Kristin Bair O'Keeffe: Writer. Mom. Teacher. Traveler.

Expat in China: 10 of My Favorite Blog Posts from 2007

As we prepare to leave China, I'm taking a stroll down blog-memory lane. Here are 10 of my favorite posts from 2007. (If you missed the list from 2006, click here.)

• "Weird Camera-in-Thumb Dream" (Forgot all about this dream. Makes me happy that I write them all down...and that I got to wear a cat suit.)

• "Writing: On Process: Changing Point of View in Mid-Stream" (This was so long ago, I barely remember when my novel was in first person.)

• "Wulumuqi Road: Chicken on a Leash" (Love this post. Cracks me up...still.)

• "The Bali Dance" (Getting ready for my first trip to Bali...um, I was happy.)

• "Mumbai: 10 Things" (We did a good bit of traveling in 2007. One of the most fascinating trips was to Mumbai, India.)

• "Qingyang Gong: My Favorite Buddhist Temple in Chengdu, China" (And after three more years of visiting temples in China, this is STILL my all-time favorite. A very special place.)

• "5 Things My Ayi Tells Me" (In China, I am lucky enough to have an ayi. A woman who comes into my home and cooks/cleans/does laundry/helps out with Tully/etc. Usually an ayi also butts into your business and tells you what's what. Zheng Mei was our ayi in 2007 when I wrote this entry. As you can see, it was a complicated relationship.)

• "Sealing the Envelope: Solving the Mystery" (Question: Why don't envelopes in China have seal-y stuff on them? Answer: Click on the link.)

• "In Line at the U.S. Consulate's Office or Notes on a Buffoon" (some folks give Americans a really bad name)

• "More on Bicycles in Shanghai" (Question: How many bicycles do you think are registered in Shanghai?)

A Novel: Writing the Pitch

When I posted on Facebook that I was working on the 1-sentence pitch for my next novel, two friends came up with great suggestions:

• Just read me!

• International bestseller!

Good god, I wish it were that easy.

Instead I've been holed up in my tiny office for the past six days rolling sentence after sentence around in my noggin, on a piece of scratch paper, and on the computer screen. I've written possible 1-sentence pitches on receipts from City Shop, my left hand, yellow stickies, a menu (while out to dinner), the inside cover of The Best American Travel Writing 2009, and other sundries.

For all you non-writers out there, the 1-sentence pitch is your "elevator pitch." You know, you find yourself in an elevator with a top editor at a top publishing house who can make or break your career and you've got, oh, 15 seconds or so to pitch your book. (Of course, this is an absurd and highly unlikely scenario in today's publishing world, but go with me.)

You can also think of the 1-sentence pitch as what you tell a fellow mom you meet at the playground and with whom you have a quick conversation while your kids are climbing the monkey-bars. As her two-year-old runs off in the direction of the street, she hollers over her shoulder, "What's your book about?" and you've got about 15 seconds before she's out of earshot.

Soooooooooo...how's it all going?

Well, while being tortured by the 1-sentence pitch, I've also written a 1-paragraph pitch and a 2-paragraph pitch (getting it all done in one fell swoop). According to my husband, the 2-paragraph pitch is (hee hee) "pitch-perfect."

Whoo-hoo!

But, he went on to tell me, the 1-sentence pitch isn't.

UUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I wish he were wrong, but I know he's right.

So it's back to the scribbling pad.

Wish me luck. Cause you know, since I am going to moving halfway around the world in about five weeks, there are just few other things I should be doing.

___

Pencil Photo Credit: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Film Clip Photo Credit: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How to Title a Novel: Breaking It Down

So I'm there. At that critical place. Deciding on a title for the novel I've been working on since 2006.

Exciting?

Yep.

Challenging?

Yep.

Overwhelming?

A little.

Crazy Dream: Travel, Writing, Place & How My Brain Tries to Work It All Out

This morning I dreamed I was back in Shanghai emceeing a writing event at a club. The event? A quiz of sorts about the ranch I lived on in New Mexico back in the late 1990s.

There I was in China facing a big crowd of expectant writers trying to remember all the details of the NM ranch. I had a list of places on the ranch (Castle Rock, Costilla, Crazy Woman Creek, etc.) that I had to describe in luscious detail in order to "win" the writing event.

Then suddenly, I was no longer in the club in Shanghai; the audience was gone (poof); and I was in a truck on the ranch (still gripping the writing "quiz" in my hand).

Whoa.

Time travel.

Life travel.

My lovely (jetlagged) subconscious working like hell to stitch it all together into some semblance of order. (Good luck, brain.)

For a while in the dream, I drove through the mountains, sighed when I saw the glacier lakes, got a little woozy in the switchbacks, and waxed nostalgic. I think I even had an altitude headache. God, I loved this ranch when I lived there...what I discovered about myself on this ranch...and yes, I still love this ranch and New Mexico in general.

Then whoosh! I was back in that Shanghai club with my audience. They were cheering. I must have been doing well on the quiz.

Whoop! Whoop!

Then back on the ranch...on a mountain peak overlooking the vega. I saw two bears, a herd of elk, and an eagle.

Then zwoop! In da club in Shanghai...writing furiously, reading to the audience, showing slides of a wild stallion I ran into on a hike on time, guiding them on a virtual tour of the ranch.

It was exhilarating.

And exhausting.

When I woke, I was longing...for New Mexico...for China...for the kind of comfort I feel when I'm home (like now) in the U.S. eating ice cream sandwiches and Oreo cookies.

My first "thought" after the dream?

I have had and continue to have a pretty cool life. I'm a writer inspired by place and wow...I've lived in some amazing places.

My next "thought"?

I don't dream this way when I'm in China. I've had vivid dreams all my life, but I don't often dream in China. What does that mean? Why is this?

And my last "thought" before my two-year-old hollered "Mumma!" from the next room?

I need to write.

______

Thanks to Michal Marcol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net for the mountain photo.

Cool Links, Einstein's Brain, Travel Stuff, Wrap-Ups, And More

With a major trip looming, I'm wrapping up loose ends in Shanghai.

• Zai Jian -- The hardest part about being an expatriate? Transience. Friends come; friends go. With much greater intensity and frequency than in most other sub-bubbles of humanity. We expats leap into life in a foreign country, and in order to handle the changes, most of us work like crazy to "find our tribe." Earlier this week, one of my bestest ever friends left Shanghai for good. We met way back in 2006 when we were both newbies to China; we've been hanging out ever since. Now she's back in the United States, no longer a quick 5:00 phone call away.

• The Last Page -- Yesterday I taught the final class of my writing workshop here in Shanghai. It rocked. All the things that happen in a successful workshop happened. Throughout the six weeks, the students learned to trust their own voices and stories; they learned to trust their fellow writers; their writing got stronger; they got more confident; they learned a lot about reading as writers; they wrote good stuff; and we all had a great time...and a lot of laughs. Bravo to my students for showing up and doing the work.

• I'm Leaving On A Jetplane... -- Tomorrow (Friday) me, my hubs, and our 2-year-old Tulliver will board a plane bound for the United States. While I love and look forward to our annual visit to the States, I'm no longer surprised by the amount of work it takes to get ready for said trip. Holy schmoly. Why is it so hard to get 2 big people and 1 small person ready for an around-the-world journey? Beats me, but it is. I just keep chanting, "Don't forget your U.S. drivers licenses" cause you know, that would suck. (Last time we got all the way to the Shanghai airport before we realized we had left the stroller behind at our apartment. Um, bad, bad, bad.)

• Book Promotion -- In my ongoing exploration into cool, creative ways to promote books, I came across this story about novelist Jennifer Belle who has hired actresses to read her newest novel (The Seven Year Bitch) in public and laugh while reading. Clever, unique, and probably a little expensive. I like it. (Read the full story here.)

• Thirsty -- Which brings me to my novel, THIRSTY. Have you read it? What? You haven't? Oh, my friend, it's time you did. Click here to learn more about it. Click here to buy it from Amazon.

• 13 Fabulous Overlooked Books by Famous Authors -- The Huffington Post listed 13 books by famous authors that many readers haven't read. How many have you read? Some cool finds here. (I can't believe Marquez's Of Love & Other Demons is an overlooked book! It's one of my favorites. Bartleby the Scrivener, too.)

• Einstein's Brain -- Did YOU know that someone stole Einstein's brain (after he was dead, of course)? I didn't, but now that I do know, I'm kinda intrigued. Who the heck runs off with a brain? NPR ran the story earlier this week. (Click here to read.)

Now...off to pack.

___

Hot Air Balloon Photo Credit: J Frasse / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Writing, "Expating," A Question For Me, A Question For You

WRITING

Every day I wake up with two thoughts:

• Tully (my 2-year-old)--love, love, love

• my novel--this story that has consumed me for 3+ years now...the one that has REALLY consumed me (gulp, gulp, gulp) in the past 8 months...the one that I cannot stop working on, thinking about, writing, tweaking, dreaming about, etc. I walk down the street in Shanghai watching the recycling guy, snapping shots of the chicken man, trying my damnedest not to get plowed down by one of the gazillion totally insane drivers on the road...but the whole time I'm thinking, "Now...what is M going to do when S does this? How long will she stay in that tree? (Yes, I have a character who spends a good bit of time in a tree...but for a good reason...love.)

EXPATING

A new friend recently asked me, "Do you love China?

Wow...I thought...what a question. A complicated, layered question that deserves some real thought. (Perhaps it should fall in the "QUESTIONS THAT CAME UP FOR ME THIS WEEK" category.)

This is a question that might be better directed at travelers...folks who spend three weeks touring all of China's hotspots (Beijing, Xian, Chengdu, Hainan, Shanghai, etc.)...not necessarily folks that LIVE IN China.

But then again, why not ask us/me this question?

So...

I'll get back to you on it.

QUESTIONS THAT CAME UP FOR ME THIS WEEK:

• What do you have faith in? (See this weird, cool, driven guy's current adventure...you'll see why I'm asking myself this.)

And you? Yes, you. What do you have faith in?

Happiness Is...

• When the pull tab on the milk container opens flawlessly. (Don't need a knife to finish the job and am not covered with milk.)

• Delicious organic blueberries on my cereal. (Thanks Fields in Shanghai.) Yum!

• When the Indiana University Alumni Magazine highlights my novel Thirsty. Whoop! Whoop! (Go Hoosiers!)

• The "Author Mama Proudest Moments Celebration" over at Christina Katz's website!!!

• Last Sunday's hugely successful Out Loud! reading at the Glamour Bar in Shanghai. (Here's a pic of me with the featured readers Steve Thomas and Barb Shaya. Of all the writing-related things I do, uniting good writers with a live and lively audience is one of the ones I love best.)

Those are my 5 happy things of today. What are yours?

On Writing: A Balancing Act

In a tres cool project called Living Architecture: Holidays in Modern Architecture, philosopher/writer/all-around-interesting-idea-guy Alain de Botton* is renting out five mega-modern houses to Regular Joes and Josephines (RJJs) for really, really cheaps.

Why?

So the RJJs can get over their fear of modern architecture in a pleasurable, experiential way.

Like I said, tres cool.

Me...I'm not afraid of modern architecture; in fact, I'd give anything to live in a modern house made of funky materials with an unusual shape and lots of surprises.

But as a writer, there's something else in this Living Architecture thing for me. Ever since I discovered the project earlier this week (via a link on Twitter by @MustardPepper), I've been obsessing about it. Within minutes of reading the Tweet, I'd clicked through all five houses: three that are already built and booking renters and two that will be completed soon. I'd even discovered my favorite..."The Balancing Barn"...a house that immediately resonated with my head, soul, and writing process.

(Before reading further, please click through to a picture of "The Balancing Barn." Otherwise you're going to be lost and confused for the remainder of this post. Let's avoid this potentially hazardous situation.)

Now...those of you who read this blog regularly know that for the past few years I've been working on my second novel and am (knock on wood) almost finished. I'm in what I call the "final, final rewriting" stage and I've been searching for a way to describe to you (and to myself) how I'm working on the manuscript now.

"The Balancing Barn" gave me the answer.

I'm balancing the story.

Take another look at "The Balancing Barn." See how it is perfectly weighted so that one half sits firmly planted on the ground and the other half reaches out-out-out over the meadow?

Gorgeous, isn't it?

The risk? The equilibrium? The humor? The mystery?

It is this kind of balance that I'm working to create in my novel. (It is also these elements: risk, equilibrium, humor, mystery.) And it's not easy. Although there is only one main character in the story, there are three equally important story lines; two very present, very important secondary characters; a cast of lively supporting characters; and a setting that also plays an active role (just as setting did in my first novel Thirsty).

How am I going about balancing it?

There are two parts to the process:

First, the concrete. From Staples in Shanghai, I ordered a load of Post-It Tabs (you know, the skinny, narrow, bookmarky Post-Its) in all kinds of colors. Next I assigned a color to each important character and to each of the three story lines. Then on a printed copy of the manuscript, I tagged every scene with the appropriate character and/or story line Post-It. Once all tags were in place, I could see when one character hadn't made an appearance in a while or when one of the three story lines got dropped for too long.

Obviously this is a complicated, time-consuming process, but it works for me. Once I knew where the gaps were, I was able to dive back into the manuscript. For the past few weeks, I've been writing new chapters and moving others around.

Second, the abstract. Here's how it happens: Before bed, read a few chapters. Ponder them. Play with them. Then sleep, wake up, lie in bed for a few minutes "seeing" the story in my head. Then walk my daughter to school, work out, do the grocery shopping, take a shower. Later, have a margarita with my husband. Read. Eat dumplings. Dream. And at every moment "see" the story in my head...solving problems that seemed unsolvable while sitting at my desk...and allowing the story to grow beyond what is already on the page (which can be wildly difficult once you actually have a story on the page).

Finally, when it feels right, I return to my computer and dive in.

This stage of the rewriting process requires two things: imagination and precision. I think about how the architects who designed and built "The Balancing Barn" went about their work and like to think it was in much the same way.

Now...time for a margarita.

The Far-Flung Writer: A Lesson in Submitting Your Work from Abroad

REALIZATION #1: A few days ago, I realized that I've got 5 or 6 (amazing, kick-ass, life-changing) unpublished essays/short stories just lying around my office that I've intended to submit to literary magazines, but haven't.

WHY HAVEN'T I SUBMITTED THESE ASS-KICKING ESSAYS & SHORT STORIES THAT ARE JUST LYING AROUND MY OFFICE?

• Like a lot of writing women, I'm a working mom with too many things to do and not enough hours in the day. Sitting at my computer, writing cover letters, reading the often super-detailed submission guidelines of dozens of lit magazines, printing copies of my work along with labels, and stuffing envelopes often falls right off my arm-length to-do list. Go figure.
  

• I'm trying like crazy to keep my first novel Thirsty moving. Marketing, connecting, sharing with readers, potential readers, book bloggers, etc. (Hey, that reminds me, have you read Thirsty yet?)

• I'm trying like crazy to finish writing novel #2.

• Submitting your work is an oh-my-god time-consuming activity no matter where you live, but it's even more time-consuming when you live overseas. (Mostly I submit to lit mags in the U.S.)

REALIZATION #2: It's time to get off my arse. These pieces aren't going to submit themselves. The editors of literary magazines aren't going to bang on my door begging for the essay I wrote about that god-awful smell in Shanghai that nearly sent me soaring out an open window. It's up to me. Me! "Kristin, get off your arse," I told myself this week. (And I did.)

EXTRA-SPECIAL SUBMISSION CHALLENGES FOR WRITERS LIVING OVERSEAS?

• Slower Internet connections make it more time-consuming (notice a trend here?) to look up the submission guidelines of literary magazines. I'm talking hours and hours to find out the reading period of Magazine A (Sept 15 - April 15...missed it!) and the submission address for Magazine B.

• In order to include an SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) with our work, we far-flung writers need to make sure we have U.S. stamps in our possession. After all, it is a self-addressed STAMPED envelope we have to include with our submission. (And by the way, what is the cost of sending a letter internationally from the U.S. these days? Still 90 cents?)

• I know each country is different, but dealing with a post office in China can be either weirdly quick and painless OR so frustrating you want to jab chopsticks into your own eyeballs.

• Mailing submissions from China via regular mail is fairly cheap, but awfully slow...and somewhat unreliable. Using a quicker shipping service is expensive. Kind of a lose-lose situation.

cheap & slow & somewhat unreliable VS expensive & quick & much more reliable

BRIEF PAUSE FOR RANT AGAINST BIGGEST PET PEEVE

I cannot believe that there are still literary magazines out there that state "No Simultaneous Submissions" in their guidelines. (All you non-writers out there, see below for definition of "Simultaneous Submission.")

Hello? Hello?

We writers often wait six months and longer to get a yea or nay from a literary magazine to which we've submitted a single essay or story. Six months or longer! (In fact, last year I received a rejection for a piece I'd submitted an entire year before.)

And there are still literary magazines out there that want us to submit our work one piece to one lit mag at a time? And wait for a response before submitting to another lit mag?

My god, we'd all be dead before we were published.

 
HAPPY DISCOVERY FOR WRITERS ABROAD!!!

As a far-flung writer abroad, I look for literary magazines that either allow email submissions OR use an online submission manager. Two years ago (before I became a mom and I did a lot more submitting of my work), there weren't all that many lit mags that offered this option. Most accepted submissions via snail mail only. Today (pause for happy dance) there are many more. And it seems the list is growing.

Here's a quick list of lit mags that now allow email submissions OR use an online submission manager. (There are more, I'm sure. I just haven't discovered them yet.)

• Keyhole Magazine
• Mid-American Review
• Ascent
• Black Warrior Review
• Agni
• Southeast Review
• The MacGuffin
• Redivider
• The Indiana Review
• River Teeth
• Silk Road
• The Louisville Review

THE OUTCOME?

I've spent oodles of hours over the past five days submitting work. So far, I've submitted one short story and two essays to handfuls of lit magazines. Yep, I sent some via snail mail and some via online submission. And oh yeah, I've made a number of simultaneous submissions.

Hopefully I'll soon be letting you know that I've got a new essay or short story coming out. Fingers crossed.

AND FINALLY, A BIG THANKS!

To all the lit mags that allow simultaneous submissions AND take online submissions. You rock! Writers all over the world thank you.

___

Thanks to Simon Howden for the use of his photos.

*What's a simultaneous submission? It's when a writer sends a piece to more than one literary magazine at the same time.

Writing The Far-Flung Life: The Life and Times of Expat Writers

Here's the truth. We expat writers have some pretty hilarious, tres bizarro, mega-heart-breaking, uber-adventurous, heads-bowed enlightening, truth-revealing, "no effing way" stories to tell.

We could begin right at this exact moment telling those stories and not be finished until...well, until never. And the entire time we were telling them, you (our audience) would be bent over double with laughter, sobbing like babies, or saying "No effing way" over and over again.

After all, we brave, crazy, passionate expat writers not only travel to exotic locales for spits-and-spots of experience. We actually pack up our homes, our families, our hearts, our underwear, and our bottles of Imodium and MOVE to these exotic locales. We say, "Yeah, bring it on! I want to live in this place...as uncomfortable and confused as I am right now...and I want to...I want to..."

"You want to what?" you ask.

"I want to figure out who I am in relation to this new place. Because I was pretty damn clear about who I was in my home country, but here? Here? This place where I stand out like a sore thumb? I don't have a clue who I am or how I fit in."

"Anything else?" you ask.

"Yeah, I want to KNOW this place. Not just a little, but a lot. As much as an outsider can, I guess."

"That's a mighty tall order," you say in a John Wayne drawl because maybe you are an American.

"Yeah, but I've got a while."

Then we expat writers live in these locales for...one, two, three, four, even ten years...witnessing cultural clashes, cultural enlightenments, medicine-resistant illnesses, language conundrums, awe-inspiring kindnesses, life-changing revelations, strange fish-stomping deaths, unfamiliar burial rites, and perhaps most importantly, everyday life. We eat funky foods and compare this to that. We stare, get stared at, drop chopsticks, make friends, make mistakes, and finally, let the old shift as the new seeps in.

And of course we write about it. Because that's what we do. Because like all writers, we are obsessed with getting our stories onto the page...with working life out in pen and ink (or via the clickety-click).

But something else happens as well.

We start to change. We look in the mirror and say, "Who the hell are you?" We thumb through the myriad of stamps in our passports and say, "Who the hell am I?" We study the addresses on our mail and say, "Home?"

Because at some point...some critical point...we stop feeling like citizens of a single country...and instead feel like citizens of...well...the world.

How effing corny and wonderful and confusing and unlikely is that? There's no precedent for being a "citizen of the world." As far as I know, there's no "citizen of the world" anthem. No "citizen of the world" constitution. No "citizen of the world" rule book. No "citizen of the world" flag. There aren't any traditional "citizen of the world" costumes or sports clubs to cheer for.

Just what holidays does a citizen of the world celebrate? Tet? Chinese New Year? Passover? Christmas? And if Christmas, Santa Claus or Sinterklaas?

So once we feel this way, what do we do?

Well, you know, we're writers--expat writers-- so we do what we always do. We keep telling stories. And we find ways of sharing those stories with you (our audience)...wherever you are...back in our "home" countries...here in our adopted countries...or in the countries we touch down in along the way.

And hopefully, you (our beloved audience) read them.

_______

Thanks to Francesco Marino and djcodrin for the digital artwork.