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.

Red Lights, Hot Spots and Disaster

Hi All ...

A made a decision today to separate my writer's blog from my EMS blog. As much as the two may go together in some respects, the audiences are quite different. The similarities are in the desire to share stories. This blog will follow podcasts of stories by members of my writer's group and non-EMS works. The new blog, "Red Lights, Hot Spots and Disaster", is an attempt to encourage EMTs, paramedics, nurses, docs, firefighters, law enforcement personnel and disaster workers into sharing the stories of their professional lives. Why did you decide to be in the profession you chose? What drives you to keep doing it? Where do you see yourself in five years? What are the high points and low points of your job? We'd all like to know. Come on over and join us. Bring a story, a thought, a comment or a discussion. We'd like to hear from you.

For the non EMS people just looking for a good story, stay tuned! There will be more chapters of "Bruno Fenster Saves the World" and some new offerings! If you'd like to contribute a story, let me know!

Sam

Chapter 2 of "Bruno and his Imaginary Chickens"

Hi Gang,

Okay, I know I'm way behind on getting this up. Life just got in the way. So, here is Chapter 2 of Wolfgang's story, "Bruno Fenster Saves the World and Still Gets Home in Time for Breakfast". This chapter finds Bruno in the Cafe Lamour meeting a number of interesting characters, getting conscripted into the Army to liberate Urusk, and learning how to tame wild elephants ... all before dinner. The audio isn't perfect, but, hey, it's only the second podcast. I used the same intro and outro as last time and realized that they need to be re-recorded. I have some new equipment and promise to to that for the next one.

In the meantime, I want to give a huge shoutout to podcast author JC Hutchins who's podcast novel, "Seventh Son - Descent" just came out today in print. He was somewhere in the high 200's overall on Amazon the last time I looked. You can find it here: . Find him also on jchutchins.net. I was lucky enough to win an autographed copy of this book tonight when he recorded an interview on Podioracket. Check it out!

Well, that's all for now. Please take a listen, and please comment. Much more to come as soon as I can get it all recorded. I have a surprise in November as I was asked to put together a guest podcast with an original story.

Ta for now --- Sam


Link to "Bruno" Chapter 2: http://media.libsyn.com/media/sbradley/STE-034_A.mp3

Sam on EMS Educast 10-14-09

Featured on EMS Educast last night ... me!

Subject: Why Do EMS Educators Need Good Writing Skills!

http://www.emseducast.com/

Check out this group and their multitude of great EMS sites!!!

Sam

First Podcast - Bruno Saves the World ...

Direct Link to First Podcast - Bruno Saves the World

Okay, this will be a short one because I just wanted to *finally* get this podcast uploaded. Wolfgang has been patiently awaiting his debut and I know better than to disappoint a crazy German. I have to tell you, though, this first one was a bitch! I have nothing but admiration for those podcasters that manage to post polished, seamless, high tech productions!

I won't bore you with all the techy complications (of which there were many), but I ended up with a number of different pieces to this file including my intro, the music, Wolfgang's story, my outro, then a promo for the Level Zero Movie with theme song. Lesson number one: use the same mic for all the recorded parts. I used the H2 Zoom for the intro and story, then the Snowball for the outro. Even after using Levelator, the difference in sound quality is obvious. Guess I won't do that again.

At least I now know much of what to do differently for the next one. When we get to Chapter 2 of the Bruno story, I have to get Wolfgang to sit still. I didn't realize how sensitive the H2 Zoom mic was, and you can hear the chair squeak and some rustling of papers. I think it was Matthew Selznick that told me to plan on the fact my first 5 podcasts would suck. He was sure right about the first one, but I hope to improve long before Chapter 5!

Nonetheless, I feel good about the fact that I created it, and managed to upload it. Now, I just hope someone will listen to it ... other than Wolfgang. Where do I go from here? I have a recording of some first person firefighter stories I need to edit, and will maybe put up for the next podcast. I really hope a lot more EMS folks will contact me with stories to share. Then, there's the next chapter of "Bruno", and I hope to start soon on the novel. That's the project that will be really difficult. I know I can make it simple and just read the dang thing, but I want to add some production value ... somewhere between straight reading and a full cast and original score. I also know once I commit myself to it, I'll have to continue to deliver. But, more on that later.

Well, that's it for now. It's late but I promised myself to get this out today ... and I did.

Remember, life shouldn't be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but to slide in sideways, chocolate in one hand, a magarita in the other, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming, "Whoo Hoo, what a ride!"

My Life Part II

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs: Water → food → security → coffee → writing → self esteem. Well, maybe not exactly the way I learned it in school, but it’s close to how it’s being played out in my life.

So, after the move to the Bay Area, my EMS career continued to evolve from Clinical Coordinator, to Regional Trainer, to Field Supervisor. In 2006, I finally left the ambulance business to work for the State of California as a Health Program Specialist doing disaster planning. Gas prices (and a 1.5 hour drive each way from the Bay Area to Sacramento) eventually drove me back to Contra Costa County. Professional independence came as I began working for myself as a consultant. Scary, yes, but the State Community College System where I teach part-time covered the insurance, so that helped. I continued to work with the local fire department and was offered a few other contracts for teaching, quality improvement, and writing. I’m good for a while.

So, I’m back to having this completed manuscript and needed to decide what to do with it. Reading the Contra Costa Times one day, I saw a blurb about the East County Writer’s Group. I decided my seeing this article must be some form of divine intervention, and I hooked up with a great lady named Mel. I figured a writing group was a less painful way of getting my story heard by others, and that honest feedback could help me decide if I should try really to try to publish the book. I found the Brentwood group to be an interesting and diverse bunch, most of them already published authors. Their works-in-progress included personal memoirs about growing up; a modern day saga about a divorcing couple; a thriller about spies in the Middle East; and an interesting vampire story. My fiction was very different than theirs, but I found a level of comfort in sharing my pages with them. They liked learning about a profession they knew little about and were very respectful with their constructive criticism. Better yet, they repeatedly told me they felt the novel really was ready for prime time. Win!

After about 6 months into this, I decided to check out the other part of the group that met on alternate weeks, in Pittsburg. This was another diverse group led by a bubbly, funny, outgoing woman named Carol who writes a senior column for the Sunday Contra Costa Times. Then, I met Wolfgang. The only male in the group, he’s a little shy, loves chocolate chip cookies, has a wonderful dry sense of humor, and everyone loves his eclectic works. An artist by trade, he also publishes a weekly humor column in the CoCo Times, often sharing a page with Carol. He’s published two books: “Touched by Choi”, a thriller with a dark twist; and “A Parallel Universe”, an offbeat collection of cartoons. Offbeat is another great word for his writing. We often wonder what’s he’s smoking when he thinks up with his stuff. We’ve heard parts of the novel he’s working on about the unluckiest bad guy on the planet, a collection of “Twilight Zone” type flash fiction; a story about a street performer named “Clint Mint”; and my personal favorite, a “Mr. Magoo-esque” tale of Bruno, a guy who raises invisible chickens and misconstrues the concept of “date”, which leads him on a wild adventure.

When I shared my enthusiasm about learning podcasting and told the group about the marketing value of social media, Wolfgang was the first one to show interest. In fact, he’s ready to go out and buy his own H2 Zoom and start learning to podcast. I recorded him last week doing the first chapter of his ‘Bruno’ story. If I can successfully edit the thing, it will be posted next week. Then, I’m sure Wolfgang and Bruno will be well on their way to stardom. Wolfgang’s website is http://www.wolfski.org. He’s also on Facebook and Twitter under writewolfgang.

On a personal note, I’ve found that “putting yourself out there”, “building your brand”, and letting people know about your work does produce a response. I connected with some of the writer/podcasters I’ve been following on Spacebook and Twitter. They’ve been gracious and welcoming despite the fact I don’t have a viable product yet. It seems they remember what it’s like when they were getting started in podcasting and were trying to build an audience.

So, as I write this while listening to fireworks and the barking of three insane dogs, I’ll wait until it’s quieter to work on editing Wolfgang’s story then put it into the feed. Please listen … you’re in for a treat!

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 ...

So, now what do I do??

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

I've had a number of people tell me I should be diligent about not letting this blog go stale. I've been thinking on and off all day about what to write that's interesting enough for my *two followers* to read, and compelling enough to attract some new folks to my site as well.

I've been slogging through the writing of textbook chapters for a medical book publisher. Exciting, no. Does it pay the mortgage, yes. I've been distracted all day by Tweetdeck. It's an application that Seth and Scott recommended during the Author Bootcamp. Twitter applications have become as bountiful as tics on a mountain dog. Trust me tough, this is the one. I have columns that show updates from all the friends I follow, tweets that have mentioned me, and direct messages. There's also a column for recommendations on people I might want to follow. I noticed a lot of writers in there. Then, believe it or not, I have a column with updates for my Facebook friends. One stop shopping. If you put the cursor over a tweeter's picture you can decide if you want to reply, retweet, direct message or "other". A little notice comes up whenever a new message comes in. That was a little annoying at first but it's a pretty sweet application overall. The only downside is trying to provide an enthusiastic reply to a tweet of someone you're following only to be told "that person doesn't follow you". I hate rejection. Scott Sigler, where are you? I thought we bonded last weekend. Well, I have Seth.

Anyway, since Twitter posts have been more easily available, I'm picking up a lot of articles, blogs, websites and good ideas on writing and podcasting from the people I follow. I've been thinking about how I'm going to launch my podcasting career. My novel, going through final edits, was the main reason I considered doing this. I'm petty sold on what I learned last weekend in terms of the difficulty of publishing a first novel through a print house vs the more fun, easy and less expensive means of podcasting it and building a fan base that way.

When I enthusiastically announced my intention to podcast my book to my writer's group, many of them gave me the 1000 yard stare. It wasn't to quell my enthusiasm, but they had no idea what podcasting was. It reminded me that I've been so entrenched in the world of Podiobooks.com, iPod, iTunes and social media for the last few years, that I've fallen out of the mainstream. Does this mean I'm officially a geek?

One of the writer's club members was sincere in his enthusiasm not only hear about it but to take part. He's published several books, has a few more in the hopper and is also an artist and a columnist for the county paper. He has some wonderful humor material that would be just the right length for a podcast. The larger idea was to have a podcast for the whole writer's group and highlight different members each week. That idea met with a varied response. One podcaster-author friend reminded me how time consuming the production would be, another said "just focus on the book", and yet another thought it was a stellar idea. The fact is, the book isn't quiet ready yet, so I have to give this some more thought.

Then, there's the reality of putting the book in cyberspace for all to hear. The mechanics are much simpler than I thought, but I have to get over disliking the sound of my own recorded voice. We were told a "straight read" would be fine for the first time out if people like the book. You can get so caught up in music and sound effects that the story gets lost. Trying to do a production with guest voices is only for the foolhardy or those with much more time and patience than I have. I do wonder though, about managing different voices in the book. I have several characters with accents. Maybe I should do a test run and see what people think. I don't want my listeners to be so distracted by crappy accents that it detracts from the story.

The biggest psychological hurdle, even more than giving away the book for free, is the fact that there will be people who won't like it. There are parts that are dark and edgy and won't appeal to an average reader. This isn't "Alice in Wonderland". It's more like 'firefighter going through dark night of the soul'. I guess I have to expect that I will have negative reviews. It's all part of the game, eh. An expression I heard lately was something like "you can face negativity or just live in obscurity." I guess it's a modern take on "nothing ventured, nothing gained". So true ...

And I was worried about having enough to write tonight ...

Author's Bootcamp

Sunday, June 21, 2009

I remember how Baby Boomer pre-teen girls kept their most personal thoughts written in a small book secured with an equally small lock and key. This was to keep their pre-pubescent revelations out of the hands of little brothers. Thank God there was no internet back then. The worst he could do was share the curious findings with a few young friends. Now, when one blogs, thoughts, feelings and opinions go out to the world. Quite intimidating, actually. Well, I'm not here to tell you about my pre-pubescent musings, but about the Author's Bootcamp I attended over the last two days in San Francisco.

In way of introduction, I'm a published non fiction writer and am doing final edits on a novel. It's a story that pulls heavily from my career as a paramedic. For the last several years (since that same little brother gave me my first iPod), I've fallen in love with the world of iTunes, podcasting, and those who share their novels through that medium. I watched their careers blossom and listened to their struggles as they tried to convince print markets that building an audience by *giving away your stuff* actually does make sense.

Scott Sigler is one author who has not only made that leap and published a number of novels, but made it to the new York Times best seller list. He went to publishers with a solid fan base including people who were willing to make a grass roots contribution to his success by helping to build his website, create art and merchandise, or do viral marketing through the internet. Do people do that for Stephen King? Does Stephen send them e-mail updates or personally respond to their posts and tweets? Scott does. Seth does. Seth Harwood is another writer who just broke into print with his novel, "Jack Wakes Up". He's putting a lot of time and effort into marketing his book, and is a genuinely nice guy who is sincere in his desire to help other authors become successful

How did I get there? Following a link from Twitter (from Seth, I believe), to the Author Bootcamp website. It was explained there that "Scott & Seth want to share their method for building an audience before you approach publishers and agents. If you can show that your work has fans, fans that will buy your books, it changes the game and elevates you in the eyes of publishers." It seemed to be just the right time for me with a book almost completed and wondering what I was going to do with it. I decided San Francisco was only a short train ride away and that this class might give me the knowledge and encouragement I needed to take my efforts to the next level.

We started before the class with "homework" which included gathering pictures and bios, then downloading music and the specific programs we would be using. We came with our laptops and headsets. Interestingly, it was a predominantly MAC crowd. It was also a small class, which was great. Scott and Seth talked about their own writing careers; the state of publishing; how to understand blogs, hosting, domains and RSS feeds; and the most fun ... actually recording a short piece of text and adding intro and outro music. We learned how to manage the software, fade in, fade out, normalize, and do stuff I thought you had to be a major techie to manage. Seth worked 1:1 with the MAC people and Scott with we PC people. Wow, what a sense of accomplishment! I was so inspired, Seth loaned me his H2 recording device to play with at the hotel that night. That was another thing that fostered a lot of questions ... what device do I use? There were three of them that we experimented with. Seth and Scott were very clear on the ones they preferred, which, unfortunately, weren't the same. Decisions, decisions.

Day two found us feeling much more comfortable as we launched into a discussion of "what do we do now with this first podcast we created". The nice thing was that accounts were already set up for us on blogging and host sites. The only glitch for me that morning, was when I started having Internet Explorer connectivity problems with my PC. Maybe it's time for a MAC. Seth swears these things just don't happen to him! Scott wondered if there wasn't virus (or poltergeist, I was thinking) lurking in my Sony Vaio. One of the other students, deemed the technical advisor for the day, was able to give me the electronic file for Firefox, which seemed to resolve the problem.

I really enjoyed the afternoon which was about marketing your work (or in Scott's word, "pimping"); creating and sharing promos; social networking tools; Podiobooks.com; and how to build (and keep) an audience. Although they followed a schedule, they were flexible enough to understand and adjust to their students as far as our writing , publishing , and computer experience went. They answered all our questions and shared anything we wanted to know about what it was like in the beginning of podcasting (what, four years ago?) The other thing Scott made clear was that podcasting is still a cutting edge phenomena. There isn't a lot of people who have figured out that this is a great way to build a following. It's not just throwing up a website, that your publisher might require you have, and let someone else manage it. It's constantly blogging, researching what's out there; and making yourself visible to your audience through your own website and the social media sites. They told us to use our author name liberally to build our "brand".

At the end of the second day we were all pretty much on information overload, but happy and satisfied with what we'd gotten out of this class. Although Seth was tired (keeping up with Scott's high energy is a challenge), we ended the day with some food and drink and casual conversation. We all learned more each other as writers, and where we're planning to go with our careers. The nice thing is that I can still stay in touch with them through the Author Bootcamp website forum.

As I reflect on this today, I know I'll always think of Seth and Scott as my mentors and credit them for giving me the tools and inspiration to help me become successful. If anyone out there is considering taking advantage of this class, check the schedule at www.authorbootcamp.com. They plan to take it around the country. If you're a writer and want to learn the secrets of marketing in the new world, take advantage of this opportunity and remember these three words: Content, consistency and promotion. If you're not sure what they mean in the context of writing and podcasting... well, I guess you'll just have to take the class!

First Post - Author Bootcamp

Here at Author's Bootcamp with Seth Harwood and Scott Sigler. It doesn't get any better than this.

First episode (right click to download)

Here is a link to the practice piece