Tag Archives: memoir

Open Mouth and Insert Foot

11 Replies

Before I dedicated my mornings to writing, I woke to Live! with Regis and Kelly. Legendary showman Regis Philbin routinely bantered with his energetic, down-to-earth co-host, Kelly Ripa. The pair spent weekday mornings sharing the details of their ordinary moments and extraordinary lifestyles. They rehashed what they did the night before, described where they ate and which Broadway show they had seen, and revealed how they handled common family concerns. Additionally, they offered sports commentaries and kept viewers abreast of the latest breaking news. In as much as Seinfeld was plugged as “a show about nothing,” I considered Live! with Regis and Kelly to be a show about anything. I was impressed with the hosts’ ability to simply talk to one another while multitudes of people tuned-in to hear their dialogue. For years I was entertained as I watched the pair interview guests and converse with ease over just about any topic that came to mind. They had a talent that I admired and a skill that I never mastered.

Speaking in front of even a small audience of friends has repeatedly proven to be against my better judgment. I’ve learned through wobbly knees, rapid heartbeats, trembling hands and a quavering voice that I’m among those suffering from a fear of public speaking. Luxuriously, I dodge the podium as much as possible. Unfortunately, there are some casual, unavoidable social settings, which make me uncomfortable too. I’m afraid that I may say something that doesn’t make sense or that could be taken in a way I don’t intend.

My worst fears were realized during a recent visit to my husband’s workplace. Of all people, he knows that my thoughts may evolve into untrustworthy utterances. He’s witnessed them, unscreened and with just enough whimsy to embarrass me, leaping from my mouth. Yet despite his understanding of my quirky nature, he bravely took me around to say hello to some of his co-workers.

First, I asked one woman if she had been to lunch yet. Under normal circumstances, that would have been an innocent question. My husband and I were, after all, on our own way out to eat. It was the topic on my mind. But before I could take the question back, I remembered that my husband had rescheduled a business lunch meeting, with this woman and another co-worker, so that he could take me out that day instead. Ugh! I received an awkward stare and flat response from the woman that, no, she hadn’t been to lunch. At which point, I probably should have invited her to go with us, but I wasn’t picking up on any warm and loving vibrations. Redirect: “So, are you ready for the holidays…?”

Moving on, slowly behind my husband, I resisted the urge to drop to all fours, tuck my tail between my legs, and bolt for home. Instead, I followed his direction and was led to meet and greet more people. I gained a little confidence when someone I knew joined us on our quest to minimally disrupt the diligent as we paraded throughout the building. I should have anticipated, however, that the sense of safety provided by larger numbers couldn’t protect against self-inflicted torture.

We found friendly and familiar Andy sitting inside his office. He’d worked with my husband for years, but I hadn’t had many opportunities to interact with him. Spying family photos on a ledge, I walked towards them to have a better look at Andy’s young children. An adorable girl about the age of five was clearly his daughter. She looked so much like him. My brain processed what I knew of Andy and came to rest on the fact that he had both birth and adopted children. Before I could form a more constructive statement, I heard myself blurt, “Oh, she’s so cute! Is she your daughter?”

I swear there was no inflection on “your,” and I think I could have recovered from that question. But my husband, being no help whatsoever, was already laughing and interjected, “Does she look like the postman? Or did that picture come with the frame?” Ugh! I rambled on and hoped no one could hear me through all the noise being made. “I mean, is she from your own loins…?” Awkward joined now by archaic. Darn those Bible studies!

Can’t we go to lunch yet? I wondered. More frantically, I inwardly pleaded, Beam me up Scotty! A moment later, I was ahead of my husband and fleeing to the safety of the elevator. We were getting closer and closer to the exit. I was nearly free from faux pas. Then I heard him quite seriously ask, “So, do you want to go say hi to my boss before we leave?”

Swimming

7 Replies

I love to swim. It lifts my mood and relaxes me like nothing else. I feel good all over. Nothing hurts. It’s the best form of exercise!

The best time for me to swim is when it’s cold outside, the colder the better. I throw on some clothes over my swimsuit, put on my parka and sandals and drive to the health club down the street. Eight minutes door to door, if I get all green lights. If not, then it’s ten.

I swipe my card, put my clothes in a locker, grab a towel and head to the pool. Well, not any pool, but the warm water pool. I can’t believe how good it feels when it’s 32 or 22 or maybe only 2 degrees outside and I walk down the stairs into the warm water pool. It’s like I’ve died and gone to heaven! Not that I’m ready to die yet, but I like the metaphor.

There are two lap lanes in the warm water pool. They’re on the far side by the windows. While the warm water makes the pool so wonderful, it’s the windows that make the experience. They’re floor to ceiling, at least 20 feet high and go across the length of the room. They let in so much light, I can’t help feeling like I’m outdoors in the summer sun even though I’m really indoors protected from the winter freeze.

When it’s really cold like this, the sun always shines, bright and sparkly and sometimes even feels warm when it comes through the glass. If it’s only 35 or 40 degrees outside, the sky is overcast, foggy or just plain yucky. But when the world is frigid outside, the sun ensures that it’s bright and cheerful inside.

Once I get to the lap lanes, I start swimming: up and down, up and down, on my back for forty minutes. I keep looking out the windows. I can’t help smiling.

 

I am so lucky! Lucky to be here swimming laps in this warm bath tub at the exact time I used to be pulling into the garage at work, parking my car and getting ready for my first conference of the day. I am lucky to have a health club that’s so close and convenient and has such an uplifting setting. This whole experience makes me feel grateful for all that I have: family, friends and good times!

Everything is good. Life can’t be better than this!

Amazing Lady, Jennifer

6 Replies

I went down to the basement through a narrow spiral staircase from the kitchen. The tiny kitchen has a small cooking stove and a large rice cooker on the counter.

Jennifer has set up her beauty parlor in the basement and takes care of customers at any time, early morning and late evenings. Customers are mostly family members: husbands, wives and children.

In the basement there are three almost brand new red toolboxes with several shallow drawers and strong and sturdy wheels attached to the bottom. The unhealthy plants with dry brown leaves from outdoors for winter are placed on top of the toolboxes. An old revolving chair is in front of the only mirror and one armchair is attached to a large hair dryer. There is an old sofa that is covered with a slipcover for customers who are waiting their turn. An old TV is on the shelf for watching Korean soap operas.

The thing I like most in the basement is a radiant heater from Costco that warmed up my leg while I sat on the chair in front of the small mirror. One other thing was a calendar from Jennifer’s Korean Catholic church with the date of the lunar calendar hung near the mirror. I need to know two days in the lunar calendar per year: My mother-in-law’s birthday and Korean Thanksgiving which is on August 15 in the lunar calendar and around the end of September in the solar calendar.

When I turned on the basement light, Jennifer came down immediately after me and turned on the heater. I sat on the chair shivering and she put a towel and gown around my neck and she started to touch my hair.

“Your hair grows fast. It is long. That means your hair is quite healthy,” Jennifer commented.

“I was busy and I just kept it in a pony tail. It looks ugly, but…” I did not finish my sentence and continued, “I needed a perm to last for three or four months at least, maybe a tight curl helps it to last longer?”

“Let’s see.” Jennifer continuously touched my hair with her warm fingers.

Before Jennifer finished her sentence we heard loud noises from upstairs and something hit the floor. BANG!! BANG!! It was like a grenade hit the floor and would make a hole in the basement ceiling.

Jennifer dropped her brush on the floor and ran upstairs. Again the loud voices spread throughout the house as loud as thunder. A few minutes later the storm calmed down and the kitchen door was opened and closed with a bang. Somebody ran out into the street.

She felt that she was caught in the middle between two giant forces and neither was willing to give an inch (like a small ship at sea caught between two gigantic humpback whales). But she was all right for handling this awkward situation. She came downstairs holding her breath and started to curl my hair. The quiet moment sprawled through the basement.

“Last night our house was so cold I thought that I would freeze to death. (It was not true). Kwang put the thermostat down to 65 F.” I was just making conversation to break the silence.

Maybe Jennifer did not hear what I said. Her hands were trembling a little bit, but she was able to settle her emotions.

Jennifer has taken care of my hair for more than twenty years now, but we have never talked about our personal lives. I did not even tell her about my business and I just told her all the time how busy I was with four children and a heavy workload. In exchange, she told me the stories of Korean soap operas that she watched.

I wished that I could avoid this uncomfortable moment and just say goodbye to her and leave but the perm takes about two hours. There was no way I could leave or comfort her.

Finally Jennifer thawed the chilly moment and started her amazing story. “Bob and I have two sons and one is a business manager of a small company and our second is institutionalized and just came home for the weekend.”

Silence reigned for a few minutes and then she continued that whenever her second son, Harry, came home there were frequent quarrels between father and son. Everybody had bruises on their faces and bodies. “When Harry is in the institution our home is much quieter than before. Since Bob is acting as a child, he starts the quarrels and not his son.”

I lost the words. I just thought about what a unique life she has. Then she went on. In December 1951 during the Korean War, her hometown was in Kangwon Province, which was in the South Korean territory before 1953. Her first husband died on the battlefield as a sergeant. She left home with a seven month old son and a three-year-old daughter with one thick blanket. Her son was on her back and the blanket and everything else was on her head. She walked with her three-year-old daughter for several miles to the train station where all the townspeople would leave for the south to avoid the war zone. Many, many times her three year old daughter lay down on the snow, cried and did not want to walk any more. Everybody had to leave the town because the North Korean and the Chinese armies flooded toward the town.

It was dark when she finally got to the train station where the refugees were. She was one of the last people to evacuate the town. All the people were in cargo trains and there was not even one inch of space left. People sat on other people’s laps. There was no room for them to stretch out their legs. This was the only transportation to leave the town.

Her hands were getting warmer and she was getting faster with curling my hair and her mind seemed to have regained control and she continued, “For three days we were in a cargo train without any food and could not even go out for a pit stop. When people needed it, they passed around a can for an emergency. For three days we did not eat anything and nothing came out as discharge. I sat on the lap of a middle aged gentleman and I used the can on his lap.”

Another silent moment passed and my curiosity increased as to how she met Bob.

After three days the train stopped at its final destination of Daegu, that is a city in the middle of South Korea, which is now the second largest city in Korea. The refugee camps were full of people from North Korea and they were setting up another one but it was not ready. About one hundred to two hundred people did not have a place to spend a couple of nights until the camp was up.

Jennifer walked on for several miles with two children looking for a place to stay. After several rejections, she found a house with a barn. Jennifer asked the landowner if she could stay a couple of nights here until she could go to the camp. The owner was a very kind and warm-hearted person and explained her reasoning. “How can I let you sleep in the barn while we are inside the house?”

“If you let me stay here, it will be a great place since I have a thick blanket and we can be warm staying here,” Jennifer replied.

About a week later Jennifer and the two children finally went into the refugee camp. At that time there were several refugee camps around the town. The government provided a meal once a day with rice balls and bean sprout soup.

Jennifer continues, “After I settled down in the refugee camp I began to be concerned with the whereabouts of my family (parents and siblings). They were evacuated at a different time from North Korea and I did not know their location.” A couple of months later Jennifer got news that her parents were in a different refugee camp.

Finally the family was reunited but no jobs were available and getting food was very difficult. Her daughter was crying from hunger and her son was trying to suck Jennifer’s milk from an empty breast. Because of malnutrition her son started to walk at the age of two and Jennifer did not have a period for three years.

Through the assistance of the Catholic Church, Jennifer collected a mixture of leftover food. It was waste food from individual dishes from the U.S. army. It was more nutritious than just bean sprout soup or other Korean food at that time. With these connections Jennifer started to wash clothes for the G.I.s. First one and two, then later she operated a laundromat for about two hundred G.I.s with the assistance of several employees.

“Business was booming and it seemed to rake in money from the ground and the laundromat space was full of G.I. clothes. One day one soldier’s clothes were in our laundromat for several weeks without a checkout. I asked his friend the reason. He said it was Bob who was new to this division and because his paperwork was not properly done on time, the payment of his salary was delayed so he could not get his clothes back.”

Jennifer asked his friend to take his clothes and pay for it later. Jennifer’s intention was that she needed the space, but Bob thought differently about Jennifer. Bob paid back with a letter saying that he wanted to marry her.

Jennifer didn’t even blink her eyes at his proposal. She totally ignored him. She had many reasons. She already had two children from a previous marriage and Korean tradition did not allow for mixed race marriage at that time, especially marriage to a G.I. It means one class lower than our traditional social system. Koreans can no longer be proud of their pure blood because of so many mixed racial marriages.

Bob came to the Laundromat every day and sent her letters almost daily. Then he moved to another location and that division moved out of the town and a military police (MP) division came to that location. She operated the laundromat for a couple more years to serve the MPs and then she closed it.

Years passed, and Jennifer had a visitor from her church. Father Paul came. At that time Jennifer was with her father. Father Paul was hesitant to break the silence and finally he asked Jennifer’s father to leave the room in order to talk with Jennifer privately. After her father left the room Father Paul took out a ragged letter from his inside pocket. It was a letter from Bob. Since Jennifer had closed the Laundromat, Bob did not know her address, so he sent the letter to the main office of the Catholic Church and it was forwarded and finally wound up with Father Paul. Father Paul knew that Jennifer would not marry an American G.I., breaking Korean tradition. Not only this, Jennifer already had two children of her own. Her family and church members decided to at least meet Bob and then make the decision but this meeting did not mean “YES”.

It was nine years since the first time Jennifer had seen Bob at the laundromat. Bob flew in the first time with a ring. Nothing happened. The second time nothing happened and the third time he brought another ring.

Jennifer’s family and the priest thought he was a very decent man and he had fallen in love deeply with Jennifer. He would make Jennifer happy for a long time. They married in the Catholic Church.

As soon as Jennifer married Bob she began to recognize that Bob was not normal. He was different from what she first thought.

“Jennifer, how can you stay with him?” I interrupted her. I could not hear her story any more without frustration.

“This year is our 45th anniversary.”

I lost words. What an amazing woman. She has carried this load of frustration and uncertainty of Bob’s abnormal character for forty-five years. And I was full of sorrow for her. The Catholic principle made her stay with him without divorcing him. This was only my thought. But it’s possible that they might have many happy moments together.

“Bob is now in a nursing home fighting for his life.” Jennifer could not finish her sentence; tears were running down her cheeks.

Two Scientists In My Life

9 Replies

For more than fifty years I have been surrounded by scientists and engineers that are my colleagues, teachers, customers and suppliers. Naturally I have great admiration for all my acquaintances and all dedicated scientists, like Madam Curie and Albert Einstein.

I am not stingy in expressing my admiration of my colleagues who are working long hours at their offices and laboratories, sacrificing their private and family lives. But recently I have had two scientists on my mind and I wish to follow in their footsteps and do as they are doing. One is Elaine Smith in California and the other is Joe Ferenci from Hungary.

Elaine is five feet, two inches tall and weighs maybe less than one hundred pounds. She is second generation American of Japanese origin and in her late fifties. She is working at a large oil company and I understand she is the developmental chemist for engine oil additives. Nowadays engine oil specifications are getting tighter to meet EPA requirements. The percentage of Sulfur, NOX content, viscosity of oil in the winter months and fuel economy are great concerns in our industry. Global warming and green chemistry are additional items to make scientists and engineers busier and work diligently to find the right solution.

Two years ago Elaine invited me for lunch at her company function at the International Colloquium of Tribology at the Technische Akademie Esslingen in Esslingen, Germany, near Stuttgart.

She made the presentation of her paper just before lunch about new additives for engine oil. Several colleagues were still discussing her paper about the interesting results and possible joint developmental work for further application under her supervision. I believe that whatever presentation she made it will contribute greatly to the lubricant industry.  Over our buffet lunch I was listening to their discussion with great interest. Her voice was monotonic and she carefully explained the experimental results and cited numbers on Sulfur and Zinc contents in engine oil and the amount of NOX content after a six months field trial in the Los Angeles, California area.

One thing was very clear, that the people around her showed great respect for her and her work. Her innovation might be a great jump to meet the GF-5 new specifications in engine oil.

After lunch I exchanged business cards with her colleagues. Then Elaine and I left the restaurant and walked to the conference. It was a fifteen minute walk from the restaurant to the place the conference was held. In January Esslingen’s temperature is not terribly low but damp. I felt it was colder than in Detroit that has dry low temperature. We walked on the street, lightly covered with snow and ice.

Elaine wore a winter jacket that she used to wear on the East coast, about thirty to forty years ago when she was in college. It did not look warm and the faded gray coat did not fit her well at all, but she did not seem to mind.

“It is chilly and colder than in Detroit,” I said as I broke the silence. “Really?” Elaine said as a question. Quickly I saw her lips had turned purple. “I am getting cold too,” she admitted. “The hot soup at lunch does not affect us in the cold January weather in Esslingen.” After this comment I was quiet for a while.

Later we talked about the conference topics and research issues on engine oil additives and industrial lubricants. Of course, she did most of the talking. After this we split up for different sessions. She went to the fundamentals of lubrication and I was in the metalworking fluids session. During the session I could not concentrate on the speakers.

Elaine’s image came into my mind continually. She did not care about what she wore or what the world thought about her appearance. She continuously devoted her time to research without any distractions.

This was quite a contrast from my case. Before I left for the conference, I organized my suits for each day with different clothes. On Monday, a gray pants suit, Tuesday, a pink wool suit with shirt, Thursday, a red wool jacket and black pants. I even brought medium high heels. I took the same care with my hairdo. I went to a beauty parlor and had a haircut and dye job. I do not spend a lot of time on my appearance but I do care for clean clothes and try to match my clothes to the weather, season and the occasion.

I could feel and imagine that her focus was on just one thing, her work, and her research on additives for engine oil disregarding everything else. Her path is straightforward to achieve her goals.

That evening when I talked with Kwang about Elaine’s devotion, I told him again that I enjoyed being with her and respected her and wished I could have that single-minded devotion to my work. He did not say a single word on the other end of the telephone, but for a long time I had not spoken of my work ethics with him, and I was thrilled that he had just listened. Always my mind was focused on the priority in my life “family is first”.

A week later, after the close of the conference, Kwang picked me up at the Detroit airport. On the way home, in the car, I talked about Elaine and my wish to do research like her for forty five minutes straight, without touching any other topic. After he had listened to me patiently, “Remember your age, Kook-Wha,” was Kwang’s final comment.

Now Joe Ferenci is about five feet, three inches and one hundred twenty five pounds, and very old. He resides in Budapest, Hungary. He has a thin layer of gray hair and wears thick gold-framed eyeglasses.

In the last eight years I have seen him every other year at the International Colloquium Tribology in Esslingen, Germany. I saw him from a distance at the conference room and hall at the mayor’s receptions in Esslingen and Stuttgart. I did not have a chance to say “hello” to him because of my busy schedule with other colleagues from the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Germany and other countries. We were catching up on industry news, especially new product lines and new rules for EHS (environmental, health and safety) in Europe.

In January 2010 Joe was at the Parker, the same hotel in Esslingen where I stayed. I sat at a table where I could see the people come to the door for breakfast.  Joe came in wearing a black suit with a white shirt. I forget what color of necktie he wore, but one special thing hanging around his neck was a black traveler pouch which contained a name tag for the conference inside. He sat down two tables across from me and got coffee and stood up and approached the buffet table. His fragile figure and the very slow movements of his feet added years to his actual age. Then he put a pile of food on his dish and on a separate plate he placed two German sourdough rolls, and sat at the table and started to have breakfast.

While I was chewing my boiled egg and cucumber I was trying to guess his age and debated about how I might start a conversation with him. I ordered one more refill of my coffee and the waiter poured the coffee with precision, not spilling a drop. “Danke Schoen,” I told him, smiling. He nodded and disappeared.

Joe was busy with his breakfast. He had a big appetite. He had not brought any reading material, such as daily newspapers, Die Spiegel or other magazines, like most of the other gentlemen did. He just seemed to concentrate on his eating. After a couple of sips of coffee, I approached his table.

“How are you, Joe? I have seen you at every conference,” I started.

“Yes.  Yes,” Joe replied with a strong accent. He tried to look at my nametag to catch my name.

“My name is Kook-Wha Koh and I come from the USA and attend every conference as you do.”

“Yes. Yes.” Again he said “Yes. Yes.” with a very quiet and brittle voice with no strength at all.

“Where do you come from?” I asked him his country of origin.

“Budapest.” Again a short whispered answer.

“Hungary.” I finished for him.

I hesitated for a few minutes as to whether I should ask him his age. Taking all my courage, “May I ask your age?”

“Eighty-two years old. Next month I will be eighty-three.” Surprisingly, his voice was quite louder than before as he proudly told me his age.

“Thank you.” I asked for his hand and held his hand very tightly.

“When is your presentation?”

“Tomorrow. Wednesday.” Again he answered with a stronger voice.

“Mine is on Thursday, the last day of the conference,” I told him.

With a strong accent, he said, “I developed a new engine oil additive and it improved fuel economy ten to fifteen percent in the field test.” He finished with sparkling bright eyes and several hand gestures.

I thought ten to fifteen percent improvement is great but it depends on the base line that is chosen. Improvement of fuel economy, even one to three percent is a great number. Ten to fifteen percent is an extremely good number if we can achieve it. Frankly, both scientists who I admire are working on engine oil additives. I had many questions as a layman on engine oil additives, but I stopped my line of questions and praised his work for his age.

Before I left the breakfast room I said, “Good luck, Joe, with your presentation tomorrow.”

Joe Ferenci continues to work as a technical director in Budapest. His research work is presented to the world and contributes to our society. I prayed for his health and that he may have many more years of research work.

Admiring these two scientists and continuing my own work, I hope that I also have many more years to go before my own retirement with the following prayer:

Please, always put my family first, and let my passion for my work stay in my heart for a long, long time.

* The story is factual but the names have been changed to protect their privacy.

You can write and publish your story in 10 hours

4 Replies

I dare you.

Do you remember when writing was fun and carefree? I do. As a kid, I would pull out a notepad and write stories just because that’s how I chose to pass the time. I mostly wrote fantasy stories, some science fiction without all that technical mumbo-jumbo. My dragons had their own rules of behavior and almost every character had an apostrophe in their name.

I created bizarre plot twists. I didn’t fuss with grammar or sentence structure. I didn’t care if the stories were proper writing; I just wrote a rough draft that I always thought was complete. I had fun.

Somewhere along the way, writing became structured and proper. Because of that formal format reality, I look at those drafts now and I think, “What silly little creations.” Why did I bother? Why did anyone or I care?

I expect that if you’re reading this blog, you remember that feeling, or you know someone who has. You, as a reader, can tell when the writer was having a good time and when it was an assignment. I invite you to rediscover that freedom and write with abandon. No doubt, you still have one of those stories down on paper or in your head. This month, I dare you to complete it and publish.

I talk a lot about self-publishing as if it’s gospel. The fact that I’ve done it twice–soon to be three times–does not make me an expert, but I feel confident in it. I know the powerful feeling of control, a feeling that comes from writing, editing and finishing a piece of work. Hitting the Publish button on Amazon is a daring and satisfying moment. I want you to experience that feeling.

Why should you?

Even if you don’t dream of publishing, I challenge you to do this. It’s a sense of accomplishment to write a draft, to edit that draft and by publishing it that means you finish something that you’ve started. Maybe you just have a story to tell, say it’s a letter to your parents, and wouldn’t it be cool to download it onto their Kindle for Christmas? Maybe you have a story about you and your friend. How cool would that be?

When you were in school and had an essay exam, the class eventually ended and you handed in your work as-is. At that moment, you were done. It was a relief, wasn’t it?

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is coming up in November. The concept behind NaNoWriMo is to kickstart you into completing a full-length first draft, but writing 50,000 words in 30 days can be intimidating. Even though that breaks down to 1667 words a day, or 69 words an hour, that finite number may be too large to be comforting. I suggest something doable.

My idea is a spin off from JA Konrath’s blogpost back in August 22, 2013.  The idea mingled fun with structure. Pretend writing is your business. Sit down at the beginning of your 8-hour business workday and write a story, edit it and publish it online. It can be that easy.

My two published short stories have been a result of that challenge. My approach was to start at 8am with a cup of coffee and an open Word document. I write one sentence so the screen is no longer blank. Then I just write, completing my first, rough draft by 12noon. I take a typical hour lunch break. From 1-5pm, I rewrite and edit my text. You can format and upload your text in that timespan as well, but consider taking a dinner break, and then work an hour or two of overtime creating an account, formatting the text, uploading it to the site, and adding cover art.

True, each time I began with a vague story idea and direction, but that was it. There was no outline, no structure, and no definitive plan. I could just as easily have pulled out one of my silly little fantasy stories and see what I can do with it now.

My first e-Book experience was my memoir about a trip my mom and I took. The book–Mom, Star Trek and Las Vegas: A Grand Adventure required research because Trekkies or Trekkers will know if a name is incorrect or a date is wrong. I thought I could sit down in one eight-hour stretch, but I did not. I wrote an hour here, two hours there, made 20 minutes for research here and so on. I was committed to finishing it, whatever the timeframe.

Writers who took the 8-hour challenge, published by August 30. That was eight days after the issued challenge. I’ve read some of the published work and some of them read as if written in 8 hours. But so what? The author wrote, edited, and completed the work. That was the fun of it.

On October 6, after 18 hours and 45 minutes, give or take, I was an officially published author. That was 45 days after the initial post. Final word count: 5657 words, about 22 pages.

My mom memoir e-Book won a national award: third place in the NFPW 2014 Communications Contest.

My second eBook–Lessons from Dad: A Letter to You–was a prelude to my upcoming novel memoir. I released it on June 14, 2014: Father’s Day. I counted it by the number of edits–four, including initial draft–rather than hours, which I estimate took 12 hours. That book is 5111 words, or 21 pages. For 99cents, both books are a bargain read.

What’s the number one reason people don’t do this? Without conducting scientific research, my personal experience is “I don’t have the time.” Wrong. You don’t make the time.

You say you’re too busy, that there are too many other tasks distracting you? You have dinner to cook. Your kids have after-school activities and you’re the driver. You volunteer at the library. You work a 9-to-5 job and commute an hour each way. You have a report to write. There are weekly soccer matches to attend, so you wake up at 6:45am every Saturday. You go to church. You have a monthly date night with your spouse. Your favorite TV show has begun a new season. Repeat week.

Excuses. All excuses. They are reasons, but they are also excuses.

I will attempt this by my next blog post. So, what does my life look like? I don’t have kids to factor in, but I picked up about five extra shifts at my part time job between now and then. I’m traveling out-of-state, teaching Zentangle classes, co-hosting a monthly art group, having a Halloween scrapbook crop at my house, celebrating my 11th wedding anniversary, and raising funds to dance in February’s THON.

I am madly editing my dad memoir novel for ePublication on November 20, my father’s birthday. I’m promoting that book on Twitter, Instagram and my Facebook Author page. Let’s not forget that I have my own blog to maintain, including my annual Halloween blog hop post.  There are articles to write for Michigan Scrapbooker Magazine. I’m editing posts for this blog, critiquing submissions for this writers group, and writing the follow-up November post of this challenge. In utter madness, I also signed up for NaNoWriMo this year.

And there are the daily mundane To-Do items: doctor appointments, cooking, grocery shopping, laundry, mailing birthday cards. Did I mention I was married and have a husband to not ignore?

If I can find time in that, then you can make time in your schedule.

This is not a setup. I don’t have a finished work sitting in the wings planned for this blog challenge. I have ignored my Jimmy the Burglar story for way too long. I mentioned it first back on this blog in March and haven’t touched it since. That’s seven months. I’ve written segments in my head but nothing on paper.

Do you feel that if you don’t write for X-minutes at a time then you’ll lose your flow, and focus and might as well not even start? If you choose to accept this challenge, make it work for you. Don’t have a whole day? I bet you can find an hour a day for 8 days. Maybe 30 minutes for 16 days. Does it take longer than 10 hours? So what? Don’t let the timeframe freeze you, but use it as a guideline, an incentive, a strong deadline.

Don’t be embarrassed by it. Don’t expect best-selling material, although you might surprise yourself. It’s most likely a short story, and there is nothing wrong with that. My books are the length of approximately three of this 1650-word blog post.

What’s in it for you is a sense of accomplishment and completion. As writers, we are always in the middle of something. Or, we write that first draft and never go back to it. I’ve done NaNoWriMo for three years, and I have yet to continue one of those 50K drafts. Unfinished work is a plague on would-be writers.

Stop whining.

You raise kids and release them into the world after 18 years. You write that college essay in 50 minutes and then submit it for a grade. You plan a wedding and eventually the bride walks down the aisle. At some point, there’s that moment of letting go. Stop the mindless edits and let your writing be that free.

As an incentive, I promise to download your book and read it and review it, even if it takes me a few months to get through them. Add your link to the comments section in my November 18 post, or share your thoughts about the overall experience.

Discover what kind of book you can to write in 10 hours!