Sweat and Tiffany’s – Goodbye Seattle
Okay. Okay. The downhill was worse than the uphill. The walk to Salle Auriol on Harrison was long with stretches of darkness, empty parking lots and offices. At one point I saw a guy on a bike going up a hill I was coming down. We were on a small level space between two monsters. He rested a few moments then put his bike into gear and started pedaling. I really felt for him and hoped he had at least 21 speeds to choose from.
I love fencing salles.
I really do.
The clashing of swords, the sounds of coaches speaking with heavy Polish, Russian, or Hungarian accents, and the energy of fencers competing and honing their craft. Sometimes there’s laughing and smiling, even though they’ve been stuck hard in the chest. Everybody learns from everybody. And as new meat, people swarm to fence against me because I bring new techniques to learn about and figure out how to defeat. It’s a great place. Did I mention the smell of wet and dry sweat?
Salle Auriol is just such a wonderful place. The business manager,Catherine, met me and gave me a tour of the salle, hooked me up with the three épée fencers in that night, talked to me about my book (she’s a budding novelist herself) and recommended a good place to get food and drink. I fenced against three opponents (I’m probably getting their names wrong so I hope they forgive me) Carmella, Marla, and Greg. Carmella took me apart quickly in my first series of bouts, though I was glad to get a few runs of touches in to remind myself of the skill I can call upon with a little bit of focus. Basically Carmella was good and she gave me a lesson that I only had to pay for in sweat.
Greg was next and he’s only been fencing five months. I focused my work on point control, trying for stop thrusts and thrusts to his wrist. He’s a researcher, doing work on cancer and the immune system. He face lights up when he talks about his work and about this sport he’s found called fencing.
Marla works at Tiffany’s and loves it. She’s also a good épéeist. We were well matched and traded the first two bouts, both close. Her coach was watching from a seat at the end of the strip and gave advice like, “You have to get out of the way of his blade,” and “Don’t let him hit your wrist,” after I scored three touches in a row in just that spot. It made us both laugh. Nothing like a coach with a good sense of humor. Marla won the final bout 5-4 on a series of infighting attacks and ripostes that ended with her final downward thrust hitting me in the ankle. Touché, Marla, you earned it.
After a late dinner at Serious Pie (that’s it’s name, really) I walked another half hour to the light-rail station (flat with no hills) and just about midnight, walked back in the hotel front door.
I’m ready to be home. I know my wife is ready for me to be home. Too much traveling this week and too much double duty on her part keeping the family moving and attending to her consulting work. She’s definitely had the harder work of the two of us.
Oh yeah. And there’s the world cup of rugby final to see.
Hill of Humongosity – Seattle Day 2
Usually a little walking does not daunt me. I walk at least an hour every day just to the subway and back and taking out the dogs. But the hill you climb from Pioneer Square to Capitol Hill and the Elliot Bay Bookstore is brutal. I got a ride downtown this time and skipped the light-rail then figured I’d just walk the thirty minutes to the bookstore.
How tough could it be? I walk fast. I figured I’d make it in 15 or 20 minutes max.
It was cool and misty but I was sweating heavily by the time I got to the top of Capital Hill and over onto 10th Avenue. Capital Hill shouldn’t be called a hill. The word just doesn’t suit it. Hill of death. Hill of humongosity. Ankle-break hill. Mountain called hill. Really.
Elliot Bay Bookstore is a big indi and I wanted to make an impression. I’m sure my disheveled look and the beads of perspiration rolling down my forehead did the trick. Bookseller Mathew was kind enough to take my book.
“Can I give you my pitch?” I asked.
“Not necessary,” he said.
He checked to make sure he could get it from Ingrams and to make sure it was not self-published (yes, these things do, in my experience over the last six months marketing my book, matter). Satisfied with both, he assured me he’d get it into the hands of their YA specialist. Then he kindly got me directions to the Club Auriol, Fencing Salle – just 30 minutes … down hill … north of where I started.
“Downhill?” I asked.
He nodded sagely.
“Well,” I said, “it’s better than up hill.” And off I went. Back to sweating.
I had planned to go to two fencing salles in two different parts of town but at 7:15pm I knew I would never make it to both. So I went for the closer of the two – Salle Auriol. And I figured I’d work the opposing muscles in my legs on the downward haul – always searching for balance.
Orca Pass – Seattle, Day 1 of 3
The next four entries are from last week in Seattle.
Facilitation Skills training in Seattle, teaching court practitioners how to facilitate training sessions around an online curriculum.
One day of travel.
One day of work.
One day of travel home.
Mockingbird Books
Sue Nevins at Mockingbird Books
I stayed at a hotel in the South Center, near the airport so I had to really work to get downtown. Shuttle to the airport. Light rail to the last stop. A bus and some walking took me to Mockingbird Books.
Sue Nevins was prepared for me, having looked up information about Open Wounds on my website. This has never happened before. I don’t have to pitch. She has questions already ready for me about where to place the book shelf-wise based on language and content. Sue is incredible.
The store is a beautiful bookstore thriving selling children’s books, with a small café and children’s play area. If we lived in Seattle we’d be hanging out at Mockingbird. And Sue knows her books. For almost half an hour she gave me a tour of books that my son might like. I left with four. He got Amulet: Stonekeeper Book 1 (a beautiful graphic novel of mystery, spookiness, and adventure), Sticky Burr: The Prickly Peril (graphic novel about burrs – work with me on this it’s very funny and cute and good for budding artists with graphic novel potential), Merlin (Merlin’s story at the age of 12) and Virus on Orbis One (science fiction to give my son something a little different for him to chew on).
I should do a better job of planning these things out. My publicist (JKS in the hands of Sami Lien who does all the finding of bookstores I should hit and contacts them to see if they’ll take a visit with a smile and calls the fencing salles too) draws a big net. I’m ambitious but come up against the constraints of time and transportation every trip.
Sue told me I should go to Third Place Books also because it was in walking distance – only about twenty minutes – and they had a good pub underneath them. I was thirsty and I needed to eat dinner. The three-hour time difference was knocking me out.
At Third Place I talked to the owner, Michael Ravena, and he seemed pleased both at Sue’s referral and to listen to me talk briefly about Open Wounds. He read a few pages of different parts of the book while I watched, and smiled at a description of Nicolai Varvarinski. “That’s great,” he said. With a handshake and a thank you, I asked for directions to the pub.
The beer (Seattle has a lot of home local brews) was good and the food was even better. The World Series was on the television – no world cup rugby but that can wait until early Sunday morning when France and New Zealand will remake the clash of the titans.
Of the Number One Thousand
Open Wounds has gone into its second printing.
As of last week 1,042 copies have been sold and some 968 copies are out there in the USA at Ingram, Baker & Taylor, other distributors, Amazon, and independent bookstores near you.
So the decision was made to do a second printing.
This is good news mostly due to the help of my terrific publicist Julie Schoerke and the JKSCommunications gang of Marissa, and Sami. And of course, all the folks who gave up their cash and pulled the book off the electronic or wooden shelf.
Thanks everyone.
SpotPress and BlogWord
Question two from CWPost students.
How do you start a blog?
This was asked by an older adult (not a younger 18-21 adult) returning to school and clearly enjoying herself. So she wanted to write for herself – “I like writing,” she said – “and knew there was this thing called blogging and wanted to know how to start one. “Can you keep your blog private or does it have to go out to the world and can you just ignore twitter and Facebook and stuff like that in your blog?” If I could ignore twitter and Facebook I believe I would but they are necessary tools of the trade. Blogging on the other hand is both fun and stretches writing muscles.
But seriously, when she asked me this question all I could think of is that I am so not the guy to answer these questions. Although I’ve started four blogs in my life so far and written for an equal number of other blogs, I’m not an expert in any way shape or form on blogs. I’m not disciplined enough (though I’m getting better) to write every day on mine, and I struggle with writing short rather than long. So I’m going to direct you to some great writer’s blogs and a blog on blogging that gives you a primer on how to start at the end of the post.
Matthew Rush’s The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment – because he has a number of great posts on blogs in general and how to use them for marketing. He also runs an incredible clinic on writing query letters.
Andrew Smith’s Blog Ghost Medicine because he has this terrific voice, keeps his entries short and weaves an ongoing narrative each and every day. Oh yeah, and he’s a great fiction writer to boot.
Cheryl Rainfield’s blog because of all the cool things she does on it with video’s and photos, and contests. And she’s a great fiction writer also.
How to write a blog that People Want to Read – it’s from about.com so it has to be good.
How to write great blog content – from Problogger (how can you go wrong with a name like that?).
How to Create a blog in 4 easy steps – again from about.com and very helpful/practical.
WordPress linkbecause I use them and I like them. Click the button that says get started here…
What I told this woman was the following. First I said you don’t have to pay attention to twitter of Facebook if you want to just blog for yourself. Second I said there are things called privacy settings that you can use so you blog only for yourself and no one else can or ever will see your work if you don’t want them to. Then I said there were two blogging programs to look at -Blogspot and WordPress and that although I’d used both I liked WordPress more because for me it is more intuitive and easier to use. She had tried Blogspot also and didn’t like it so she was excited at each of the concrete answers I gave her. I told her to follow their tutorials – they walk you through the process. That’s really all I’m qualified to say about blogging. Really.
But here’s what was so cool about talking to this lovely woman. She wanted to exercise her writing muscles. She wanted to see what she could do. It’s the kind of response to writing that is so hard to get from most people because I think most look upon writing as a chore and not a pleasant one at that. Writing is so much a part of the way I express myself I almost forgot about this aspect of writing. This woman had just discovered writing as an act of self-expression and it had turned her on. How cool is that?
Lunievicz 