Tag Archives: writing

The Road to Publication

September 21, 2015 By in War, Writing Tags: , , Leave a comment
"Oh Well (2)" courtesy of Lydia Komatsu

“Oh Well (2)” courtesy of Lydia Komatsu

When I first started writing again, I’ll admit that I had a pretty narrow view of nonfiction. Just the facts, right? So when I enrolled in UAA’s MFA program, I thought I had everything figured out. It’s amazing what the addition of the word “creative” in front of “nonfiction” can do in terms of detonating paradigms. Within a few weeks, I was exposed to a world of possibility within the world of creative nonfiction. Not just essays either. Prose poems. Lyric essays. Open forms. I distinctly recall writing something for my online semester, then posting a silly comment about it being “flash nonfiction,” which I supposed was an imaginary genre. Our instructor, Sherry Simpson, let me down easy and recommended I check out Brevity. 

It turned out I hadn’t invented anything new. In fact, Brevity had been doing it for some time, publishing essays of 750 words or less. And boy, did those babies hum. Inspired, I had this foolish idea that someday, I could see some of my own work in Brevity. I even had something in mind – a short piece written from a class prompt that seemed to have promise, to hint at something more. 

There were a couple of breakthroughs – one when I decided to fragment the essay. Another big moment was when I embraced the attention to detail needed for such a short piece. I wrote the piece, and edited it about 30 times, which. Then I sent it off to about twenty journals and waited.

I wrote the piece after reading as many Brevity essays as possible, so to say that I wrote specifically for the journal is no exaggeration. Most places rejected it, but I did get one nice note from the editor of Grist, who said they liked it but it didn’t for thematically. Nice, but a rejection no less.

Brevity got in touch, but it wasn’t quite the home run I wanted. They wanted to see a minor rewrite – the conclusion, it was lacking. So I rewrote. Again. And waited some more.

When I received my acceptance email, I was ecstatic. After nearly six months of cutting and editing and agonizing over articles and nouns and format, there it was: Accepted.

At my second summer residency, Ron Carlson said something profound about writing. The reward, he said, was the same whether we get published or rejected; whether we win an award or fail to make the semi-finals. We get to keep writing. That stuck with me, and still does every time something good or not-so-good happens to me as a writer.

So, what’s next now that I’ve published something in an incredible journal?

I get to keep writing.

***

The piece, called “When We Played,” is available to read for free online here. I’d love to hear what you think about the essay in its comment section.

The Loss of Pedro 66

June 9, 2015 By in Reading, War, Writing Tags: , , , , 8 Comments

“Soldier Antlers” by Lydia Komatsu

Last fall, I began drafting a new essay inspired by Dust to Dust, the Benjamin Busch memoir. There was this passage in which Busch recalled the moment of his mother’s death to cancer, only a year after his father Frederick Busch died. Reading that passage will always be for me the moment I knew I could go deeper with my writing. I won’t give anything away or quote the stunning prose – you need to read the entire work for yourself – but Busch does this magic trick in which he slows the moment of her passing. That, I thought, is how I would like to write.

Essay writing is a labor of love, as is any act of creativity. I’ve always taken this to mean “unrequited,” but lately learned it just means you must love what you are writing about. The situation must be near to you, precious enough to drive you to the page, tilting at the quixotic question: What does all this mean to me?

The essay began as a foray into the connection between my running and my wars, but ended up leading me down unexpected paths until when I finished and realized this is less about running than it is about loss and memory. Some of this was just evolution. Nonfiction to me was history books and journalism; but as I read and wrote through my first year of a Master’s Degree in Creative Nonfiction Writing, that word “creative” became more and more important.

In writing, we talk about what happened as “the situation.” It’s the who, what, where, when, why, and how of things. The “story” is how we choose to write about those things in order to bring forth what felt most true. When Pedro 66 went down five years ago on this date, the story was obscured to me for the longest time. I knew what happened to a certain extent, the situation that enveloped it. But I could not find the what it meant, and without that in hand, I couldn’t find a way to write about it beyond the chronology of events that exposed in me a raw grief.

Reading Dust to Dust taught me that the understanding the story isn’t about having the answers; rather, it’s about the pursuit. Seeking truth is the story in some cases, and to write in such a way as to illuminate it like Ben Busch did, well, I’d say that’s a good goal for an essay.  I don’t know why Mike Flores, Joel Gentz, and Ben White had to die on June 9th, 2010, but I do know that their deaths were meaningful to me. What went through their minds in their final moments can never be known, but that won’t stop me from trying to imagine it, even if it’s painful to do so. I will forever be in front of their caskets as long as I’m at the page.

Blue Skies, Brothers

Capt David Wisniewski, Pilot
1Lt Joel Gentz, CRO
TSgt Michael Flores, PJ
SSgt David Smith, FE
SrA Benjamin White, PJ

Tuesdays with the Peak Performers Track Club

April 25, 2012 By in Reflections on Training Tags: , , , , 2 Comments

Yesterday, Jen and I hit up the Peak Performers Track Club here in Anchorage. They meet every Tuesday at 6pm at the West High track, which is super convenient for us, living only a short distance away. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how the stumps were going to respond. Having taken two days off over the weekend, I expected some fresh legs for my Monday morning run. Instead, I found they were heavy, stale, and in a foul mood. I did some pickups at the end of my morning run in an effort to invigorate my legs, but I didn’t see a big improvement after running home, making Monday a 13M day in total. Yesterday morning, I ran the long way into work (~10.25M).  Again, I felt sluggish.

Jen and I got to West just in time for the Coach’s Brief . Peak Performers starts every workout the same way – the coaches brief (yesterday it was Jason Hofacker) the workout, then everyone does 800m of drills, plyometrics, and sprints. Following this, folks split into similar pacing groups and begin the workout. Being new, and not sure of what to expect, I enjoyed the warmup section. I’m a big believer in warmups that combine easy cardio as well as some faster, more powerful stuff; I’ve always felt like simply running a couple of miles easy before a track workout makes the first couple of intervals feel pretty rough. The warmup led to the workout: 12 x 400m with 45s rest, but the workout was scaled based on current fitness. Folks training less at this time did 7 x 400 (Jen did this), more training meant more quarters.

To be honest, the short recovery period came as a bit of a shock. When I trained in Tucson with Michele Hill and The Grinders, short recoveries were par for the course. But training with Matthew Whitis, I got more used to 200m jog recoveries and the like. 45s was the shortest recovery I have done in some time. So, with that in mind, I told Jen to start slow and work into it, and hoped she would end up in a group that helped her along. As for me, I figured if I started around 85s (5:40 pace) and eased into it; that would be the most prudent course of action. Workouts like this have a way of goading you into writing checks your body can’t cash. Before you know it, you’re going way too hard, barely recovering, and you’re not even a third of the way through the entire workout. That makes for a long session…

I laced up my track spikes, and got ready to start the workout. Mike, the guy I ran hills with last week, joined me but let me know he was going to keep it tame due to some lower leg issues. It was a little blustery out, but the temps were low-50s, the perfect running temp. The first interval was nice and relaxed – 86s. I was able to talk during the interval and it felt good to be out in my spikes, stretching my legs. The next one was a tad bit faster: 83s (5:32 pace). Then 82s (5:28 pace), then 81 (5:24 pace).  When I run intervals, I learned a technique years ago to make the workout more mentally palatable. I break the intervals into mental sets. So, for 12 x 400, I think of running sets of 4. I start with #1, end at #4, then start over at #1. Repeat until finished. Even thought the workout might not delineate between sets, it helps me mentally stay on track and breaks the workout down into bite-sized pieces. After the first four yesterday, I could tell I was still approaching the sweet spot.

The rest of the workout went like this: 81s, 79s, 79s, 80s, 78s, 79s, 79s, 79s, 76s.  If you counted those up and arrived at 13 as opposed to 12, you’d be correct. I ran one extra by accident. Lucky 13!

So, you can see my equilibrium point was right around 79s (5:16 pace), which actually surprised me given how little speed work I’ve done since Oct, and how heavy I am right now (184lbs). I’m hoping this means I’m closer to my goals for the season (sub 17 5k, sub 35 10k) than I give myself credit for, but only racing can determine where my fitness truly resides.

In case you were wondering, Jen killed her workout. She ran with some ladies who were throwing down just under 2:00 quarters (sub-8:00 pace). Not bad for not having run much over the winter, I’d say!

Overall, it was a great workout, and I never really noticed my legs much. Even though I ended up running solo (Mike dropped back to a slower group after the third interval), it was great just having some other folks out there on the track. It also didn’t hurt that Jen was out there as well, and I love running with my wife.

Alright, that’s it for now. I need to get my butt out the door and off to work. Miles!