But being deployed, even being stationed overseas anywhere, makes you realize that holidays that are important to us aren’t important everywhere else. Funny how being in a foreign country will make you appreciate the things back home even more. Last year, my husband and I braved the crowd and found a spot on the grass to watch the fireworks with the girls. Sitting in the back of his truck, we had a beer and the girls watched the sky burst overhead.
This year, I’m seeking quiet. I’m not braving the hundred thousand people on Fort Hood for Freedom Fest. Crowded events like that don’t really do it for me anymore. I hated walking through Times Square this past week and the thought of keeping an eye on both kids in a crowd like the one expected on Fort Hood doesn’t really strike up feelings of patriotism and celebration. More like panic, if you want to know the truth.
But the Fourth of July is something to celebrate. It’s the founding of our nation. The day we as Americans stood up and said we will be our own people. We are willing to fight and die for this honor. And we did. We, a tiny nation of cast offs from the rest of the world, fought against and won free from the greatest nation on earth at the time. We proved that we wanted something better for our children.
As we celebrate the Fourth of July, remember the greatness that founded our nation. Let’s take a moment and ask ourselves what we can do to make the world around us better. Maybe it’s nothing so bold as declare our independence from an oppressive government. Maybe it’s as simple as holding the door for someone. Or not getting angry that someone took your parking spot. Today, remember the great sacrifice that our forefathers have made so that we may go to the park and watch fireworks. Just for today, remember the greatness that is our nation and celebrate the good fortune of having been born a part of this great nation.
For our nation is exceptional. And together, we can continue to make it better. Happy Fourth of July. Remember our soldiers who are overseas today and whose only celebration of the founding of our nation is a piece of Stars and Stripes cake in the chow hall before they kit up and head back out on the roads.
The Things That Survived the RWA Test
July 5, 2011
PRIOR TO RWA, I talked a lot about shopping. I posted pictures of the chaos that was my bathroom as I packed (or at least attempted to). And there were innumerable chats about how to prevent shoes from tearing up one’s feet.
So in the flavor of #RWAsurvivaltips, here are the products or advice that served me (or others) well during the chaos of RWA 2011.
Urban Decay Eyeshadow: I’m very much a Bobbi Brown girl but this trip, I broke my usual trend and tried something new. I’d lusted over a Smashbox eyeshadow pallet but waited too long and it was sold out. So I swapped over to Urban Decay. Not only did the colors go on smooth and silky but they stayed. All day. Through the madness of the elevator waits and rushing to the next appointment and on into the night partying at the bar.
Smashbox Eyelid Primer: this stuff survives the Fort Hood heat. That in and of itself should be enough of a recommendation but dabbing this on beneath any eyeshadow guarantees that it will still be there when you look in the mirror several hours down the road.
Elf Eye Liner Brush: For $3, you cannot go wrong for this tight little brush that creates a truly artistic line worthy of a brush that costs five times more. Combine with either wet powder shadow or long wear eyeliner and this inexpensive brush is a champ.
Shoes: There was lots of talk about the “right” shoes. Expensive vs. cheap. Platform vs. flats. Flip flops vs. heels. At the end of the day, I found a $40 pair of BASS wedges that were my saving grace. Three days, miles of walking, and not a single blister. Of course the combat boot inserts helped a ton. I’ll say that I’m not a huge fan of the Dr. Scholl’s dress shoe inserts but they did the trick, adding just a teeny bit of extra support beneath the ball of my foot.
Business Cards: writers, save the bookmarks for readers and fans. Always have business cards. Last year, I received conflicting advice as to whether I would need them or not. Two years running, I’m glad I had them on me.
Clothes: comfort is the key. Not sweatpants comfort but clothes that fit well and that you can carry yourself well in. If you’re constantly tugging at your Spanx, your editor or agent interview will probably not go as well as it could. Confidence is key. Find clothes that speak to who you are and that are comfortable to wear. For me, White House Black Market came through. Basic color pallet. Good fit. And don’t underestimate the power of the right bra.
Safety pins: these are not a luxury. I counted on them multiple times this year to adjust clothes that didn’t hang quit right.
Nail polish: for me to find a nail polish that survives more than two hours post manicure is a miracle indeed. Sally Hanson Diamond Nail base coat combined with Revlon Colorstay Top Coat survived until the last day of the conference on my fingers. My toes are still going strong.
Bandaid Blister bandages: no, I didn’t lie when I said I didn’t get any blisters. But I did have one on my hand from my brilliant decision to rake my entire back yard two days prior to leaving for NYC. So the blister bandage stayed in place and kept the wound covered. No one even noticed the bandage.
Bathroom Pitches: No, I’m not making it up when I tell you that an agent friend of mine was pitched to in the bathroom. Folks, trust me when I tell you it is much easier to walk up to someone while they’re chatting at the elevator than to catch them with their unmentionables around their ankles. I mean, honestly, would you date someone who cornered you in the bathroom while you were trying to hover? Why does pitching in the bathroom seem like a good idea to anyone?
Conversation: know the market, know what’s going on outside of your book. Being able to talk to people about various aspects of publishing or the world at large makes you infinitely more interesting than just waiting to pitch your book. Know the answer to the question “What do you write?” Be quick, be brilliant, and be gone…onto some other topic of conversation. If the person you’re interested in is truly interested in your pitch, they will steer the conversation back to you.
And a final makeup note: the best primer I used was Smashbox foundation primer. Makeup went on smooth and lasted all day. Yes, this too, survives the Fort Hood heat but for much less time than the eyelid primer. But considering that anything that makes it to noon is a win, I’m not complaining.
Conference this year was a blast. I honestly didn’t expect my second conference to live up to my first. I had so much fun and learned a ton. I signed my first contract and said thank you to a whole bunch of people who I am still incredibly grateful to for their support and guidance.
The best part was sitting at the bar, having drinks, not with people who wanted to talk about books, but with people I wanted to catch up with and spend time with. We call them friends and in this business, there is nothing more important than good friends who will stand with you through the rough spot and cheer through the good times.
Thank you to everyone who celebrated this year with me. See you in Anaheim next year!
The Year of Twitter at RWA
July 9, 2011
SO this was the year of Twitter. Everywhere I turned, people were talking to me and the introduction went something like this: “I’m So-and-So from Twitter.” And yes, names and usernames rang a bell. Conversations that had occurred over the last year or so transitioned to real life. It felt like meeting old friends rather than completely awkward strangers stalking you in the hall. I almost put my Twitter name on my badge but didn’t because I wasn’t sure it was the thing to do and because my name is really close to my Twitter name anyway. But other people did and it helped a lot, especially when names and usernames don’t match.
It used to be that online relationships were a joke. Something to be mocked. But if the people who you chat with on Twitter are warmer and funnier in real life than online, is it really a joke? I mean, I follow Victoria Dahl online and she is flipping hysterical on Twitter. But she’s truly funny in person, as well as graciou
s and nice and full of awesome (I’m not sucking up, either. She’s really funny). I enjoy being around people who are funny and make me laugh, so it would make sense that people who are funny online are funny in person. But without that connection, would you get the jokes in the real world if you didn’t have that background from the interwebs?
I was also somewhat awed when people who I really looked up to and admired said they either wanted to meet me because of Twitter or said they followed me on Twitter. And again, not awkward because Twitter, if you’re doing it right, is about the conversation. It’s basically a giant chat room and from what I can tell, you really can get a read on people from their online presence. Twitter, for me, is perfect because I don’t have time to flip through Facebook updates or blog incessantly. One hundred and forty characters takes about twenty seconds, tops, and allows me to stay connected. As a writer, I need to stay connected to other writers and fellow book people. I don’t get out often enough to get real life connections. Online fills a critical need for me to be tied into the writing world.
RWA fulfills the need for me to physically be in the writing world. There was nothing more cool than sitting with fellow lovers of books. Knowing the conversations didn’t have to end with a Saturday morning flight made RWA and Twitter all that much more connected. And the other really neat part about Twitter is that it really does bring your favorite writers to a place where you can just chat with them. I swear this helps with some of the awestruck moments I may have had otherwise. It was like a reunion in real life rather than meeting for the first time.
I didn’t get to meet everyone I wanted to from Twitter. But I think I met people this year who I missed last year. I connected with friends who supported me while I was in Iraq. I reconnected with friends I found myself hanging out with last year. And mostly, it brought me face-to-face with people who keep me laughing, keep me informed, and most importantly, keep me grounded. It’s easy to get overwhelmed at RWA and with publishing in general. But joining in the conversation is a great way to connect and keep things down to earth.
I said it a million times at RWA but tweeting from Iraq was the smartest thing I ever did. Thank you, to everyone who ever followed me or commented on my blog or talked to me while I was deployed and kept me connected to the outside world. It still keeps me connected but this time, to life outside the Army.
Mission Analysis: Copyedits
July 13, 2011
ONE OF THE THINGS that drives my battalion commander nuts about me is that sometimes, not often, mind you, but just sometimes, I have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. I know that in the past, when looking at revisions or changes to a story, I’ve defiantly done this and the result has been less than perfect.
So let’s talk about the publishing journey thus far since the wonder and awe of NYC and my first sale conference. There has been the requisite contract stuff wherein I read things and pretend I understand and my agent offers a long suffering sigh to reassure me that I have not signed away any children or pets or body parts. Twice. But let’s skip all that and talk about the writing process, not the publishing process (or rather, the writing part of the publishing process.) Because this is where I think things get interesting.
I remember having lots of conversations as I was struggling to find my voice and my format. People told me from the get-go that I had that elusive voice but where I struggled—mightily—was in story format. I remember very clearly crying one night talking about how I just need someone to tell me what to do with this story and I’ll do it but I just can’t see what’s wrong with it.
Here’s a little hint: no one is going to tell you what to do. At least, that’s not what my publishing team has done for me. My team, and I hope they don’t mind me using that phrase because I really feel part of a team right now, has not said fix this, change this, delete this. When I received my revision notes, it wasn’t directives like “Do x, y and z then move on to 1, 2 and 3.” It was very much more “Take a look at this, what about this character arc, and are you willing to look at x?” Maybe there are editors out there who give directives but my team hasn’t done that with me. I think if it had gone that route, I might not have felt like I still had control over this book. So I made the revisions, forcing myself to go slow, chunk by chunk, until I felt like I had a clean product.
Now let’s talk copyedits. I had the wonderful opportunity to meet my copyeditor while I was in NYC and we chatted for a while. I think it really helped me on my part because I’ve heard a lot of copyeditor war stories out there and to be honest, I’m used to red-inking my LT’s stuff. But what I told her in NYC was to be brutal. Be as rough as she thinks it needs to be to make the book stronger. So the fact that there’s blue all over the place doesn’t actually terrify me.
What terrifies me is that no matter what the team recommends or suggests, at the end of the day, it’s my book. And they’ve stressed that to me time and again. We want you to be comfortable with this. If anything doesn’t make sense, talk to us. Seriously, how does it get better than that? Because it’s not like I don’t have control issues and all that, right?
So copyedits, for those of you who don’t know, are basically an overarching story consistency check as well as a textual check making sure sentences are clear, that there aren’t different ways of saying things, or on page 6 your hero is blond but on page 125 he’s bald. I received four major overarching story elements that should be looked at along with lots of clean-up on the sentences.
Instead of diving right in and going hell bent for leather, I read the story issues notes. Then read them again. Then finally opened the file. What I decided was I could go through and clean up a lot of the little stuff. The sentences. The clarification. Little things. As I‘m doing that, I’ll look at the overarching story issues, thereby giving myself a chance to read through everything first before I start cutting and chopping.
In forcing myself to slow down and do the mundane first, I think I’m giving myself a better picture of the whole story and the issues I need to fix. By reading through, I can then assess what I need to change and where, as opposed to fixing it on the fly and worrying about adding confusion to the mix.
So once more, I find myself having to slow down. To do my very best at getting my process cleaned up. To have a plan before going off halfcocked. To ask questions, before I start shooting, or in this case, typing.
And on that note, I’m diving back into copyedits before I crash tonight. Busy day again tomorrow.
Lessons Learned...More to Go
July 20, 2011
I’M STRUGGLING TONIGHT. I’M struggling to take almost four years as an officer and twelve years as a NCO and merge the two. My life in the Army is divided into three parts: Junior enlisted Jess (less than two years), Sergeant Jess (over ten years) and Officer Jess (four years and counting). I would argue that Officer Jess has learned more in the last three years than Sergeant Jess had to learn in her previous twelve. Or maybe, the lessons I learned then are different in scope and impact than the lessons I’ve learned more recently.
Three years ago this week, I was in the field on Fort Hood on my first brigade level exercise in a brigade combat team. Why am I starting with three years ago? Because three years ago, I went to the field with a brigade combat team and learned about an Army I’d only heard about.
When I commissioned from a Sergeant First Class to a Second Lieutenant, I thought I had a pretty good grip on the signal stuff. I breezed through Officer Basic Course half asleep (I wrote two books while I was there, versions of which will never see the light of day but I digress). And then I arrived in Greywolf. I had a brigade commander look at me and tell me that he didn’t care that I was just a Second Lieutenant, because I had thirteen years in the Army and he expected me to perform as Major. I don’t think I did all that well but I didn’t get fired. But what I did do, in spades, was learn.
So when I talk about three years ago this week, I was in the field here on Fort Hood, I remember it so
clearly because I learned so much. I slept on top of my shelter because the radios wouldn’t stay up. I learned how to tell a company commander what to do with his retrans that his sergeants put at the bottom of a hill. I learned how to break the news to a brigade commander that his communications wasn’t working because we put the retrans at the bottom of a hill. I learned that you don’t screw with the ops sergeant major or he’ll put a toilet-borne IED on the FBCB2 with your name on it. And leave it there for the entire exercise.
And I learned what it is that we as signaleers do. I saw the impact of when comms worked and when it didn’t. Three months later, I’d be putting the radios back in system in time for a real world MEDEVAC to be called. Let me tell you when you hear “MEDEVAC Follows” and you know that you just got that link in, it’ll hit you that what we do is not GI Joe and Army Ants.
As I’m writing this, I’m wondering what am I actually trying to say. What am I actually getting at. The fact is, whether I want to be one or not, by virtue of my position I am a leader, and as a leader, the decisions I make have an impact. If I fail to request chow, my soldiers have to eat MREs. Or worse, buy their own food. If I fail to get communications in, someone may not get the air support they need. But back here in garrison, maybe the mission doesn’t happen. But will someone die? Training in garrison is training for combat. It’s not actual combat.
So as a Second Lieutenant, I screwed up. Hell, yeah, I screwed up. A lot. I didn’t get the right radios for one of the battalions once. But once I realized what I’d done, I moved heaven and earth to get the right amount of radios for them. And I can guarantee you I didn’t screw up that way again. So, maybe, what 2LT Jess learned three summers ago during that two weeks of following her brigade commander around is that learning takes all sorts. Maybe, making all the mistakes in the world back here in garrison is okay. Even to the point of soldiers having to go through the pain with you.
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