Me and Melissa and Garrison Keillor

It's been nearly two months, but that day in October will be a highlight for a long, long time. I'm just now finding the energy to write about it!

Garrison Keillor hosted the fundraising event our arts organization put together. The show had roof-raising music. It had a Lone Ranger radio show, with Garrison as Tonto, the Lone Ranger's Norwegian sidekick. It had a 35-minute News from Lake Wobegon. We had a fancy dinner afterwards. In summary, we had a great, great time.

Here Melissa and I greet Garrison when he arrives.





Here I'm showing him around the theater.



Here's a shot from the show, but if you want to see more, go to
http://www.zaac.org/redshoesslideshow.html



And at the dinner...







If anyone is interested in ordering the double CD of this great show, just head for http://www.zaac.org/RedShoes_CD_order_form_.pdf , where you can download an order form. This would make a great Xmas present for any Garrison Keillor fan. (All proceeds go towards our efforts to buy the State Theatre and use it as a non-profit arts center.)

Because the event was initially my idea, I seemed to have ended up in charge. It was an incredible learning experience for me, and other than the EXTREME tension as the day arrived, I'm glad I did it. This show, however, could not have happened without people stepping up and volunteering. And I'm so grateful that Garrison drove down here and gave us hours of his energy and stories.

Recording an Audio Book (The Third and Last Installment!)




Karen, one of the Dog Ear Audio owners, asked me if I was like Emma, the modern main character in A Pirate's Heart. As usual, I had to reply that all my heroines were smarter, funnier, and braver than I am. I proved this the afternoon we escaped the sound booth (Pattie had to listen to the entire recording in search of problems we'd missed), so Melissa, Karen and I went sightseeing at the Florissant Fossil Beds.



When we returned to the car, a man pointed out that our tire sidewall was about to blow. In A Pirate's Heart, Emma skillfully changes a tire, gently needling Randi for not knowing how. Karen and Melissa changed the tire, while I helped out by returning to the Interpretive Center to go shopping.

Nope, not Emma.

We redid the first three chapters I'd recorded, since I'd been a little uptight and that came through in my voice. Then after Pattie had listened to the whole thing and highlighted in blue those sentences I needed to redo, we redid those 'blue lines.' Some chapters had one or five, a few had none. I'd pop into the sound booth, skim the page to find my place in the story, then record the phrase.

And then, after six days in the booth, I was done! It was an incredible feeling. I'd been scared, nervous, worried and doubtful, but I'd made it through, and I'd done a job I could be proud of.

We celebrated by visiting an earth ship, an earth-sheltered home Pascha had built using recycled tires, adobe, and lots of clever engineering.




What's next? Pattie must go through and find all my clicker marks---replacing the messed up version with the improved version. She must do another 'fine listening', tweaking the sound, trying to soften any 'plosives' we missed. (Bs and Ps can make this irritating pop into the microphone that no one wants to hear.)

Pattie and Karen will put in the disc numbers, add music, then place hidden 'chapter points' about every 90 seconds or so. This allows folks to skip ahead, or backward, to different tracks, faster. Then they'll 'normalize' and 'hard limit' the entire recording, so the sound volume is consistent throughout, and then they put everything to discs for a final 'fine-fine' listening.

These poor women have to listen to an audio book a zillion times before it goes out, so they only choose books they love.

Here's what I've learned about writing after recording an audio book:

1) Never use words with more than two syllables. After a few hours of reading, tongues refuse to cooperate when you reach three syllable words.

2) Never use words with Ss in them---these are impossible to pronounce without your mouth sounding like Niagara Falls. I'm so done with Ss. Whoops---I mean I am totally done with Ss.

3) Avoid words like 'indigent', 'glistening,' 'remembering', 'contentment,' ...and a host of other words. From now on all my novels will read like Dick and Jane.

I've also learned that speaking your work out loud helps you find problems you totally miss when reading, so that's the most important thing I've learned: No matter how long, no matter the genre, I'm going to read everything out loud before sending it off to an editor.

Thanks, Pattie and Karen, for a great week and an incredible learning experience!

Recording an Audio Book, Part Two

I'm not an actor. My sole thesbian (thesbian!) experience was playing a townsperson in Rumplestiltskin during the summer YMCA Theater Camp when I was 12, something my mom made me join because I was shy.

My role was to run across the stage screaming, frightening the other townspeople and the audience. This is a ridiculous role to give to a shy person. The director had me do it over and over again, but I refused to do more than barely raise my voice. The only person frightened by my performance was me.

I would be Dog Ear Audio's first non-acting author to narrate her book---Clifford Henderson narrated her WONDERFUL novel The Middle of Somewhere, but Cliffi's an actor, and knew what she was doing. So when I showed up at the Dog Ear studio that first morning, I was very nervous.

A Pirate's Heart has two threads: a modern thread, Emma's story, and an historical thread, Captain Thomasina Farris's story. We decided I would record all of Emma's story first. They showed me their equipment and the funny software that turned my voice into spikes and pulses on the screen. I was too nervous to register much of it.

Inside the booth, I began. Karen and Pattie were incredibly supportive and encouraging.

Other than the microphone, my most important tool was the dog clicker in my right hand. Whenever I heard myself make a mistake, I clicked, and redid the sentence. The clicker makes a spike on Pattie's computer so she can more easily go back, find the spikes, and replace the bad version with the corrected version.

Sometimes this goes smoothly, sometimes not.

Here's an example: "Why was I so obsessed with Tommy Farris?"

Why wuziso---click.

Why was I so possessed---click.

Why was I so obsessed with Fommy Tarris---click.

Here's where you fall apart and begin giggling hysterically, causing Karen and Pattie to peer through the little window, concerned your breakdown is coming so soon in the process.

I hadn't been reading more than 20 minutes when they stopped me and Karen came into the booth. "We're hearing a strange noise in here, one we can't identify." I was wearing sweatpants for comfort, and had been pulling them up to my knees, pushing them down, and rubbing my hands nervously on my thighs.

Distraction time. Pattie handed me a small, smooth stone. "Hold this in your hand and you won't be able to rub your sweatpants."

Armed with stone and clicker, I pushed on. I would read a chapter, then step out of the booth and Karen would go over those sentences or phrases I needed to redo. They called them 'repairs.' Repairs were usually needed because I'd mushed two words together, missed an important word, or some outside force had interfered (planes passing overhead, trucks rumbling down the gravel road, thunder, and the most embarrassing, my stomach---stomach growling comes straight up the throat and into the microphone.)

Back into the booth to record the repairs, then back out for the next chapter. I was drinking GALLONS of water every day to keep me hydrated, so when I wasn't in the booth, guess where I was!

Meanwhile, Dog Ear Audio friends took Melissa fishing.





She went on walks with Hallie.



Karen and Pattie fed us. During meals I was to remain quiet, saving my voice, and they wouldn't let me do any work. Can we say the words "SPOILED AUTHOR"?

They made us a cherry pie, complete with pirate motif.



And when we learned that A Pirate's Heart had won a Golden Crown Literary Award for Historical Fiction, they broke out the champagne, which I couldn't drink because alcohol is bad for the voice. They did present me with a Diet Coke (caffeine is also bad, but hey, we wanted to celebrate), and I chugged it gratefully.

I took lots of breaks, sitting outside for the fresh air, talking to the fox who visited every day. A pair of foxes had a den nearby with 4 full-grown kits, and the male must have needed a break 'cause he'd come sleep in their yard.





I began really enjoying myself in the booth, loving the novel (which is better than hating it!) and really getting into the emotions of telling the story. Each evening and morning I'd read through the upcoming material and edit, smoothly out awkward phrasing, eliminating words that didn't seem necessary.

But as I clicked my way through Emma's story, rubbing that stone for all it was worth, Captain Tommy and her men loomed before me. How was I going to turn myself into a pirate?

Thank God I never once had any of the pirates say 'Arrgggh.'

Recording an Audio Book, Part One


When Dog Ear Audio asked me to consider coming to Colorado to record an audio version of my novel, A Pirate's Heart, I was hesitant. What did this involve? Could I do it? Was my voice bearable enough to listen to for 9-10 hours? And since I don't listen to audio books myself, I didn't understand the appeal of this form.

Yet I thought---Hmmm, 9 days off the farm would be good for both of us. Dog Ear would put us up in a friend's empty home. They'd feed us. They'd teach me how to do this. "Okay," I emailed back, "it's a plan." Our delightful friend Bonnie agreed to come and farm-sit.

Dog Ear Audio is a new audio book company that focuses on works by lesbian authors. Straight authors and gay men have plenty of audio options, but no one focuses on books by lesbians. Dog Ear is two amazing women, Karen Wolfer and Pattie Olson. They live in a remote area of Colorado called the "High Desert" west of Pike's Peak. They have a dog, Hailey, who has ears. I never got around to asking them if this is where the name came from.

Karen met us at the Colorado Springs airport with a big bouquet of lavender daisies. I have NEVER been met at an airport with flowers. This was my first hint that they were going to treat us very well. (In fact, they treated me so well, calling me their 'talent,' that by the end of the week, the word "Diva" was tossed about.)

The scenery was beautiful, of course.




The air was crisp, clean, and unfortunately for us, contained almost no oxygen. Okay, I exaggerate a bit, but really, at 9000 feet, the air contains 40% less oxygen than at Minnesota's less than 1000 feet above sea level. We both had headaches, which is normal. The hard part was having no air. After brushing her teeth, Melissa was out of breath. After eating a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, I was gasping for air and had to take a rest.

Karen and Pattie have a friend whose house is up for sale, and she allowed us to stay there. This is no mountain cabin, let me tell you. It was a lovely, lovely home on the top of a really, really, big hill. (If you have $389,000 and want to live in the mountains of Colorado, I'll put you in touch with the seller!)

Here are a few views of the house, which is made of straw bales.






See the deep window wells?




That's the width of the straw bale walls. And to prove that the walls really are made of straw, the builder makes a 'truth window,' showing you just what's under the stucco walls.




Dog Ear Audio is located in Pattie and Karen's home, a hub of computers and sound boards and really big microphones. They took me into their lower level to show me the set-up before we began recording the next day.

I've been in radio studios before, with big windows between the studio and the sound technician, and that's what I expecting. Turns out a sound booth isn't like a radio studio, it's like a booth...as in phone booth...as in small.

I stepped into the tiny room and gasped. I'm a bit claustrophobic. I believe my actual words at seeing the sound booth, spoken like the true professional I am, were something like "Accck! Accck!"

Three walls were covered in absorbent foam, and one wall had a small window looking out at the computer/recording desk. Melissa saw my panic and stepped in. "Could we move this microphone so Catherine could see out the little window?" I appreciated Melissa being able to form this important sentence, as I was still stuck on "Acck! Acck!," and lacked the breath for more. (40% less oxygen, remember?)

See the little window above the computer? That was my only connection to the "outside world."




We moved the microphone, set up another lamp in the room to make it cozier, and I decided I'd be fine. Of course it turned out I was so focused on what I was doing that I didn't notice I was spending 8 hours a day in a tiny, tiny room. I think Karen and Pattie worried I'd freak out, banging on the little window to be let out, but I was fine. Here's me visible through the little window.


And here's me in the booth itself.



The little table at my side held water, hot tea, piles of cough drops to soothe my throat, lip balm to keep my lips from drying out, a box of tissues, and two very important items: a stone, and a white dog training clicker. (See the clicker in my hand?) Both the stone and the clicker became my best friends over the next seven days. I'll explain why in my next installment.

Now I gotta go make lunch for Melissa and me. For days Karen and Pattie fed us, and I'm a little put out that I must now cook again.

I liked being a diva.

Scary Stuff

When I write about writing, it's often after something has been published or won an award, and that's not scary.

What's really scary is to talk about my writing in the middle of it, when I don't know what it is, when I'm terrified it's not a real book, when I wake up at night and convince myself I've just constructed the worst book in the world.

That's where I am right now, and it's not a place I like to be. I like to be either at the beginning of the process, when the book is just a great idea in my head and my confidence level is high, or at the end of the process, when my editor and I have done the best we can and the manuscript's about to get sucked into the publishing machine and spit out as a book on the other side.

It's this middle stuff that's scary.

This next book is, once again, a weird mix of genres. It's memoir and nonfiction. It's about facing recent challenges on our farm, what to do about them, and why anyone should even care if a small farm bites the dust. So it's also about small farms and what they contribute to the world and about wool and sheep and about knitting a sock.

How do I know in what order to put things? Are the details boring? Will I be the only one who thinks the piece about me trying to catch a lamb in tight jeans is funny? Structure, structure, structure. Details, details. Is there an emotional journey? Why would anyone want to read this stuff?

The first draft was full of huge holes, but I wanted my editor's feedback. She was swamped, so it took her a month to respond. She loved Part 1, which was good. Parts 2 and 3 weren't even close to being what they needed to be (although she said this much more nicely than I've put it.) I went back to the drawing board, as they say.

This morning I sent the next draft off to my editor, which means I may not actually breathe until I hear from her. I know I'll continue inhaling and exhaling, but a huge part of me will not be paying any attention to my life until I know if the book is on track, or if it's in the wrong country entirely.

Many people think that once you've written a few books, it gets easier, that you relax because you know what you're doing. While I do have more overall confidence in myself, when I'm in the middle of this process my confidence hangs up a "Do Not Disturb" sign and refuses to come out and play.

My mouth's dry. My stomach's tight. Just sitting here writing about the scary stuff is scary stuff.

Time to take a walk, breathe deeply, and hug the puppy.

The Gift of Inspiration

I was going through a box the other day and found something I'd thought I'd lost. Eons ago when I'd been working on what became my memoir, a friend had made a book 'cover' for me, complete with title, illustration, and my name, then framed it.

For years I kept the framed cover on my desk (a wooden door across two short file cabinets in one corner of an unfinished basement, surrounded by gray concrete and black spiders.) I didn't know if what I was writing would be published. I didn't know if what I was writing was even a book.

But in my confusion and uncertainty I'd often look over at the framed cover, drawing from it encouragement and confidence. Even though by then Liz had moved to another state and we'd lost touch, her gift continued to inspire me daily.

So here it is, but by showing it, now everyone will know my memoir's initial title.

Prepare thyself...




Yes, you read that correctly. "Searching for Placenta by Moonlight."

Catchy, eh?

I later changed it to "Dancing with Goats in the Moonlight."

Then it became "Sheep Sex and Other Natural Disasters." That was its title when Marlowe & Co purchased the manuscript, but the big wigs in New York were worried that 'sheep sex' would take certain minds in the wrong direction. Yikes.

So we changed the title to "Hit By a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn," which fit perfectly.

Sometimes the right title come to a writer in a blinding flash of inspiration. In my case it took about 7 years to get it right...

Well, well, well.

Yes, it's great to be a finalist on any book award list, but I've also discovered it's also great to actually bring that award home.

Last Saturday I sat in a hotel ballroom with 700 people attending the 21st Annual Minnesota Book Awards. My book, The Compassionate Carnivore, was a finalist in the General Nonfiction category. After 48 books were submitted in this category, four were chosen as finalists, and I made that list, which was enough for me.

As the presenter for my category began speaking, I tried not to want the award too much. So when he read my name, I was stunned, but managed to get myself up onto the stage, dressed appropriately even. (Just before I'd left my house for the 70 mile drive, I'd noticed I was all dressed on top, but had nearly forgotten to change out of my black exercise pants with fushia and white strips up the side. Wouldn't have that made a lovely fashion statement.)

Who did I thank for the award? I thanked Melissa, of course, for getting me out onto the farm, which has---now that it's not trying kill me---provided me with a wealth of material on which to draw. I thanked my editor Renee Sedliar, who did such an amazing job of shepherding me through the complex process of writing this book that I sent her a real, honest-to-goodness shepherd's crook.

I added one more thank you then fled the stage.

Did I thank my dear friend Kathy Connelly, who was in the audience and has been incredibly supportive of anything I've done ever since the day we met in 1985? (which happened thanks to my puppy Tory racing out of the lake and jumping into poor Kathy's lap as she sat reading on the beach at a Wisconsin resort.)

I did not.

Did I thank my friend Pam Thiltgen-Hester, also in the audience, for suggesting to me, as we sat shoehorned into an office working as technical writers in 1986, that I should really consider giving creative writing a try?

I did not.

Did I thank Marion Dane Bauer, also in the audience, one of my first writing mentors in the early 1990s?

Nope.

Did I thank the Loft Literary Center for all its support, or the Friends of the Saint Paul Library for hosting the MN Book Awards?

Again, no.

In my own defense, I was nervous, a bright floodlight shone right in my eyes, and I was worried because the mike seemed too low. I just wanted to be out of there.

So I thanked Melissa, thanked Renee, then I---hold on to your hat--thanked my sheep.

Holy Stupid-Thing-To-Say, Batman.

Luckily ten years of Toastmasters taught me that the dumb things we say in public quickly fade, leaving nothing but a lovely blown glass award glowing on the living room table.