Just call me a visionary

Spent the last couple days on Kindle Create. I set up the docx file of “Zeppelins” so its available as an ebook on Amazon KDP. Took me awhile to get there as the Ridgeway Press released the paperback in late May. I was conjuring ways to promote my book set in 1919 Colorado. It’s a bit strange to be living on the fringes of Florida wetlands but pining for the Rocky Mountains. Doesn’t help that Florida summers are hot and soupy. I spend most of the time in AC. It reminded me of depths of Wyoming winters, spending most of my time in heated spaces. Here people pine for the cool of winter and Wyomingites get spring fever as they wait and wait for the day when the short spring turns into summer. I used to swoon in late March when spring threatened. I mourned June 21, the longest day of the year, in which Rocky Mountain summer would begin to fade. Now I’m all turned around.

It is my good fortune that I can now see the changing seasons. Dr. K removed the filters from my eyes and gave them new lenses. No more cataracts. I’m reading my own novel in its proper form and not in final manuscript form in large print on a high-contrast screen. It’s miraculous, is it not, that this can be done? It was expensive. I spent all of my book-buying funds for the next 25 years which would take me to the nice round number of 100. But what good are books if you can’t see?

I thought little about my eyes until my 40s. I was in a dark restaurant holding the menu at arm’s distance. My work colleague remarked that I needed glasses. Poppycock, I said, or something like it.  She handed me her reader glasses and told me to bring the menu closer. I did. I could see the type. “Gimme back my glasses,” she said, now holding her menu at arm’s length. I bought readers the next day. They’re called this because it’s the reading that begins to blur.

When you’re a kid, you hold books up to your face or even at arm’s length and you can see fine. It helps that the text is short and simple. “See Dick Run. See Dick fall. See Spot bark. See Sally laugh.” Easy, right? But then come chapter books and assigned books and books my parents are reading but hide away. “Not for kids,” Dad said. I learned to read in earnest when I dug those books out of his underwear drawer. They were not necessarily books on the Catholic Church forbidden list. But some had bad words, such as “fug” in “From Here to Eternity.” There also was kissing and groping on the Oahu beach, at least in the movie.

I thank all of the doctors and researchers who brought us to this point. I know Salk and Sabin and Madame Curie are tough to remember when RFK Junior’s scary face comes on Fox. There’s a prescription for that: “Don’t watch Fox!"

I read my book for the first time

After a brisk PT workout and breakfast, I picked up a copy of “Zeppelins Over Denver” and read the first two chapters. That wouldn’t be big news because I imagined and wrote this historical novel. I’ve read, revised, and proof-read every word. It begins this way:

Patrick Michael Hott pulled his cap down on his forehead and slumped into the seat on the east side of the southbound train.

It goes on like that for another 403 bound pages. It’s a good story, even great at times, or so I’d like to think. Today’s reading is new in one way: it’s the first time I’ve read the actual softcover book published by The Ridgeway Press of Michigan and assembled at Ingram/Spark. I wrote the text, read it a dozen times at least. During the past year, as the manuscript went from proposal to acceptance and publishing, I was reading it on my PC in large type on a high-contrast screen. To read the printed page, I had to print it in 18-point Times Roman boldface. My sporty little printer had its hands full.

Cataracts muddied my sight. Everything looked fuzzy. I got prescription glasses but still couldn’t read typescript on the page. Early in the year, my ophthalmologist suggested cataract surgery. I ignored his advice. The book came out in May and I looked at the opening pages, beheld the muddy gray type, and sighed.

I went back for my next eye appointment and the doctor said the same thing. So I signed on, paid the hefty bill, and last week underwent surgery on the first eye, the second session set for Sept. 10.

This morning, I read the first two chapters in book form for the first time. I can see. My eyesight has improved on the left side, improved enough to put away my prescription eyeglasses and pick up the readers I bought off a Publix rack a year ago. I can remove the readers and see the 12-point TR type well enough to read it.

This is miraculous. Angels sang when I picked up my book and read. The type, which mysteriously turned gray during the past year, is now black on the page. Readable. Enjoyable. I look forward to my next visit to the ophthalmology surgical theatre, the surgeon hidden by drapes, the only thing in my eyesight are two tiny lights, my body numbed with chemicals. I know what he’s doing because I saw the video. Microsurgery with tiny tools. Old lens broken up, removed, and new lens inserted. I’ll spend the next day numbed and a bit sleepy, pirate patch over my eye. And the drops, the constant eye drops.

And then I will get back to reading my book. I may not read much further – I know how it ends. But you don’t. Buy it and find out.

On the ghost trail to Lulu City

I am caught between two worlds.

In one, I am at the beach or in a park or lunching with friends at Inlet Harbor.

In the other, I tense up, stare at the wall, and wonder where I am and who I am.  I drift off, imagine I fly over the Laramie Range. Below are the convoluted rock shapes of Vedauwoo. On one of the heights is my son, waving up at me as he used to wave down at me on the flatlands as I wondered how in the hell a 12-year-old scrambled to the top without falling. I soar above the beach and see the waves I no longer ride or no longer even stand calf-length in since I can’t walk unaided to the water.

I almost died twice during a four-day hospital span that I can’t remember. I awoke a mess, unable to walk or shit or even talk. “What month is it?” I haven’t a clue. The medicos gave me fentanyl to let me float through the trauma and it worked as a mind-eraser. I float through those four days that I don’t remember.

Yesterday I sat for three hours in the nicely-appointed customer waiting room at KIA HQ. The people there seemed human enough as did I. I read a non-fiction book about Japanese fliers who flew airplanes into American ships in a last-ditch effort to halt dreaded defeat. Kamikaze, Divine Wind. In Korea, where my SUV was made, Japanese troops rounded up young females to serve as “comfort women” and worked to death Allied soldiers my father’s age of 20 in 1943.

I live on a thin thread. We all do. I didn’t want to die from septicemia but almost did and it was nothing that I did or didn’t do. An occupying army of bacteria invaded my bloodstream and began to switch off my organs, one by one, like you walk through the house turning off lights, eager to get to grandma’s house for Thanksgiving. Antibiotics stopped the massacre. And medical staff on a mission. And time. And something undefined. Something blessed.

I sometimes see the world’s forests on fire. Other days, I peer down into Rocky Mountain National Park and see me hiking with my wife and kids. That is just one part of one summer day. It’s frozen in my memory. I am always on the trail to abandoned Lulu City, walking past falling-down cabins with a ghost in each doorway. One of them looks just like me.

Poetry matters in a time when words are devalued

When words are devalued, poetry matters.

It hit me on Monday night at the Poetry Out Loud state competition at the LCCC Theatre in Cheyenne.

Students traveled from high schools in Riverton, Jackson, Sundance, Worland, Buffalo and Moorcroft to recite poems. Prizes are involved, including a trip to Washington, D.C., for the winner where he or she might win a college scholarship. Still, Wyoming offers its best and brightest Hathaway scholarships and a host of financial aid packages to its lone four-year state university and seven community colleges. It may be that these students like poetry, or like the way it sounds. Some are theatre people who know how to memorize. Some are speech-and-debaters who know the tactics of presenting in public.

On this night, they and their chaperones had braved blizzard conditions to drive hours to Cheyenne.Some didn't make it as roads closed.

My role was prompter. I provide lines when the student got stuck. If they did, which they didn't. So I listened closely. I knew some of the poems. I can still recite Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade." The nuns made me memorize it during detention at St. Francis School in Wichita. That was detention in 1963 -- memorize a poem and recite it before you depart. The nuns had corporal punishment at their disposal.

Catholic school student: A nun hit me today at school.
Catholic school parent: That's nice, dear. Go wash up for dinner.

They could have made us memorize the Book of Exodus. In Latin. They chose poetry.

Last night, as I listened to Tennyson's poem, I realized that it was about a suicide mission during the Crimean War. Six hundred British cavalry rode into a Russian barrage and many never came back. The poem was meant to rally the Brits against the Russians or any foreigners who threatened John Bull. On the other side was Leo Tolstoy, recording the war from his P.O.V. The Crimean War was nasty and brutish, as are most wars. Listening to "Charge" now, I couldn't help but think of World War I and Korea and Vietnam.

Vietnam. Two of the students recited Bill Ehrhart's "Beautiful Wreckage." Ehrhart is a Vietnam combat veteran. He knows a few things about war.

In Vietnamese, Con Thien means
place of angels. What if it really was
instead of the place of rotting sandbags,
incoming heavy artillery, rats and mud. 

Ehrhart's words coming from the mouth of a 16-year-old holds a poignancy that only an older person can understand. Ehrhart went to war right out of high school so he wasn't much older than these students when he was in Con Thien with the rats and mud. In Trump's America, are we looking at the next generation of young people about to be transformed into warriors for a nebulous cause?

One poem that surprised me was Mina Loy's "Lunar Baedeker." The poet and the poem were new to me. The British poet was a Paris bohemian, mother, and artist. Her warfare was gender-based. A few lines from "Lunar Baedeker:"

A Silver Lucifer
serves
cocaine in cornucopia

Loy was a futurist, a member of the avant-garde who specialized in word play. My question: how come this is the first time I heard any of her poems?

Today is International Woman's Day and, in the U.S., #ADayWithoutWomen. Makes me curious about women poets such as Loy, Emily Bronte, Mary Cornish, Sara Teasdale, Brenda Cardena, Adelaide Crapsey, and Robyn Schiff. These were some of the poets the students decided to memorize and recite. They choose different subjects than male poets. No "Charge of the Light Brigade" from Loy. Instead, she wrote "Human Cylinders:"

Simplifications of men
In the enervating dusk;
Your indistinctness
Serves me the core of the kernel of you

Or, from "Parturition:"

Rises from the subconscious
Impression of a cat
With blind kittens
Among her legs
Same undulating life-stir
I am that cat

Avant-garde poets were not easily understood. But more erudition exists in these poems than the daily natterings of our current president.

Probably goes without saying. But there it is.

Get more info about Poetry Out Loud at the Wyoming Arts Council web site.

Kristen Lamb's Blog: "Why writers blogging about writing is bad"

I am a writer who sometimes blogs about writing who is posting about a blog post by a writer who says that blogging about writing is bad.

Kristen Lamb is her name and she blogs at "Kristen Lamb's Blog." She has written two books about writing that have been on the best-seller lists. One is We Are Not Alone: The Writer's Guide to Social Media. She advises writers to put their name on their blog. You will notice that I did that. Thanks, Kristen. Go read her blog. It's helpful and very funny.

That's the extent of my writing advice for today.

In a blog post from 06/07/2011, Kristen examined five reasons why writing blogs are bad.

1. Writing blogs limit our following.
2. Writing blogs limit content and can create burnout
3. Writing blogs will collapse if we change content.
4. Writing blogs increase the competition for book sales.
5. Writing blogs are not creative.

I looked up "writing" in my blog's search box. It came up with 32 entries. I've been blogging for eight years. During that time, I've written an average of four blogs annually about writing. I average about 200 posts a year so, on average, about 2 percent of my posts are about writing. What are my other topics? Heck if I know. My main topic, as you can see from my log-line, is progressive politics. Not so rare unless you live in conservative Wyoming. I can count my fellow Wyoming prog-bloggers on one hand, the ones who live in the southeast quadrant, anyway.

I began this blog with a simple idea. I was writing a nonfiction book about our family's experience with our ADHD son. I thought that the book would be instructive and a best-seller. But I quit halfway through as it was making me depressed. Our son was taking detour after detour, as often happens with those with hummingbird minds. So I went back to my short stories. I've published one volume of those stories thus far and have another one that needs publishing.

I found that blogging about ADHD has its limits. Substitute "ADHD" for "writing in Kristen's five points and you see the problem. Writing about any one topic is limiting.

Your next question might be: "But Mr. Shay, I was told that blogging about one topic was the key to success."

Good point. I know some fabulous one-topic blogs.Many are political. Others are by quilters, St. Louis Cardinal fans, high-altitude gardeners, bakers, dog owners, cat fanciers, model railroaders, Trekkers, etc. They have loyal followings. As Kristen explains it:

Want to know the formula for a hit blog?

Topics you are excited about + topics readers are excited about = hit blog.

Kristen urges us to have "flexible and dynamic content" because "we are humans and not robots."

But that is the point, isn't it. If you are a rabid Denver Broncos fan and you blog on that topic, you are asking for trouble. Just kidding. You should blog about the Broncos. You will get the most interesting responses, especially if you write anything bad about John Elway's management style or Peyton Manning's throwing style. If you're still writing about Tebow, you're hopeless. Your Broncos blog will get lots of readers and you might even find a way to make some dough with it, although don't go messing with that official NFL brand -- they'll sue your ass!

Good writers have always been flexible. Think of your favorite newspaper and magazine columnists. Did Mike Royko write about one thing? Molly Ivins? Erma Bombeck? Does Carl Hiaasen write about one thing? Rick Reilly? David Sedaris?  They have their specialties, but within those specialties they have lots of leeway.

If you've read my blog, you might be able to tell that my writing heroes are flexible and dynamic.They include those about and humor writers such as S.J. Perelman, Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley. Ring Lardner, P.J. O'Rourke, Bruce McCall, Alan Coren, all of the Monty Pythons, the Irish, and a whole bunch of others whose names I can't remember right now.

Do I have a successful blog? It's not commercially successful, but that's not my goal. Does it have its own brand? Probably. Is it me? Definitely. I write about topics that I'm excited about. Some of those topics are ones my readers are excited about.

Still, it makes me happy. That's what really counts. I can say this because I am not a robot, although next month my heart will be outfitted with electronic parts. The major part of my mechanism will remain flesh and blood.

And I have one question for Kristen: When can you travel to Wyoming to talk to us writers in the High, Wide and Lonesome?

Call for entries (kids only!): International Peace Poster Contest

"Children Know Peace," 2011-2012 grand prize winner

I know Lions Clubs best for its sight programs. Club members collect old eyeglasses and provide glasses for people who need them but can't afford them. The club also sponsors an eye bank and vision screening. But the Lions apparently have other visions for us all:

Each year, Lions clubs around the world proudly sponsor the Lions International Peace Poster Contest in local schools and youth groups. This art contest for kids encourages young people worldwide to express their visions of peace. For 25 years, more than four million children from nearly 100 countries have participated in the contest.

The theme of the 2012-13 Peace Poster Contest is "Imagine Peace." Students, ages 11, 12 or 13 on November 15, are eligible to participate.

Each year's art contest for kids consists of an original theme incorporating peace. Participants use a variety of mediums, including charcoal, crayon, pencil and paint, to express the theme. The works created are unique and express the young artists' life experiences and culture.

Twenty-four international finalists are selected each year, representing the work of more than 350,000 young participants worldwide. Posters are shared globally via the Internet, the media and exhibits around the world.

To learn more about the Lions International Peace Poster Contest, please view our brochure, contest rules and deadlines, call 630-203-3812 or contact the Lions Clubs International Public Relations Department.