Moving Forward ...

I don't even want to look at how long it's been since I added to this blog. Guilty as charged. Life always seems to be in the way. I look at the Facebook posts and tweets of all the authors I know as they pump out book after book. Many have the luxury of writing full time. If only. Well, maybe ...

For 30+ years I've been dealing with the kinds of tragedies we commonly see in the firefighting and EMS world. I've had several of my own and learned about PTSD the hard way. I've spent a chunk of my career helping others work through their critical incidents. That was good. But, there comes a time when you just feel done. A friend of mine suggested I'm suffering from "compassion fatigue". He may be right.

On June 11th I was in attendance with 10 others when a long time firefighter friend died. I didn't think I would be able to do it, but he didn't want to be alone. So, I was there. The next day, 16 of our firefighters lost their jobs because of a failure of a parcel tax. I lost a major chunk of income. This came in the middle of selling my house. Does that suck? Yes and no.

Another friend told me on the phone last night how I should apply for this full time EMS Coordinator position in a nearby county. Fact is, I DON'T WANT TO. I gave up full time work to be a consultant a few years ago so I didn't have to follow the beat of another person's drum. It's worked well ... up until now. Apathetic voters changed that.

As the Chinese say though,"opportunity comes from chaos". The good news is, I'm getting rid of a financial albatross, rethinking the consulting and teaching contracts I have, and am considering a pretty radical lifestyle change. I've been picking up a lot of non fiction writing work lately. It's a lot more enjoyable way to keep the lights on.

I'm considering that all this chaos is leading to the opportunity to finally become a full time writer.

At the beginning of the year I promised myself (and many aggressive writer friends) that I would finally quit editing my novel and just get it out there. I have a number of other books in my head, fiction and non-fiction. They're screaming for me to give them life. Who am I to ignore that? If the writing can pay the bills, I can also spend more time on my developing career in video production, and professional photography. That's where I really want to be ... serving the EMS profession, but in a unique, creative way.

Next month I'm carpooling with a few writer friends to Southern California for a writer's conference. I haven't done one of those in 20 years. Fortunately, this was paid for before the financial gauntlet came down. Who knows, maybe I can meet just the right people ... Well hell, I know it will be a good time, and I'll get a bunch of free books! So, off I go.

I hope the few of you that follow this blog will actually see this, LOL. But, that's another goal ... to post content here much more often!

Here's a picture of me and my handsome friends, Dean and Kalani - two excellent firefighter-EMTs looking for a job. This photo has a kind of "Men in Black" feel to it, doesn't it? Hmm, maybe there's a story there. I'm going to miss them.

Let me know what you think ...

Catching Up and Slowing Down ...

Okay, I've been very very bad about this blog.

The excuse .... that life got in the way .... well, yeah.

I've been trying to make a living the past few years as a consultant, but it's been far more time consuming that I realized. Recently, things have changed. I renewed one QI contract but the hours have been cut. The other fire department just lost a vote on a parcel tax, so my work there will be cut way back or eliminated completely. I've taught at the community college for about 15 years (more like 25 if you include my previous life in Southern California). That has become stressful and cumbersome for a number of reasons and every thread of common sense says it's time to go.

So, what does that leave then?? Writing! I've been watching my writer friends pump out book after book and wish I'd had the time to do that. I've been doing a lot of non fiction work, which has helped keep the lights on, but there's more out there. I just haven't had time. Now, potentially, I will. I've been doing online classes through RWA and enjoying my local Black Diamonds and Kiss of Death groups. I'm going to my first RWA national conference next month. It's time.

I've also renewed my love for photography and am learning video production and videography. This is something I could make a career out of. I've worked with the folks at First Responder's Network for a few years now, and it's a great bunch of EMS people trying to change the world for the better. I'm working on my own webseries, "Disaster Sam", which focuses on the lives and work of EMS people  in disaster settings. The show will also highlight the "people" of EMS and thier personal stories.

So, how far have I gotten on my novel? I thought I was in final editing on the first book, but a recent weekend writing retreat with my BDRWA girls and author Nina Bruhns opened my eyes to a few things. For one, my story isn't romance, it's contemporary with romantic elements, or maybe women's lit. So, I can leave it like it is and market it that way, or I can pull the romance out of the story see if that works.

Also, Nina was very excited to tell us about her new project as Editorial Director of the new "Dead Sexy" Imprint with Entangled Publishing.  She gave us the submission guidelines and a lot of encouragement. I might just think about breaking away and trying something brand new! BTW, if you want to blog about this new line, you can get a free book here: Entangled in Romance.

Well, I promised to get something up here with the promise of more regular content. I'll keep you up on the journey.

Reflections on the Passing of a Paramedic ...

EMS people, especially in our early careers, tend to feel invulnerable. I'm the rescuer ... bad things won't happen to me because it's my job to be here for everyone else. My first experience with that was in the mid 80s when I was working as a paramedic for a "home town" ambulance company and responded to a motorcycle accident. It wasn't the first ... and certainly wouldn't be the last. I'd had a few years in by then and things were becoming a little routine. It turned out the "victim" in this case was a fellow paramedic and was in traumatic cardiac arrest after hitting a stopped vehicle then getting catapulted accross a major highway. The trauma center staff (the ones who were able to function in the face of familiarity) did thier best, inclusive of cracking his chest, but Frank was gone. My husband (at the time) was a cat scan tech in the same hospital and there to comfort me, but all I felt was numb. I was numb through the next week; the retelling of the story, the viewing, then the funeral. Our ambulance led the procession. One of the responding LA County firefighters was with us.

There was no CISM program back then. We were on our own. We thought the funeral would put closure on the event. Two years later I learned what PSTD was. The other thing I learned from that experience was that it was the newer employees, the ones that didn't even know Frank, were affected the most. That's when I understood how we tend to weave this "web of invulnerability" around us. Then, when we lose one of our own, it's like a sharp smack to the head and a recognition of our own mortality.

This week, some 20 years later, I went to a memorial for another paramedic killed in a motorcycle accident. His name was Rob Brooks. He was 38. he had worked through some very rough times in his life to become a sucessful 11 year medic and father. His last post on his Facebook page was to thank people for birthday wishes. He worked in west Contra Costa County, a tough place to work, but where lifelong friendships were formed. "West County people" are a rare breed and won't work in any of the "milder" parts of the county.

II always have a reluctance to go to "one more" of these memorials because I've had to acknowledge the deaths of too many firefighters, cops and EMS people over the years. Most of them were taken before thier time, like Rob. Only a few years ago Contra Costa County lost two firefighters when a roof collapsed. The memory is still fresh. Each of the people whose memorials I attended took a part of me with them.

There had to be at least 500 people in this very large church. Every seat was taken and people were standing in the doorways. The fire department and police presence was mindboggling. It was a sea of class "A" uniforms. I wouldn't have expected this kind of turnout for a private paramedic. It says something about our county and the people that work in it. AMR was well represented and the General Manager, Leslie Mueller, was there in her to acknowledge Rob. The Alameda County AMR Honor Guard showed support from our neighboring county. There were employees and former employees I hadn't seen for years. One, a former partner for Rob, came all the way from North Carolina. When the procession left, they were led across the bridge by the red Reach Air Medical helicopter.

The thing that struck me about this was that this is the way it should be. There is so much talk about public/private conflict. This comes from the top end; from the political spectrum and the need to position for turf. When it comes to the real work in the streets though, it's all about the relationships you form as a person and a medical professional. I got my first job as an EMT during the time when there were few women and we were only marginally accepted. I had to work harder to prove myself as a competent medic ... and a woman. After that I would spend half my day at LA County Fire station 20. The guys taught me much of what I needed to know to be successful in paramedic school. The first memorial I remember was when one of them died in his sleep one night. He was in his 30s.

At Rob's memorial the amazing outpouring of support and love from the fire and police as well as the EMS community showed that we can work as team ... as a family. This is critically important when there are those who would target us as victims of violence or terrorism. The enemy should be those that wish to harm us, not each other! This memorial showed that true solidarity can exist. This is the basis for the concept of EMS 2.0: When it hits the fan, we're all at the same party."Boots on the ground" people get that. Thank you, Contra Costa County, for being that example. Thank you, Rob, for being who you were and such an inspiration.

My Life Part I …

No, I won’t bore you with stories of first dates, the epiphanies of puberty, or my political views, but what led me to writing, and eventually to podcasting. So, we’ll just slide through my childhood and young adulthood, then land in 1979 when I became certified as an Emergency Medical Technician. Shortly, thereafter, I landed a job with the local ambulance company. They say Emergency Medical Services work is ‘long hours of unrelenting boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror’. So true, but it’s those moments of dealing with chaos and occasionally finding creative solutions for someone’s dilemma that make you want more. Being there during someone’s worst nightmare and providing relief and comfort for them makes one feel that they’re gaining positive points toward their Karma. After graduating paramedic school, I started doing 911 response work, and spent five of those years working out of a fire station as a contract medic. The field paramedic role then evolved into Field Training officer, Preceptor, then, 16 years later, Company Training Officer. I also held parallel positions as an ER Technician in a trauma center, EMT/paramedic instructor, and disaster medical team member. I couldn’t get enough of emergency medicine.

I’ve always loved writing, but never seriously considered it as a career. I was too busy saving the world. I did manage to write and publish several nonfiction pieces including feature magazine articles. In 1985, I took a road trip with my new husband across the country. While sitting in the car with not much else to do for hours at a time (no iPods, DVD players or vehicle mounted TVs in those days), I started documenting some of my more interesting experiences from the job. Those reminiscences eventually morphed into a fiction piece. My professional life was played out through characters very similar to ones I had actually worked with, and many of the situations they encountered were ones I had personally experienced. The writing of the story became very erratic, though, and sometimes months would go by between sessions. It’s interesting when you do it that way, as when I re-read what I had written months before, I had to ask myself, how in the hell did you think that was good? So, the next draft would become an improvement … then the next one … and so on, until 1996.

That was the year my company was acquired by American Medical Response, which would be destined to become the country’s largest ambulance provider. Immediately, they wanted me to relocate to the San Francisco Bay area. So, busy with a new chapter of my life before me, the book, again, sat idle. Then, in 2006, a strange thing happened. I was driving from the Bay Area to Sacramento for a meeting, and my main characters, 3 firefighter-paramedics, popped into my head and assumed control of my thoughts. They showed me a scene in the book that I hadn’t written or even considered. “Where the hell have you guys been?” I asked.

“What are you talking about,” they replied. We’ve been patiently waiting for you to come back to us. After 10 years, we decided to take matters into our own hands. We intend to hound you until you finish our story.” They weren’t kidding. Virtually every moment that my brain wasn’t fully engaged in some other task, they were there, showing me where they wanted to go. The original manuscript, which was a number of disparate scenes that had yet to be strung together, and was still handwritten. So my first task was to transfer the words to my computer. Re-energized by the new material they had given me, I began writing again. When I finally reached the end, 4 years later, a few surprises materialized. The main protagonist’s strange idiosyncrasies were suddenly explained by an event in his past that even I didn’t know about. An even bigger surprise was that the point of the story became different than what I thought it had been all those years. I was pleased with the final product.

Okay, now what? It’s done (if editing is ever done. Sometimes I think it’s a convenient excuse for never really finishing the book). Was this effort just an exercise for me to document experiences, a tool for catharsis, or did I really believe it was publishable and that other people might actually like it. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into this project and it would seem sad to let it languish, forever unshared, on my computer. An author may not have a real concept of whether a story they love would appeal to others. Family and friends will tell you it’s awesome because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. How do you really know if it’s any good? … continued …

Now, I Know What to Do ...

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Well, it seems a lot has happened since my podcasting class last week. First decision ... am I going to take this seriously? The fact I purchased and received an H2 Zoom recording device should answer that question. Secondly, podcast what? The obvious answer is my novel. That's why I got interested in this in the first place. The reality is though, it's not quite ready for prime time. Okay, so part of this is just reluctance to put it out to the world for scrutiny. Ideally, I would like to run the whole thing through the writer's group first. Their comments have been very positive and they feel it IS ready for prime time. At 4 pages a week though, it'll take about 2.5 years to get through the whole thing with them.

Anyway, I'm doing my regular Friday firefighter training yesterday and I get a call from my friend,TJ. I'm not using his real name because I didn't tell him everything I was going to say about him in this blog. He tells me he happens to have read my post about the podcasting idea on Facebook, and has some suggestions. Now here's an interesting story in itself. I met TJ in August 2001 when he entered my Emergency Medical Technician class at the community college. That, of course, was a unique semester because I disappeared for two weeks in October to work at Ground Zero with my federal disaster medical assistance team. He graduated and went on to work at the same ambulance company where I was working as a field supervisor/clinical coordinator. A few years later, he showed me something he had written about the student's perspective of experiencing their instructor going off to Ground Zero. It blew my socks off. Later, he showed me a story about some of his experiences early in his career and how they affected him. One thing was obvious ... the boy could write! We began sharing ideas about writing projects we were working on. I encouraged him to keep writing. He did ... right into his own business. He tired of working on an ambulance and began writing for hospitals. Yesterday he tells me his business has morphed into a writing/communications/IT type company. So, getting back to the podcasting thing, he had some great ideas about how to market a podcast, find sponsors, and was willing to help with a supporting website. Go figure. Maybe this thing is really supposed to happen. It's also interesting how my original teacher/student relationship with TJ may now become a professional collaboration.

So, back to the original question ... what to podcast while the novel is in final edits? I checked iTunes to see what was available for paramedics. My first surprise was ... well, me! This blog is up there and people can subscribe to it. I'd better make it interesting (and maybe come up with a new avatar). I found that the iTunes offerings for paramedics consisted of a few educational podcasts, but nothing like what I'm considering.

The idea came from a Facebook discussion I've been having with a local veteran firefighter. He mentioned that most people, even family, don't understand what we (paramedics, firefighters, EMTs, police ... and I would include disaster workers) really go through in our professional lives. It occurred to me that 1. Maybe there are people in the business who would like to share some of their experiences, 2. There are people that would like to hear them, 3. Writing itself can be cathartic when you're working through a tough call, and 4. Maybe the public could learn more (and appreciate) the lives of public safety/EMS/emergency room employees. So, I put the idea out last night to my almost 300 Facebook friends and am already getting responses. I also put it out on my Disaster EMS page on JEMS Connect (http:connect.jems.com/groups/disasterems). I think it's an idea worth pursuing and it might do something positive for the public safety community.

What else? I haven't abandoned the idea of working on some stories with the writer's group. That's still a viable option. Seth suggested I go back to the beginning of his blog (sethharwood@blogspot.com) and read what he learned as he began podcasting. I'm doing that. There's some really useful (and interesting) stuff there. BTW, as I was talking to some folks on Facebook last night, Matthew Wayne Selznick, another podcast author, popped in to say hi. He's got an interesting thing going at http://www.hazydaysandcloudynights.com. Also, check iTunes for his podcast novel, "Brave Men Run -- A Novel of the Sovereign Era," which attracted 30,000 readers worldwide! Go Matt! I'm learning a lot about the marketing aspect from watching authors like him.

So, there ya go. This time last week I was on the cutting edge of learning this stuff, and this week ... iTunes? Obviously more to come. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, and I don't think it's a freight train. Thanks all, for the encouragement so far! Now, it's back to writing EMT textbook chapters so I can pay the mortgage ...