters" and then we can get our heart and our emotional significance and subtext from there; and still another said: "The subconscious is a two-year-old. It will pick up a piece of dirty tinfoil and say 'Pretty!' So you have to work with it and find what the right action is to reveal the layer of meaning you want for your particular novel or character."

How do we do all this? Try writing about characters that thwart your own (the writer's) intentions and plans for them. Be open to letting your intentions and meanings change from draft to draft. Subtext can therefore be a happy accident that happens when you trust your characters and let go of your authoritarian grip on the plot. If you are a voice-, title-, or image-driven writer (that's me!), you still need to find the point at which you let your characters take control and respect their privacy and opacity; be patient and know that they will reveal themselves eventually, in tune with the plot and narrative arc. Finally, try looking at your own patterns of imagery and ask yourself where they overlap and how that informs plot. Draw a Venn diagram of this and you'll likely be amazed at what your images are telling you.

Off to #AWP2014

Last night I flew to Seattle to attend the annual Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference, otherwise known as AWP. Take about 8,000 writers who are used to (and typically function best when) being alone and put them in a convention center for three days, shake them all around--their hopes, their schmoozing, their lucky bastards and their poor, forgotten undiscovereds--and see what happens. But wait...I know what happens. I've been to this conference before. It's absolutely exhilarating, informative, exhausting, and necessary. I learn something every time; I also get the jitters around famous people and probably say the wrong things to unfamous people and torture myself with indecision in the face of what I consider extreme social duress (though most folks would just call it a "party.") It's a wild ride, that's for certain, and it starts in t-minus 60 minutes from now.

There are 15-20 different panels to choose from every hour for three solid days, and that's no lunch breaks and with added en masse high-profile readings and on-stage interviews in the evenings. This is to say nothing of the twenty or thirty writers and friends I simply have to see, somehow, during 15 minutes shuffling between sessions across the convention center. Did I mention there's no time to eat and that I'm allergic to have the planet? I've got Lara Alt Bars in my purse and I hand-carried hard-boiled eggs on the plane yesterday to get me through today's breakfast. I even packed Starbucks Via instant coffee and my thermos. Those, plus my pen, my Levenger folio, some good friends, a free bed (shared with the many and roving equally exhausted and broke writers just trying to find a way to make ends meet), and I'm ready to go!

I've picked through the catalog and made my hard decisions about where to go, in some cases selecting several sessions because whether or not I can attend will depend on my energy level (Have I eaten that day? Did I sleep the night before or stay out with all the who-zits and what-zits?). Obviously, I'm most excited about the novel-related sessions and the war literature sessions. For the curious, here's a more detailed peak at what I'll be attending: My AWP Schedule, 2014.

Meantime, by the time this whirlwind boils down, I'll be on a plane to Anchorage to start a week-long tour of Southcentral Alaska. The flyer is posted at right.

Revising the Novel: Everything In Its Place

The reverse outlining is complete. I've got my scenes all cut up on little strips of paper and tucked into a plain business envelope to make sure I don't lose any as I gear up for travels later this week. I'm so excited about this next step of going back through, scene by scene, and cross-checking what I've written with what I now know about how my characters look and behave, how they relate to each other, and the general order of events and information in the novel. I don't think it's going to be easy, but I do think it will involve actual writing and that's the thing I've really been missing these past 2 weeks.

Reverse outlining taught me so much else, too, about the different points of view I was utilizing to handle the two main narratives in the novel. I can see now how I can use Aaseya and Rahim's narrator, which were very similar, as one main voice for the Afghan parts of the novel. I can see, too, how the orphan boy's sections, however short and lyrical, are still going to be better left separate from any other points of view in the book. And on another read-through of the ending, I do think that the way all the points of view (and therefore all the narrators) come together in the final scenes is acceptable in terms of craft and exciting in terms of storytelling. In other words, because of some other point of view and structure corrections I've made earlier in the manuscript, I think the rule-bending I'm doing at the end will be an acceptable experience for the reader.

I've also learned that the "pertinent information" in each scene was often tied to flashback or a summary and aside. You'll remember that my instructions from Wonderbook for reverse outlining were to basically block each scene action-by-action and write down any pertinent information on the side margin. That pertinent info, or PI as I've come to call it, might look something like this: "Rahim does not want to work for the Taliban anymore." Basically, it's information that is not directly stated in the scene but is readily implied. Another example of PI might be that "Nathan felt shamed by his father when he was scolded for crossing the highway as a boy." That information comes out in a flashback and it's pertinent, so I don't want to cut it, but because I noted it in the margins--and not in the direct list of actions in the scene in real time for the main narrative--I can see how I can move that kernel of PI around to different places in the novel, strategically placing it for the most impact on the reader and Nathan's character development.

Before all of this learning, I had no idea how to move entire chunks of the novel without separating the scene from the PI. I also wasn't convinced about the narrator and point of view choices I had made, but I didn't know what it was I could fix if anything needed fixing. Reverse outlining has also broken down the novel into digestible parts that give me confidence. The idea of dealing with Nathan's full character arc or the through-line of the novel (What's that, anyway? I know it when I read and critque it, but I don't know it when I've tried to write it myself.) is daunting to me. I have no idea how to begin. But revising one scene? Cross-checking that with the setting map and the character chart? Then writing my way toward a more vivid, full scene that I can believe in? Sure. I can do that. And I can do it in little chunks here and there--on a flight to Anchorage, between public events in Homer, waiting in line in Chicago, on a red-eye to NC, waiting to be picked up at the airport in South Dakota. If this novel is really what I want, those moments are going to have to go toward it. Thanks to reverse outlining, I now have a direction and goal that are enticing, not intimidating.

Marchon Royale Reading Glasses

Well, the time has finally come. All my grandparents had them, both my parents have had them my entire lives, all my uncles and aunts have them as well. A whopping $386 later, I've now experienced my first eye exam and ordered my first pair of prescription single vision reading glasses with scratch-proof and glare-resistant lenses and designer frames. Part of me feels thrilled--wearing my hair in a ponytail will now look much more interesting (shocking, how the glasses change my face and profile when my hair is back) and I've always had a thing for the "smart look" that glasses can lend.
My new frames...
But the other part of me feels baffled--why on earth did I have to pay $169 (plus 6.75% tax) when the same frames are available online for $80? Why don't all lenses come ready-made with scratch-proof technology? As a newbie to the world of eyeglasses, I didn't feel I had the know-how to figure out my size and order the frames accurately online, although I was moderately aware that thousands of people shop for glasses in this way. But bridge length? Vertical and horizontal lens lengths? Stem length? WTF. Add to that the fact that I leave in a week for more book tour, the fact that I hate dealing with returns and refunds related to online sales and, well, I guess I kind of trusted what I was told and signed off on the whole deal.

In some regards, buying for the first time from a professional doc in a personalized setting feels smart. If I'd been shopping online, I would not have opted for the extra $109 I paid for scratch-proof and glare-resistant lenses, but having spoken to the sales rep at the doctor's office, I now know that such a feature is damn near required, especially for reading on a computer. It's also interesting to know now that I have a slight stigmatism in each eye. Apparently if you have this, you're usually born with it...but it's never been an issue for me until now, as other parts of my eye aren't as top-notch as they used to be. On the other hand, is it possible that I could only need standard, non-prescription reading glasses that I could have gotten for $20 at (gasp!) Walmart? I like to believe that my eye doctor, in our small town and whose daughter I happened to teach many years ago, absolutely would have told me if that was the case. However, my visual acuity has not changed. I still have the ability to see things clearly. But my malleability has changed and I'm not able to adjust to near and far distances as quickly as I once was. The eye doc says that is partly due to aging and partly due to the fact that I'm spending 6-10 hours a day reading newspapers, books, printed pages, and on the screen...effectively never allowing my lens to rest and the supporting muscles to shift or vary their uses.

The jury's still out as my fancy-pants glasses are being made and my fingers are crossed that the rush order will get them to me before my flight. But if after wearing them for a week or two, if I don't feel a difference, I'm going to make a stink. A polite stink, but an informed and I'm-on-a-freaking-budget-here, people, stink. One thing certainly rings true from my first experience: The doc says it's quite possible my eyes are not relaxing during the daytime at all. Based on what I'm asking of them, I'm going hours and hours and hours and they're not getting a break and that's taxing everything. The reading glasses, she says, will allow my eyes to relax during the activity I engage in the most. This should not only improve my reading experience, but everything else (even without the glasses) as well. Here's hoping!

Revising the Novel: Character and Setting Maps

In addition to reverse outlining, this week I focused on making simple maps of how my characters are connected to one another and how they move across the map of the fictional village of Imar in Afghanistan. I'm 43 scenes in and so far I've learned that my balance between present narrative and flashback is pretty good (that's a result of my first pass through revising the manuscript...not the punch-drunk of the first draft!). I've also learned that what I thought was a limited 3rd point of view narrator on Rahim in some sections and a different limited 3rd point of view narrator on Aaseya in other sections is actually the same narrator. The tone, confidence, and style are all the same. So I don't know what technical name there is for this kind of narrator--because it's not wholly omniscient--but I do know it can see the world both through Rahim and Aaseya's eyes and that, so far, I think it's working. Depending on the moment, it resides more with one versus the other. Is that "allowed" in fiction? With certain scenarios, yes, I think so. Do have I have consistent scenarios that warrant it? I'm thinking so; but the closer I look and the more critical distance I gain, the better I'll be at answering that question.

Isolating each scene and definitively deciding where it starts and ends is also giving me confidence that I can move certain scenes around with more ease than I initially thought. There's some crucial information that needs to appear earlier in the novel, for example a change on ROE (rules of engagement) orders that come down from Higher and directly effect the mission at hand. Now that I know which scenes contain that information, and where those scenes begin and end, I can more confidently attempt amputating and grafting, for lack of better terms. Notice I say "can," meaning I haven't done it yet. I intend to, but like all good forward momentum, I can't interrupt myself and start tweaking things too soon. I've got to finish this reverse outlining before flying out to the AWP Conference next week (ack!). Somehow, I imagine that being able to hold each scene in my hand on a little slip of paper, makes me feel like I'll be able to do some necessary and deep thinking about the novel amidst the travel and hum-buzz-overwhelm-excitement of these upcoming events.

The character map, a la Wonderbook's suggestions, is teaching me which characters I can cut and which ones are lacking in development. It's reiterating the fact that too many character in my book haven't been physically described at all. And it's showing me that some characters relate to the same character in very, very different ways. That all seems obvious, but seeing it via a visual representation with some shorthand notes alongside will further give me something to ponder as I fly, drive, snowshoe, beach run, and gab-gab-gab my way through the next few weeks. Here are a few snapshots of how things are shaping up and, for what it's worth, I'm going to make this much larger on butcher paper after I travel. For now, it all needs to be portable:

Aaseya & Rahim have drastically different relationships with the Taliban; Rahim never new Aaseya's siblings; Rahim hasn't met the Orphan Boy yet; and the characters with slashes through their names are dead.
North, South, East and West! Now I can describe the convoy's movement more consistently and accurately, and I know where crucial scenes (circled in red) occur on the map, and I know which roads are named what. I also have visual representation of the tightness of the Imar Valley, which matters because claustrophobia and a feeling of being unable to escape both physically and psychologically are a theme in the novel. Not as telling, but basically each and every action is noted even it if it just a thought, pertinent info (PI) is checked on the side margin along with POV, and each scene is numbered. Character names are abbreviated with letters (F = Folson, as in, "Folson farts" on line three of this entry for Scene 12.)

Revising the Novel: Reverse Outlining

Apparently this thing I've been doing has a name: reverse outlining. I write and write and write, then I go back and try to make a map of what I've done. The map is often only readable by me, but when I glance it over from start to finish I can get a rough idea of how much of the novel takes place in present moment scene or summary, versus how much takes place in flashbacks to the past (or the occasional imagined scene or flash forward). In the case of my novel-in-progress, the first reverse outline I did was after I reached my first pass-through with the story itself from beginning to end. In addition to getting a sense for scene, summary, and backstory, I color-coded my map (or reverse outline, as Jeff Vandermeer in Wonderbook would have me say) to indicate which character I was using my limited 3rd POV narrator on at the time. When I was finished, I could follow my story through (and around and under) time as well as "weigh" various characters and how much attention had given to each.

Later--after the grumpy paid editor, after the structural deconstruction to try and set some very basic things right--I'm finding this technique is needed yet again. This time around, I'm reverse outlining each and every single scene in the novel, and each action within that scene. Lots of writers do this on notecards, I guess, but I'm new to novel-land and there's a snowstorm and I didn't have any notecards. So, my Levenger Folio it is...

And so far, what I'm learning is that I did manage to solve some of the major clarity and structure issues of the novel during my previous structural deconstruction (I never called it that before--but I'm referring to what I've been working on for the past three months...the tough stuff, the slow slog, the nitty-gritty fix-it-now-or-kiss-you-novel-goodbye kinds of changes that have made me want to pull my hair out). That's a relief and I was overdue for one, so I'll take it. But I'm also learning that there are some scenes I need to give more attention and space to, in particular, those ones that I now understand were formative for Nathan, my protagonist. This didn't occur to me earlier because I didn't know Nathan well enough.

The other thing reverse outlining is teaching me is that the additional characterization I added during my structural deconstruction was both effective and ineffective. It was effective insofar as I've definitely created distinctly different men in Spartan Platoon. It was ineffective in that I've somehow managed to fail at physically describing almost every single one of them. Actions, reactions, personal issues, preferences--yep and yep. But hair color? Body make and build? Uh...

Which brings me to the other facet of reverse outlining above and beyond scenes and action, and that is character relationships. Thanks again to Wonderbook, I'm mapping who feels what way about whom and how they're all connected. Kindergartener stuff, I know, but, well, have I purported to be anything else? Hah. Not really. I'm proud to be learning (stomp, crash, wail) and will report back as I get further in. So far I've reverse outlined 11 scenes and am just 40 pages into the manuscript. I'm not even going to say how many characters I have (too many)...

Revising the Novel: Writing Poems Instead

Oh, it's so attractive...that grand idea of actually finishing something. I certainly vibed on that rush when writing Flashes of War, which included 26 short pieces and therefore 26 highs to keep me going through the "longer" haul of 6 full length stories. Out here in novel-land, with the winds howling over Racoon Ridge on one side of the Airstream and down the face of Gibbs Mountain on the other, February hanging on like a dark cloud on sedatives, it's hard not to give in to temptation. Certainly, there is chocolate--the ever-present temptation. But on the page, what I'm hungry for is a sense of something tidy and tight, neatly tied up and comin' 'round full circle in that oh-so-literary way. As the novel slips further and further into I'm-lost-in-a-story-of-my-own-making-land, what's a little poet's high here and there going to harm?

No harm at all, and even more delightful is the the strong company of women to share it with. I've been "home" from life on the road since August of 2012, technically a year and a half (although the book tour and a fellowship at Randolph took chunks of that time away). Only now am I finally feeling as though I can consistently enjoy and bask in some of the things I love about living here. That includes a small group of women of the South Toe Valley who write, paint, garden, read, make, raise children, and generally rock their consciously-lived ever-lovin' lives. It also includes the peace (piece? I never know...) of mind and time to delight in a monthly letter and poem swap with a poet-friend back in Michigan...and to tie it all up each month at Burnsville's local, free, inspiring women's open-mic night, Eve's Night Out, hosted by Britt Kaufmann.

In other words, it feels good. And good is how a writer needs to feel when facing 11 events and 5 flights in 4 weeks (coming up!) on top of novel revisions that, however hard I'm working to frame them positively in my mind, seem to behave as tediously as a rebellious teen. This week, I'm housesitting for some dear friends and other than hanging out with their deliriously cool dog, it also means: hot baths every night, a house with central heat, and a fireplace that is controlled by a remote. Oh, did I mention that there are like...rooms...for different tasks and activities...like, you know, space? Yeah. I'm hoping this all adds up to nourishment and productivity, with a keen view of the Blacks to inspire me at the break of each day.

Owning the Owning of a Business and Other Things About the Thirty-Somethings

Maybe hitting 35 comes paired with this for everyone, but lately it feels as though managing some of the basics of my own life has become a full time job. Toss in losing 15 pounds and finding a life partner, and suddenly most of my clothes don't even fit, I have the benefit of ongoing love and shared resources (like cars! like food!--both of which cost less when shared), and spending half my time in another state. Then genetics kick in and I need glasses for the first time in my life, I'm suddenly someone living with seasonal plant allergies, and I'm being tested for hypothyroid. Life, right? Or maybe aging is another term for it. I think I prefer growing up, though, or growing into my stride. Yes, that's it! The icing on my cake of that stride? It's also tax season for a year that includes my first book, a fellowship in another state, a summer gig in a third state, and hiring two people to help me with marketing and publicity. Dizzy yet? I sure am.

I've sold my hiking gear and clothes that stopped fitting and replaced them all with new, unbelievably nice stuff. Hiking is one thing I don't go cheap on, and I get the most out of my gear so I never think twice about it. I've put off taking out a car loan and committed to The Claw until she dies (my sweetie has a Jeep 4x4 and an AWD sedan). I've even made some large business purchases to accommodate for my recent expansion--now being the proud owner of an 11" AirBook, which will make the upcoming 5 flights to 5 cities for 11 events in 4 weeks much, much easier. When it's all said and done, I have to do the Schedule C to show profit and loss for a business, file in NC and VA and MI, as well as federal taxes, not to mention dealing with the nitty-gritty of things like interest paid on student loans and the transfer of money from one small retirement account into another.

For years, I filed taxes on my own--back when it was simple, I had no student loans, and my income was from a single source in the same state that I lived. Things got complicated after undergrad and sometime in the latter half of the first decade of the 2000's I started hiring H&R Block for help. This year, with so many additional needs to attend to with my filing, I'm trying to save a little on my tax prep by learning how to fill out that darn Schedule C once and for all. I keep track of my business expenses and have for years--advertisting, publications, office supplies, car mileage, etc. But now I've got book orders to deal with, some of which are handled through bookstores on consignment, others through bookstores via my publisher, and other still through wholesale through me. Each of these is calculated in a different way (the latter being the most complicated and time consuming on my end, although with the highest payoff). I'm determined to get it right, and thanks to the local Toe River Arts Council, Mayland Community College, and a fine teacher at The Accounting Studio named April who joined to provide free classes, I think I can do it.

Meantime, the novel slipped through my fingers this week. I got two solid mornings in and made progress, but balked when facing my own issues in Chapter 8. Chapter 8, oh good golly god Chapter 8. Nearly every other line need expansion, correction, revision, or cutting. It's a gift to be able to see this, I keep reminding myself; it's the kind of critical distance I've been waiting for me. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that even this year determined writer has been caught throwing the page down in disappointment these past few days. I take heart in the fact that even those moments are part of the process, and that even though I can't see the way through it, I'll damn well make it through eventually.

Revising the Novel: Don't Look Back

If you missed my spotlight on The Camille Conte Show, here's the archived access. The interview begins ten minutes into this streaming link.

Other than finishing the novel and finding a publisher, there's nothing I want to do more right now than go back and start revising it from the beginning. I take this as a good sign, though I'm not giving in to the desire. I've ciphered a few reasons for this.

For a bit of perspective, consider: I began writing the novel at Interlochen in July 2012 and finished the first A to Z run-through at the close of my Emerging Writer faculty fellowship at Randolph College in March 2013. I put it away until summertime, during which I briefly re-read my draft and made minor changes to the best of my ability. I could not, at that point in time, see the weak spots in the narrative. I knew they existed, but so limited in my technical imagination was I that I didn't even have names for what was missing. For the first time in my life, I hired a pricey, professional editor for a critique and received feedback by mid-August.

The feedback was unprofessional, unspecific, harmful, angry, and written as though it had been penned by a dry drunk with a bone to pick. I'm reasonable and have a pretty good head on my shoulders when it comes to feedback, but the writing mentors I showed my "critiqued" manuscript to all agreed--I'd been rammed into a wall without kind words and with a harshness beyond anything having to do with me. This guy was a bully. The number of hours I had to spend sifting through his B.S. are not hours I'll ever get back...and when all the sifting was done, what remained was a three-point list of things to consider. Three points for $900 and a lot of someone else's ego and schtick. Creatively, it took months to recover from this, although I know it has made me stronger. Lots of long, processing conversations with writing friends (including one who had hired the same expensive editor and, I later learned, was equally verbally chewed out). With the bulk of the book tour coming to a close by the first week of November, I finally felt enough time had passed and enough of my traveling was under my belt that I could look at the work again.
I tend to write compressed, so early revision involves adding.
This time, I knew something had changed from the inside out and that whatever it was, was a good thing. I'd done my best to assimilate the three tendrils of actual concrete advice the expensive editor had given me. I'd extrapolated from that and discovered other problems with my narrative--both in terms of structure and character development. Through studying the works of others and thinking critically, I had finally managed to grow just enough that my own work looked a bit foreign in my hands. That's the best time to revise, and as hard as the work has been I know it's a golden opportunity of perspective so I've been doing my best this winter to work with it. These revisions are what I'm calling my first pass through the body of the novel and it's the first time I feel confident--not at every turn, but frequently enough--that I'm actually making changes for the better.

That confidence didn't come immediately. November was treacherous, sometimes yielding only 200-400 words after four hours. Doubt reigned. December was a clusterf*ck of schedules and holidays and I read more than I wrote, pondering and fretting all the while. January came like a rush and finally, I could feel a pulse in the work. There was some slowly building sense of momentum with the pages I had written and I took confidence in that. By the third week of January, I had a handle on the structural issues I was facing and approached problems one at a time as they came at me, more patiently addressing things. If it took several days of thinking and reading, so be it. The writing would eventually break through, often in a rush, and I was fine with that. Even the ruts were followed by peaks, so it all seemed worthwhile...

Of course, now that I know where I'm headed and the kind of character I'm working to make Nathan become, I can guess the flaws in what I wrote back in November, even though those words felt right at the time. The urge to go back is powerful. I'm refusing it because this forward momentum has been hard earned and I've got to solidify my baseline, my main foundation, before it makes sense to go back and nitpick. While Chapter One beckons, onward I go into Chapter Eight and 150 pages into the work. The goal now is to finish this first pass before February 26th, then take time on the road to brainstorm, list, and map the novel's future needs.

Alaska Tour Teaser: The Camille Conte Show, Where NJ Meets AK via NC

Live on air tonight: Friends, please tune in by streaming The Camille Conte live internet radio show at 5:10pm Eastern Standard Time (1:10pm Alaska) for my 20-minute radio interview featuring Flashes of War with award-winning radio personality, Camille Conte. Stream it right here.

Why am I being interviewed from North Carolina by someone (currently) in New Jersey who is a known Alaska radio personality? Other than the fact that I'll be touring in Alaska this March, in short:

"Camille Conte is partnered with the UK company, Wavestreaming, pioneers in online radio technology since 2004, for her stream hosting and radio services provider. Wavestreaming has recently partnered with AOL, leaders in internet radio and long time music company, Sony. Born in the Bronx, Camille grew up in the great state of New Jersey and is a self proclaimed, happily obsessed Bruce Springsteen fan. She loves the Jersey shore, mountain biking, time with family and friends, dinner parties, live music, great conversation and poetry. Camille, a.k.a.. 'CC' is a multi-award winning radio personality. Her most prestigious accomplishment, after only two years on the air in The Last Frontier, was winning the 1991 National Association of Broadcaster's Marconi Award for Personality of the Year, Medium Market. At the time, Camille was only the second woman to ever win the national award and remains the only Alaskan radio personality to be acknowledged by the NAB."

While I'm very much focused on the novel these days, Flashes of War still has a bit more promo work to go and in a month I'll be taking off for another run of tour dates. Starting with the AWP Conference in Seattle (where I'm an attendee, and very excited to hear some of my mentors speak and present)...then 49 Alaska Writing Center is sponsoring my trip to The Last Frontier so that I can speak and teach in Anchorage, in addition to events in Homer, Girdwood, and Palmer. After that I'll be in Chicago to read at W&CF, then speak at Story Week, then at South Dakota State University to speak at Great Plains Writers Conference. Details and links are on the left sidebar. This will be the dead of winter in some pretty small towns, so if you know folks in these areas, I'd be delighted if you spread the word!