Gut check

I couldn't fall asleep last night. So I spent the better part of an hour flipping through channels as if the combination of satellite and television would offer some sort of relief.

I ended up on the movie "Dazed and Confused," 1993's version of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" with less plot and more Jeff Spicolis.

It's funny, how profound a stoner movie can be when it's 1 a.m. and you're desperate for sleep.

But when your baby is about to turn nine and college becomes your oldest daughter's topic of choice, it makes an impression when a character says: You know, I'd like to quit thinking of the present -- like right now -- as some minor insignificant preamble to something else.

I wrote the words down, and then I looked at my little girl, who had usurped her dad's spot on the bed while seeking refuge from an earlier lightning storm.

Her eyes were closed. Her body sprawled out like a starfish across the bed. Her red hair fell away from her face like a fiery halo. When she was a baby, I had wondered if all of those curls acted as a built-in pillow when they bunched beneath her head.

As I watched her sleep, I found myself searching for the memories of when she and her sister grew up. Although I'd spent almost every hour of every day with them, I could only find a few.

Far fewer than what there should have been.

I suddenly felt like Rip Van Winkle, emerging from a deep sleep after so many years, discovering that I'd lost precious time because I had looked at the present as a minor preamble to something else.

A few nights ago at the supper table, my oldest daughter prayed -- quite pointedly, might I add -- that "some of us" (meaning her crabby mother) would find more patience and stop worrying so much about the future because "God will provide."

I think her prayer was answered last night.

In short, He aced the test

Somebody once told me that hell is the absence of God. If that's the case, then I've been using the right word to describe the past several weeks of my life.

I don't mean to come off as melodramatic. I know there are people out there who have gone through much worse. But for awhile, it really sucked to be me, especially since my ol' cup of faith wasn't runneth-ing over.
It didn't help that I had people trying to convince me that those who believe in God are naive fools.

On second thought, maybe I should be thanking God for those people.
You see, I'm a stubborn girl, and I will hold onto what I believe is right until my heart tells me otherwise. That's what kept me from letting go of my faith in the first place.
That's what made me listen to that little voice in my heart that kept saying: "Faith is all you have left, Kat. If you let go of that, you'll have nothing."
That's what made me do what Christians aren't supposed to do when their anger toward God turns into anger at themselves for believing in God.
I tested Him.

I was pretty upset that night. I went to bed cursing at Him, saying, "Why aren't you listening to my cries for help? I'm beginning to believe all of those people who say you aren't there at all. I'm about ready to give up on you because this is too much, so you better do something to let me know you are still there."

I truly believe that when I picked up my Bible from the nightstand and opened it, it was a last-ditch attempt to salvage whatever faith remained inside me.

I truly believe it was divine intervention, the way my eyes immediately settled on this passage from John 6: "On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"

Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.

Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

I closed the book, shocked.

I went back to the the part about the disciples complaining about Jesus' hard teaching and thought about how it applied to me. I've always said the best place to learn is the school of life.

And yes, sometimes the lessons are hard.

Very hard.

I realized that those are the times when I need to hold fast to my faith.

Looking back, my "long road through hell" reminds me of something a pastor from my hometown once said to me, something so profound it eventually found its way into my first manuscript.

The Rev. Thaddeus Roberson once told me, "Anytime that struggle comes and adversity comes, the devil has made his biggest mistake because he’s knocked you down and thrown you to the feet of Jesus."

I think I'll stay here awhile. It's not such a bad place to be after all.

Traveling for a year

The good news is . . . yesterday I found Jesus.

Literally.

My nativity scene had been buried under several inches of snow in my front yard since the weekend before Christmas. Recent warm weather melted all of that snow and allowed me to take down my outdoor decorations.

The bad news is . . . Northeast Nebraska is set to receive anywhere from five to nine inches of snow tomorrow.

Goodbye front yard. I'll see you again in a few weeks.

**************************************************************

There's a birthday this week that I almost forgot to acknowledge.

My blog turns one year old today!

Yay!

It's been an interesting year.

There's always been an element to blogging that brings forth anxiety in me. What if I say something wrong and look stupid? What if I make someone mad? What if no one likes me?

But my I-march-to-the-beat-of-my-own-drummer-anyway attitude pretty much annhiliates that anxiety.

Anyway, for those of you just tuning in, here's a wrap-up of the highlights from my first year of traveling the gravel.

My first post, I am, explains a little about my own "Long Road to Heaven."

Perhaps one of my favorite childhood stories is one of which I write in, A source of entertainment. (More than 25 years later, I'm still laughing about this.)

In June, my then-6-year-old provided entertainment by telling me the real definition of the words state patrol and frotler.

Also, in June, I unveiled the video and song Dana and I wrote for "Long Road's" soundtrack.

In August, I posted an interview I did with screenwriter and Hollywood legend Joe Eszterhas.

In October, I posted an interview with Christian musician Sara Groves and posted several "deleted scenes" from my manuscript.

Gwendolyn Stewart gave me an idea to write about a good day for writing in November.

Denial was the name of the game when I posted Yes, Elizabeth there is a Santa Claus in December.

And we had a lot of fun playing Six Degrees of Separation in January.

I've had a lot of fun blogging this year. I've met a lot of cool people. I think I've learned more about writing in the past year than I had in the past 15 put together.

Thanks to everyone who regularly stop by and comment. I look forward to reading them.

I can't wait to see what year No. 2 brings.

Less crabbing, more praying

I'm a self-absorbed person.

I hope admitting it in a public place lessens the reflection it bears on my personality.

See? Even my reason for admitting my myopic behavior is self-centered.

I spend time worrying about things (me) I know God will take care of. I end up frustrated knowing I can't micromanage my own life as well as He can.

And just when I need it most, He brings me back down to the place I need to be.

It happened this afternoon on my way back from lunch. I'd spent the morning cursing myself for not being able to work on my manuscript revisions faster, for not allowing myself to get the good night's sleep I needed, for trusting the stock market with my retirement fund, for driving into the road construction that took away three minutes of my free time.

In the midst of that, He brought me down to earth. As I waited for a stoplight to change, I saw a woman staggering across the street. Her heart looked as heavy as her body. In flipflops and mismatched clothing, she wandered west toward the mission pulling a suitcase and a bed roll behind her.

Homeless...in my town of 25,000.

I started thinking about all of the stories I've written for the paper on the poor, the tragic, the hurting.

A family of five lost their home in a fire before Christmas.

The father of eleven -- pastor to an entire community -- who struggled with liver failure.

The 1200 people who lost their jobs when the packing plant closed in town.

The mother who lost her five month old baby to SIDS.

It really makes me wonder -- what have I really got to complain about?

In case of writer's block, just press play

On May 21, 1983, my sister, Kim, married her longtime boyfriend.

And my other sister, Kristi, was upset.

Not over the marriage.

Heavens, no.

Kristi's role in the wedding ceremony -- bridesmaid -- had her up in arms, though. You see, for years she had been pining to see her most favorite band in the world, Styx, in concert. (You know, Styx -- come sail away, too much time on my hands, the best of times.) Smitten by their bass guitarist/vocalist Tommy Shaw, Kristi had made it her lot in life to catch these rockers in the act when they performed in Omaha on May 21, 1983.

Unfortunately, Kim's wedding kept her from reaching her goal in 1983.

Years passed quickly, and the band parted ways without her ever catching a glimpse of them live. (Although, she did manage to see Tommy when he performed in the band Damn Yankees with Ted Nugent.)

A few years back, the band reunited with new members, including Ricky Phillips (from Bad English, the Baby's, Coverdale-Page fame), and last summer made a stop in our hometown, Norfolk, Nebraska. As the former entertainment editor for the newspaper, I had the pleasure of interviewing Phillips. After my phone conversation with him ended, Kristi's desire to see them spilled over to me.

I mean, I spent my childhood singing along to "Suite Madam Blue" and "The Grand Illusion." And now the guys who wrote those songs were coming to my hometown. I couldn't find a reason not to be excited.

I called my sister and said, "We're going to Styx in Norfolk." We even took Kim. And we had a great time!

"The Long Road" is set mostly in 1980 primarily because the story is about a musician, and I love the music of that era -- Styx's music especially. While I was only 6 years old in 1980, Styx's music has a way of easily transporting me back to the feeling of that era and helps me get into the mindset of my characters.

I used their greatest hits CD to pull me out of a two-week writer's block this morning. Now, I have a renewed ambition to get back into Heather's head.

In my opinion, the video posted above contains their best song. Released in the mid-1970s, Crystal Ball is definitely my favorite.

Enjoy ~

Travel the gravel

Whoa! Did I freak you out?

Did you log on today and say, "Wait a minute! This isn't Kat's blog."

Sure it is. I just felt like I needed to change things up a little. After much wrangling with my computer at home, I finally managed to come up with a photo for my blog title that looked somewhat professional and a little bit snappy.

You likes? The photo above is actually a screenshot from the video I put together for the song, "Gone." (Look in the YouTube list at the side to watch the video.) It was shot on a rural road north of Tilden, Nebraska -- a tiny town about 30 miles away from where I work.

I've heard a lot of people say Nebraska is boring, but I believe those people have probably only experienced what's along the main roads. To really appreciate the beauty of Nebraska, you have to travel the gravel. You have to find the minimum maintenance roads (although not after a rain storm.

I grew up believing heaven looked like the land beyond the gravel roads in the cuthills of Northeast and Central Nebraska and the rolling green sanddunes in western Nebraska. In fact, several chapters of my novel are set in the rural countryside of Greeley County. It can get monotonous after a couple of hours, but there's nothing I love more than taking a daytrip west.

I love the beauty of the countryside out there. It's a nice change of pace from the mini-city in which I work.

So, in the spirit of that nice change of pace, I thought I'd change the landscape of my blog for awhile.

I hope you enjoy it!

The end of the Road

I finished it!

Last night, I finished the revision of Long Road.

I feel like opening a bottle of bubbly...except I have all that editing to do now.

SATB? Neither, I'm a writer

Shhh...listen. Do you hear that?

No? Listen closer because I think I found it.

What?

My writer's voice.

A few months back literary agent Rachelle Gardner hosted two-part contest on her blog. The first portion of the contest asked writers for the best opening line. From the opening lines she found most appealing, writers were asked to make up a compelling first page.

I didn't win. Sorry.

BUT, my entry ranked at the top of the list.

How do I know? Because she critiqued it on her blog.

Her assessment started me thinking about what that entry had that Long Road didn't. I eventually realized it was the opposite. The main character in Long Road felt distant and disconnected and the writing was, well, it was written liked I'd write a blog or a newspaper story.
Straightforward. They were just words strung together without a real sense of person or feeling.

So I looked at my own connection with my main character and ways to make that connection deeper. I took serious notes from my favorite writers and worked on developing my own way of describing what they described.

For the past few months, I've been revising Long Road from the first-person, and I'm almost done. I didn't realize it until working on a separate project last week that I had discovered my voice. I recognized it in the piece I wrote that was completely unrelated.

I finally understand what agents are talking about when they talk about voice.

Yea! I'm Kat Harris. Read me roar!

Patience, the virtue which hath escaped me

Patience definitely isn't your strong point. Is it? Long Road's leading man, Nick Tyler, says this to Heather the heroine (sounds like a new comic book star, doesn't it?) at one point of the story.

Heather the Heroine ;-) is a lot like me is some aspects.

Over the weekend, I finished the second to the last chapter of my first-person revision. I feel like it has taken forever to reach this point.

Why? Waning patience, I guess.

But some wonderful things have happened to me over the course of writing this revision.

I've met some other awesome writers online (JC Lamont, Sue Seeger, Katy McKenna) and received helpful critiques from readers on the Authoress's Web blog.

I've also learned a lot about scene construction, character depth and how to properly post a video to YouTube. (Hey, I'm a little behind.)

Yesterday, I was blessed with an idea for the short epilogue to Long Road with which I've struggled for a long time. I'm sure the end of the week will come before I get around to writing it. I'm so excited I'm about to jump out of my skin.

It feels good.

It feels real.

It's a pretty good day for a Monday.

'Gone'

So one night my husband, Dana, was playing the guitar and these words just popped into my head. I had spent a majority of the day jamming with the guys from my band (now defunct -- mostly) and that morning I had been working on my novel.

From the first five-bar phrase of this song, the words appeared. I grabbed a sheet of paper and started writing. "Gone" is what manifested.

After a little polishing, adding some drums and a bass line and later a solo and some free-flowing licks, this song -- Heather's song -- ended up being the best one, I think, that Dana and I wrote together. Of course, we're still writing, but this is by far my favorite. (BTW: That's not a harmonizer effect. That's a double-tracked vocal recording. In other words, that's me singing both of those lines.)

The video I put together on Friday afternoon. Earlier in the week, I took a brief roadtrip about 30 miles west of the town where I live and decided to take the scenic route back. These are the Nebraska cuthills and sandhills like the ones where Heather "grew up" near Brayton. (Actually, the ones near the old town of Brayton are much bigger and it's even more rural.) The gravel roads and the passing countryside you see in the video are the reason why I love Nebraska. That's why I set a portion of "Long Road" in Nebraska. I love the old-west beauty of this place, and believe it or not, this beauty exists within a half-hour drive of urban sprawl. The feeling of this place is definitely inspiring.

I hope you enjoy the video.

Little Darlins

Literary agent Nathan Bransford has a blog post today about word count in novels. http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2008/02/novel-word-count.html

"If your novel is going to be over 150,000 words and your name is not David Foster Wallace, Leo Tolstoy, or Vikram (Chandra or Seth), there had better be a darn good reason for it, " Bransford said in his blog.

My first rough draft of "Long Road" was 198,000 words. I laugh now when I look back at that. I don't think I could even bring myself to read it. Not only do I not have the patience, I wouldn't have the time. (By the way, I want to thank all of my friends who suffered through reading that first rough draft. God bless you.)

The topic of word count reminds me of something singer-songwriter Jim Casey said to me. "You've got to know when to let go of your 'Little Darlins'." Casey said he heard it from another Nashville musician, Dickey Lee. Working with Shel Silverstein, the prolific poet and lyricist with whom Casey wrote, was a walking demonstration of the phrase, he said. Apparently, Silverstein had a knack for writing verse after verse after verse and the musicians working with him just needed to discern which "Little Darlins" to cut.

"Oh,those Little Darlin's! How we love them and how hard it is to let them go," Casey said.While a couple Little Darlins can make a song, too many can make it cluttered and unappealing to the ear.

As an amateur songwriter (that's amateur in every sense of the word), I could relate to what he was saying. My understanding of what he meant correlates to the literary world, too.

At the time, it hurt to put "Long Road" on the chopping block and start hacking away the Little Darlins. It was a multi-step process that eventually ended up with a (mostly) clean finished product that was around 98,000 words.

But here's what I did:

1. I decided what part of the story I wanted to tell. In novels there can easily be stories within a story, and there should be in order to give it depth, but if the story within your story takes away from or slows down your plot, then it's a little darlin that should probably be cut.

2. Find your bad writing habits and fix them.I have still have trouble with this because I find myself using certain phrases repeatedly or unnecessary prepositional phrases and words. Take, for instance, the line from my novel: "Her clothes were still damp from being outside in the mist."Well, of course, she was outside in the mist. If mist was falling in the apartment, Nick needs to call his landlord and get his roof fixed.The line was later changed to: "Her clothes were still damp from the mist."

3. Lastly, I took the knowledge I gained from working at a newspaper and applied it to my novel. In a newspaper, you have only between 10 and 25 inches to tell a full story. If you think cutting a novel down from 198,000 words to 98,000 words, try telling the full scope of a story in 600 words.

So, take it for what it's worth, but that's how my novel turned into half the book with twice the impact. (According to my peers who have read it anyway.)