Katey Schultz's Blog, page 24

The View from Here

A new review for Flashes of War has been posted by Military Experience & the Arts. Short and sweet--and most of all, a call to educators to order this book for their classrooms. If you know someone who teaches, please consider recommending this book to them. Meantime, I'm going to be on NPR's Morning Edition some time in early September, so if we're not connected on Facebook, be sure to send me a friend request so you see the streaming links when the time comes! It will be through WNCW 88.7.

I've been home from the first round of the book tour for one week. During that time, I've critiqued two manuscripts, caught up on email, worked with my all-volunteer trail crew, read a little, revised a few poems, and reconnected with some of my friends. All that's well and good...but I'm exhausted. I've been waking between 3 and 4am almost every day since returning home. Typically, I toss and turn for several more hours as my mind races, then I finally give up around 7 and get out of bed. Coffee is first on the list.

This morning's view from the keyboard.Outside, morning light struggles to filter through the dark green canopy of late summer. But already, mornings are 50 degrees and a few, brown leaves speckle my struggling lawn. Fall is so close I can smell it. The bear hunters are out and about in the hollers up and behind the Airstream, readying their pathways and training their dogs for the coming season. Gus barks his opinion at them from his ridgeline perch each morning. Canine conversations echo between Celo and Woody Ridges. Right here, in the place where sound eddies in the hollers and leaves change--this is where I want to be. Can someone please tie my feet to this patch of Earth? Give my book its wings, and let it handle itself.

There's a racing quality to my time here, which is not what I want home to be about. I know I

I have learned so much since May 27th, the launch of the book. It doesn't even feel as though I have the same brain that I had back then. The networking, the realities of marketing and distribution, the kind and supportive faces of audience members, the way a little pea of a book is finally getting some legs of its own, the way assumptions work ("You must be selling thousands!") against reality, the way the hard work still feels good...all of it, filling me up and pushing me onto this sturdier foundation.

When I started this journey, all I wanted was to be able to work hard and look back knowing that I did everything in my power to help Flashes of War make its mark. Give my time and resources, and the incredible folks I hired to pull this off, I feel that is being achieved. A few days from now, I'll be hearing back from the editor I hired to provide me with my first, formal, full critique of my novel (set in Afghanistan). Will this be the ground floor of this "house" I'm building? Something to set on this new foundation? One wall at a time, I sure as heck hope so.

Growing Pains & Small Victories

Remember these guys? Growing Pains. Oh, I loved it!About two weeks ago, I spent an evening with some lovely poets I know up in Michigan. We talked about poetry, of course, but also about life. I was explaining to the poets that I'd just found out my waitressing job would no longer be waiting for me when I returned to North Carolina. How would I earn that average of $700 per month I'd been counting on? How would I replace the physical and social aspects that waitressing so readily offers to balance my writing life?

"Growing pains," the poet said.

"Growing pains?"

"Yeah. Growing pains," she said." It sounds like life is happening to you whether you think you're ready or not. But you are ready. You set these things in motion. Now they're coming to fruition."

"Oh," I said.

She had a point. Poets always have a point (well, when they're giving advice, at least). I knew losing my job was a possibility--after all, I don't keep a very easy schedule and when push came to shove, I had to choose between the book tour and guaranteed work. There's no way any business should make as many accommodations as my schedule demands. I've been self-employed for a little over 4 years, doing occasional waitress or teaching work. Now, officially, I am fully self-employed. After the initial growing pains, I have to say: It feels freaking awesome!

Now, dear readers, you know that I love waitressing. And I especially love it right here, in Mitchell and Yancey Counties, where I know 80% of the folks who walk in the door and I care about their lives and enjoy their company and delightful nuances. I also identify as a waitress or a member of the "food service community." I've worked in food service for a combined total of about 8 years, from grill chef to waitress to barista to sandwich maker to pint pourer to truffle stocker. Of course, there were those nights my back hurt mopping or when the tips weren't great or I screwed up an order or couldn't seem to do anything fast enough. But those moments were few and far between what amounts to a boatload of dirty jokes behind the bar, late nights singing overloud to Metallica with the pie guys (while cleaning), making new friends, caring about people's lives, and eating fantastic free food.

But since that news came my way and I've traveled back home to North Carolina to embrace the growing pains, the good news just keeps coming: I've been offered an honorarium to speak at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. Sure, that happens all the time in this world. People get honorariums to speak at colleges. That's life, I guess. But to receive a message asking if such-and-such amount plus dinner would be an "acceptable honorarium" felt pretty great. Hey, I thought to myself, people see the immediate value in what I do. They're aware of my skills and they are willing to pay for them. In the case of this honorarium, my skills will be "an evening with the author" that's a campus-wide event.

After that, came a delightful phone conference with the founder of Words After War, a new literary non-profit that is very quickly hitting the high marks in the writing and veteran communities. I've been invited to teach a day-long workshop in New York City for the organization, culminating in a reading and author Q&A. Appropriately, it pays. Even more appropriately, the philosophy of this organization is absolutely something I can get behind and, in fact, is what I've been trying to find for quite some time.

And just today, an invite to be a presenter at the Great Plains Writers Conference came in for March 2014. Their theme this year is Coming Home: War, Healing, & American Culture. As with most conferences, details are sussed out later (after grant funding is secured), but I won't be traveling there at a financial loss. Besides, if anyone believes in the power of those other "gains" that can't be measured--connections, conversations, memorable moments, a shift in thinking--I do. I'm already counting the days until the conference.

Add to this an email from a new fan who has cited my book in her dissertation, a new review that was published last night, a request from Afghan Scene Magazine to reprint one of my stories (they're an English language magazine in Afghanistan with 8,000 subscribers), a neighbor purchasing TEN COPIES of the book out of the back of my car (to give as gifts), and two new memoir students coming my way for monthly critiques and it sure feels like I'll be able to make up that $700 per month. It won't be easy, and it won't always come all at once, but I certainly feel grateful for this recent blessing of events.

I understand that it's a bit nontraditional to be so frank about money but I made a decision a long time ago to share things in my professional realm that were not only realistic, but that would inform others along the same path. I don't identify as a role model, but I sure have benefitted from role models in my own life. However, the one thing that always seemed to be missing from those role models were the hard numbers and facts. Too many writers (and artists) were hush-hush about the financial realities of trying to live their dreams. I knew that if I was going to make a go at this writing life, I'd have to be very honest with myself about the highs, lows, risks, and victories. If I was being honest with myself, why would I keep that honesty from my readership? In that past, that has meant posts about income, rejections, uncertainty, and the hell of a broken heart. But it's also included small victories, such as this next phase in The Writing Life. Here we go...!

Buffalo Trace & Woodford Reserve Distillery Tours

What's the best part about a 900-mile drive home with no air conditioning? I simply had to stop for a break...so why not stop on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail? Here are a few images, a few captions, a 5-minute explanation defining Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, more images, and some tunes. A snapshot of my first experience of Kentucky's Bourbon Trail. I will definitely be back for more:

Two Days for a Miracle

Well, I've worked myself into a pickle here in Michigan with a novel revision due just as soon as I can finish it (aka now) and boatloads of work waiting in the wings. It's a good problem to have, I suppose, but the only way through it is...through it. I've sequestered myself in the home and writing studio of author, mentor, and dear friend Anne-Marie Oomen. To say this place in Empire, MI is beautiful is hardly saying enough:



I have two days to get through the remaining revisions and one of those days has already passed. That day, I tackled pages 120-160. That leaves today to tackle 160-210. Thankfully, I think the latter chapters involve a lot of dialogue as the final moment of conflict comes to a head. Much of that dialogue isn't going to change. I know this for certain. But the epilogue--right now the final 20 pages of the book--needs serious surgery. I've been contemplating that surgery all summer, letting the ideas steep. I'm ready to make big moves and cuts and additions as needed, but there really are only so many hours in the day. More to the point, I only have so many ounces of concentration left in my brain before it fries. It's been a long, albeit very enriching summer. Sprinkle in a bit of emotional b.s. I could have done without, a handful (ok, a lot) of public events, and I'm about toast.

Toast never has been and never will be a recipe for revision, but I'm going to give it my best. For one more day. Then I'm touring bourbon distilleries in Louisville (the place to do it) with an artist friend and rocking out to my iPod mix for 900 southbound miles. Gus and the Airstream await. My hiking boots await. And all the beautiful mess of the world spins and spins and spins.

Interlochen College: Memoir Course Day 3

Looking across a classroom filled with the bright, eager faces of my adult students never ceases to inspire me. This week, I happen to have 16 women. As varied as their ages and their smiles are, more than anything else they bring different life experiences to the table. I spent the afternoon in back-to-back tutorials with my students, discussing their work one-on-one. We concluded today's studies with my reading in the Interlochen College of Creative Arts performance room. What an endearing group of writers:

Book Event #14, with my ICCA students
My tutorials had to be brief, due to class size and time limitations, but I came away feeling awed and inspired by the different paths each person has taken to find her way back into the classroom. For some, it is a gift to themselves--something to mark a turn in life or meet a lifelong goal. Others hope for a path to publication. Some attend to gain renewal to a commitment to writing. And for a fair number, it's the first time they've allowed themselves to formally invest--time, effort, and money--in a class dedicated wholly to writing about themselves.

Sure, some people say that writing memoir seems self-indulgent. But these women are here to tell a good story, and if story is the backbone of anything, it's community. Story brings human beings together and it has done so since the first fire in the first "cave of man." The women in this class want to write their stories and they want to do it well--to be compelling, specific, and evocative. Whether their ultimate audience is themselves, their families, or the world, their interests remain the same: to do the best that they can. I couldn't be happier for them, or more honored to call myself their teacher.

Interlochen College: Memoir Course Day 1

With a blaze of sound and color, the students of the 86th season of Interlochen Arts Camp have departed and summer is trickling to a close. Thousands of faculty, staff, and campers have left in the past 48 hours...while a small handful of very lucky continuing education adults are making their way north along patchy two-lane highways, ready to create. I can almost feel Green Lake township breathing--sending another hundred folks away with each exhale, then inhaling a few dozen more in their place.

By tonight, the campus will have transformed yet again, with dorms and cabins vacated but the hotel, cottages, and lodges full. High school marching band and choral students from around the country gather this week for professional-level instruction, while I'll be heading a tiny ship of 16 adult writers in my classroom for Interlochen College of Creative Arts. (If you've ever wanted to try college again, or for the first time, and if you've also longed for a comfortable living-style camp experience, ICCA offers the perfect combination--according to The Wall Street Journal.)

It's always a bittersweet time for me. I'm excited that summer is coming to an end and I'll get to return home soon. But as I walk the pathways of campus, the movements of my summer pals are suddenly echoes. Each has gone his or her own direction, and none of us ever know for sure if we'll return next summer. How wonderful, to have learned from them for the past six weeks, and to know that at least for a little while, the land between the lakes held our creativity together for laughter, insight, and conversation.

If' you're interested in memoir or manuscript critique, you might follow along this week with my course schedule or consider contacting me about monthly writing coaching and instruction. I've listed the reading materials for each day online, and many can be found in Google Books as an excerpt. The prompts I created aren't in the public domain, but perhaps you'll see their titles and feel encouraged to try writing something along with us anyway, even from afar.

How To Revise for Discovery

I've been doing a bit of inspired revision of my own, lately.It's a whirlwind of finishing touches and final drafts, of performances and huge crowds. Summer Arts Camp comes to a close this weekend and I'm so thrilled about all that my students have accomplished. We spend roughly one week studying poetry, with an emphasis on these techniques: repetition, concrete imagery, simile, metaphor, lists, line/stanza breaks, punctuation, and sensory detail. Then we study flash fiction, where I teach my students about what I call "The 5 S's," "The 4 Powers," flash forward, flash back, and "pressing pause." Of course, when they begin writing flash, they already have the foundation of poetry, so they work techniques such as concrete imagery and repetition into their prose. It's very exciting to see.

As a final step, I discuss what I call "inspired revision" with my students. I like to start out by asking them what they have been taught about revision. Inevitably, they tell me that revision is the same thing as correction. That "revising" is what you do right before your final draft and that usually you need the teacher to mark your paper with a red pen first, and then you can revise. They also tell me that sometimes revision is the part that you have to do alone, or that you can ask a partner to help you with. Always, they say that revision has to do with "fixing" or "finishing." I tell them what they have described is just one understanding of the word "revision," and that in the writing world we actually call that process of "editing."

Then I ask them if they ever thought of revision as discovery. They always shake their heads, "No." When I ask them if they feel excited about revision, I see more heads shaking. Revision is not something we've taught our young writers to enjoy. In my class, I like to call revision "inspired revision" because it is a re-visioning of the work, not a simple "correcting." True revision does not yield the same "final draft" for everyone in the room, even if they were given the same story to revise and the same red pen marks. Inspired revision has more to do with discovery and unearthing what a sentence (or line) is trying to say. By way of example, we discuss a few sample sentences from their writing and talk about the different ways we might revise (which sometimes means rewrite) them, and how each of those different ways might work. There's no "right" or "wrong" way to do it. It's a personal, organic process that involves thinking, scribbling, walking, pondering, crossing out, looking things up, discovering, and deciding.

Much of this is articulated brilliantly by Verlyn Klinkenborg in his fantastic book about writing, called A Few Short Sentences About Writing. (Here's a previous post on this text, if you'd like to see excerpts.) It's a dense text for teens, however, so I only share a few quotes with them as we discuss inspired revision. Then I tell them that the process is sort of like wearing 3-D glasses and having X-Ray vision at the same time. Instantly, their faces perk up. This helps them get excited about re-visioning their stories so that they feel more alive, full, and complete (the 3-D part). When it comes to X-Ray vision, we talk about how a sentence can be a hint to the sentence you really meant to write, but the only way to see that is to re-vision it for discovery...not for "correctness."

Book is Broadcast in Afghanistan & Beyond

Flashes of War was featured on prime time world television this weekend via TOLO News, the #1 news source in Afghanistan broadcast around the world. Their Saturday night talk show news called Farakhabar featured a military expert and one other guest to discuss the withdrawal of American troops in Afghanistan. The show concluded with a 4-minute Skype interview with me. Here is the version in Dari (English version below that) and it's worth checking out the opening credits. Also, note the giant image of Obama, a gun, and a hand forming a peace symbol on the studio set. The interview slot beings around minute 26:00:

I can't emphasize how much I learned from this experience. First of all, as you'll see in the English version, I didn't have an actual human face to look at during the interview. This is why my eyes are wandering so much during the feature. It's amazing just how much we glean from facial expressions and body language...especially in cross-cultural or unfamiliar situations. I had no visual cues to work with, even though they could see me entirely. I found it challenging!
Second, I was using Skype through my computer camera, so I had to tip my chin up but keep my eyes down in order to remain somewhat "natural" looking during the recording. I found this awkward. I'd recently studied how to prepare for a TV interview for my NBC segment, and learned about the importance of hand gestures. But the limitations of using a built-in, stationary camera are obvious and I had no one zooming in or out on my face or positioning in the room. As a result, I had to raise my hands unnaturally high to get them into the shot. I did this consciously, but it required mental effort on my part. I think it looked good in the end, but it tied up part of my mind that I would have liked to have free for more presence during the interview itself. So much to learn!
Third, I wasn't given any context for the show. I knew from my new BBC connection in Kabul that the audience for TOLO News is, according to him, "primarily educated Afghans and Afghan youth all around the world." I did not know--and perhaps my interviewer didn't know either--what show I would be featured on. The person who interviewed me via Skype was not the same man who is the host of the show--despite the editing that makes it looks as though we are in direct conversation. Was I going to be nightly news? A short feature? A talk show? It turned out to be the latter, and because I don't speak Dari I still know very little about the context within which my interview was placed. It is a very curious feeling. Not a bad feeling, but a bit disorienting.

Last but not least, I learned a lot about trusting others to translate my words. You'll notice that the segment which aired is about 4 minutes long, but the English version I recorded via a free software download (that's why it says "Camera Demo" on the screen) is 8 minutes long. A careful English-speaking listener can also glean that the broadcast version cuts my Skype words off in illogical places. This leads me to believe that some of what was translated is not matched up verbatim with the words I was actually speaking on video during the clip displayed. I have no reason to doubt the quality of the translation, but I do find it interesting to think about the implications of my words being translated in Dari over different facial expressions I might have made for completely different English words. And of course, at this point I have no way of knowing which of the words I said in 8 minutes were actually translated and used for the 4 minutes. I said some things that I feel were more important than others...but I'm curious about what TOLO decided was important, and of course I'd like to know how those words were perceived.
I've received a few messages through Facebook since the show aired, and several invitations to visit the country. I'm negotiating those messages diplomatically but also with a grain of salt. With kind help from my BBC friend in Kabul, I'm starting to get a feel for who listened, who wants to read the book, and the diversity of opinions about US presence currently bouncing around the major cities in Afghanistan.

Dachshund Tricks

In case anyone has been wondering who Duckie is in the Acknowledgments of Flashes of War, he's one of two very special dogs recognized in the book. In fact, my many summer walks in Michigan with Duckie inspired the story "Just the Dog & Me." As you can see, this miniature long-haired dachshund is a very voracious reader:

 
The other dog in is Gus, our family elkhound also known as "ancient friend of man." You can meet him right here.

Owning the Path You're On

Breaking News: Flashes of War has been selected as a Finalist for the Literary Fiction BOOK OF THE YEAR award given by the Military Writers Society of America. It looks like I'm in good company with 3 other authors. The winner will be announced September 28th, 2013. Meantime, the Los Angeles Review of Books published a blush-worthy nod to my debut: "a deceptively minimalist style that out-Carvers Carver and exposes the traumas of war without any breast-beating outrage." Yowzah!

It's been an interesting summer. That's putting in mildly, but perhaps I can be specific: Like all writers I know, I worked hard to get to this first book. During my three years on the road--which also included many moments of joy and peace and beauty [use links for photo slideshow]--I hit a few low points. Everything I owned fit into my car. I didn't have a steady boyfriend and, as the miles rolled beneath me, I left a trail of could-have-beens, what-ifs, and hard-earned tears in my wake. I missed weddings and births in the lives of people I have known for decades. Friends took on mortgages and earned promotions. Others lost loved ones and earned degrees. Was I there for them, if not also in spirit, at least via a phone call? I hope so, but I know I missed things in my flurry of bags packed and routes mapped.

I think I can safely say I started shedding the baggage of my decision about a year ago, right here at Interlochen, on this very specific night. This was before I'd received the book contract but after I realized my time on the road was over and my next stop would be going home...and staying home, for as long as I possibly could. I loved what I had done and knew I was better for the experiences--professionally and personally--that life on the road offered. But for too many weeks (or months?), I'd been focusing on the path I didn't choose. I felt ashamed. Didn't I have an entire world of freedom to be thankful for? And yet, something in me had worn thin. The open road and uncertainties that once invigorated me, now created a sense of dread and made me want to withdraw. Sure, I could keep going. I could go and go and go forever. I frequently had visions of walking for days, weeks...dropping my belongings piece by piece as I went. It felt thrilling and terrifying all at once, and I wondered if my parents would ever forgive me if I left them--and this world--in that way. I wanted to walk off the map and disappear into the fullest and deepest manifestation of life on the road. That was when I knew I had to stop.

So much of life is about owning the path that you're on. We get ourselves to where we end up, after all, right? People and places influence and steer us along the way, but ultimately we're the ones who get ourselves onto the track. I owned the open road literary lifestyle for as long as I could, and then it owned me and I had to stop. This summer, I've been trying hard to own the book tour path...but part of me feels torn and tugged by home, home, home. As soon as I realized the split-brain feeling I was having, I got edgy. I spent about two weeks fretting over everything--when would I get back, how would I pick up where I left off, what about all the things I was missing, when was my personal life going to move forward instead of staying on pause, how many more weeks would I have to be gone in the next year for the book, blah blah blah. I wanted this book. Now I have it. I've got to own it and let it take me where it needs to. Home will still be there when I'm finished. It always has, and thank goodness for that.


Home, Sweet Home.