Author Archives: Kim Oclon

In Praise of Illustrators and Cover Designers

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I am not done gushing over the beauty and wonder that is the cover of THE WAR ON ALL FRONTS but I wanted to spend some time with the cover of MAN UP, my debut that released in April, 2020.

Again, Erica Weisz from Trism Books designed it. She had asked me for images, themes, and anything that stood out about the book that might help her design the cover. I don’t remember much of what I told her but I know whatever I said did nothing to contribute to the cover we ended up going with.

As you can tell from both covers, Erica does a lot with very little. MAN UP’s cover is pretty much a view of a baseball diamond from behind homeplate that seems go on and on into the distance. The first design was more realistic with green grass and brown sand but it was the baseball that stood out to me. Erica has always utilized mixed media and I LOVED how it was a real baseball on this drawn field. And then she, somehow, decided to make the cover two tone blue instead of using more natural tones and I was blown away. Why was it blue? I’m not sure but WOW! And still, that real little baseball was on homeplate. There’s even a shadow. Again, the shadow that is doing so much.

I have no idea how Erica took my jumble of words to create the cover she did for MAN UP and then did it again for THE WAR ON ALL FRONTS. I’m not gifted in the visual arts. Thank goodness for the talented people who are.

THE WAR ON ALL FRONTS Has a Cover!

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Isn’t it beautiful?

Authors like to geek out about their covers. Allow me to do so now:

• The army green: In the original version the words were all in black. The use of army green is awesome.
• The notebook paper with the confetti edges: Sam and Anthony can only communicate via letters while Anthony is fighting in the Vietnam War. It is such a big part of the story and I love it.
• The stick figures. The two boy stick figures. Their little stick heads bent toward one another, holding their little stick hands. One figure even has a flat top and a duffel bag. I almost cried when I first saw these guys. They’re perfect.
• The shadows. I have no idea what to make of the shadow of my two little stick guys but it adds something. I might have my English teacher hat on a bit too tightly here, but I imagine the shadow is cast because of a sunset. A day is ending with something new beginning and neither of the little stick guys know what’s in store. I know what’s in store, and I’m not going to lie little stick guys, it’s going to be rough.

Erica Weisz at Trism Books is an amazing illustrator and artist. She asked me what images and themes came to mind when I thought about the book and she took those phrases to come up with this incredible cover.

Please cross all your fingers and toes and hope that we can welcome this book into the world in a more traditional way come May 7th and you can see this book on a shelf in person.

Your Writing Community and Why You Need One: an Opinion

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After getting a MFA in Fiction Writing (which is another post all together), I didn’t write another word for about two years. You could blame that fact I was a high school English teacher. Big high fives to all the teachers out there writing AND teaching. You could blame it on my newborn daughter who was very cute but took up a lot of time and energy. But looking back, the real blame was on my lack of a writing community and support network that went missing after graduating. Keeping that alive wasn’t discussed in any of our classes!

Almost two years after graduating, I emailed a writer friend of mine to ask her a question about her upcoming book. In addition to her answer, she added that she was busy on her second book, needed to get her butt in gear, and would I like to be writing buddies for the summer. I was scared to answer. What if I didn’t write every day? What if I didn’t make my word count? What if I let down my buddy?

What ended up happening, thanks to my daughter’s new nap schedule, was I started writing my first novel. My friend and I kept tabs on each other, offered encouragement, and virtual high fives. It took two years, but I finally had a completed first draft that was written about five hundred words at a time. This draft eventually became my debut young adult novel, MAN UP, and was released last April from Trism Books. (If you want to buy a copy, let me know!)

That was about ten years ago and my writing community now includes former classmates from my Novel in a Year class (remember them?!). We have a slack with a channel devoted specifically to “writing wraces.” There, we share progress and even a few sentences to show the fruits of our labor.

This sense of community is vital to my writing. Maybe I’m a needy person, but I need the support, validation, and encouragement. And I love being able to do the same for my friends.

Writing a book is a long process. It’s hard to slosh through it alone. There are many out there in the same boat as you. Find them! They need you! You need them!

Novel in a Year…or Two, or Three

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The first 100 pages (or so) of THE WAR ON ALL FRONTS was written in Story Studio’s Novel in a Year- Young Adult/Middle Cohort which met from January, 2018-November, 2018. Obviously, I didn’t finish the whole book in a year but I got an incredible start, endless encouragement, and a community I will be forever grateful to be a part of. A community that I am still a part of, three years later. Clear space on your bookshelves. The people in the picture are going to have books coming out in the next few years. The man who made it all happen is the guy in the glasses in the back,. James Klise, our teacher.

I started the class with three pages written of this HUGE idea, having no clue if I was capable of pulling off something so big and so far outside of my experience and expertise. This class made me believe in my story and my ability to tell it. More about that in another post.

Out of twelve members of the class, nine of us still meet monthly to share pages, setbacks, and triumphs. Zoom has helped the members who have moved away stay in touch.

I wanted to get a novel out this class and ended up falling short in the page count but the community I gained is far beyond anything I thought possible.

Danielle Steel, I am Not

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I read an article a couple years ago that said Danielle Steele sometimes writes for 22 hours a day, not even taking a bathroom break or stopping for snacks. I don’t remember if anything was said about a bedpan under the desk. This method would never work for me. I love snacks too much and often use them as a reward for completing the smallest of goals. When I taught high school English, my coworkers would say how they spent eight hours at a Starbucks and graded all these essays. Again, not me. I would set a goal to grade two or three in a sitting and then find some snack to reward myself for my hard work.

I wrote Man Up in increments of 400-700 words. Seven hundred words was a pretty good day. Eventually, those hundreds of words over the course of months and months added up to a whole book. The War on All Fronts was written in a similar fashion, but maybe it was about 500-800 words at a time. Apparently my stamina was growing. A couple times I broke the 1k mark.

A member of my writing community introduced me to the Pomodoro Method in which you focus on a specific task for about 20-30 minutes. Several times during the revision of The War on All Fronts I used this method. I found that I could sometimes write 600 words in 25 minutes. If that was the case why wasn’t this book finished a long time ago? I have no idea. But it was the same result as the first book. Those hundreds of words. Those half hour blocks. They eventually added up to a whole book.

Use the bathroom. Eat the pretzels. Scoop the ice cream. And write more words!

Sam and Anthony’s Favorite Songs

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Sam and Anthony might love each other but not always one another’s taste in music. If they have some coins burning a hole in their pockets, what songs would they choose to play on the jukebox? Many authors have a playlist that served as background music while writing a book, these are the ones that were on repeat in my head while writing The War on All Fronts.

Sam’s Favorites:

“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stoness

“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by the Beatles

“Somebody to Love” by Jefferson Airplane

“Hello, I Love You” by The Doors

“Break on Through (to the Other Side)” by The Doors

Anthony’s Favorites:

“God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys

“Sloop John B” by The Beach Boys

“Turn! Turn! Turn!” by The Byrds

“Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” by the Beatles

“We Gotta Get Out of This Place” by the Animals

Solidarity Week 2021

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GLSEN (Gay Lesbian & Straight Education Network) celebrates Solidarity Week every November. The name was recently changed from Ally Week to Solidarity Week. I know, at times, it seems people get more hung up on words than the cause but the change is a good one. To me, solidarity is implies an action. It is something you do, something you show.

It doesn’t have to be big to be effective.

When several other teachers and myself started the first GSA at the high school where I worked, one of the first things we did was register our group with GLSEN and print out safe space cards with our group’s logo on it. Teachers and administrators could tape the cards to their doors to show students that their room or office is a safe space for them. A space where they would be supported. As many teachers requested cards (YAY), it felt superficial to at first, like it wasn’t enough to just have the card on the door. But, then I thought about the kid walking down the hallway who didn’t see those rainbow cards on any door the year before or even the day before and then saw a hall filled with them. I know when I was a high school student, seeing those cards on the doors would have meant a great deal to some of my classmates.

Solidarity.

The Symbolism is Great and All, but Why are We Reading This?

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I read every book assigned in high school because that’s just the type of student I was. They weren’t bad books, but I also didn’t think they were good. I didn’t really enjoy reading them. The worst was The Grapes of Wrath. It was so long and that poor family. Everything sucked for them at the beginning, in the middle, and in the end…it still sucked. At least they didn’t run over that little turtle getting out of town. And yes, I understood the symbolism of the turtle.

The novels were great if I needed to find an example of an alliteration or a metaphor but that’s not why I read a book. Interestingly enough, the first book I enjoyed reading in high school and made me think to myself: this is good, this is why we read books, is overflowing with amazing examples of imagery, characterization, symbolism, and all those other terms English teachers love. I had to read The Things They Carried for an independent novel project in a creative writing class. It wasn’t my first choice. It wasn’t any choice. I wanted to read What’s Eating Gilbert Grape or Girl, Interrupted. But, when your amazing creative writing teacher asks the class if anyone would volunteer to read the book few wanted to, you raise your hand.

I am not a Vietnam War historian, aficionado, or anything like that but I recognized I was reading something special. So special, that the book has stayed with me ever since that day and I can trace the inspiration for The War on All Fronts to reading The Things They Carried back in high school.

The lemon tree, the necklace of tongues, Norman Bowker in his car, Linda from little Timmy’s class, and all the things those soldiers carried literally and figuratively are still fresh after all these years. Looking back, Great Expectations wasn’t terrible. And I didn’t hate reading The Great Gatsby. But, those books didn’t stay with me. My books will probably never be part of a high school curriculum but that was never a goal anyway. To write a book that stays with someone years after reading it, that’s quite an accomplishment.

Sorry, Shakespeare.

Historical Fiction aka Before Social Media

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“And I said, ‘Who the f**k uses, a pay phone?”
The Arkells “Leather Jacket”

In response to the question posed in my favorite Arkells song: ALL THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED BEFORE THE TIME OF CELL PHONES!

One thing freeing about writing historical fiction is there is no concern about how to incorporate social media and cell phones into a book. I’ve read contemporary novels where I feel cell phone usage overtakes the novel and while it might be true that teens are glued to their phones, it’s just not that interesting to read sometimes, especially if it is a pages long texting conversations. (Do teens even text anymore? I heard it’s all messenger or FaceTime.) There also several books I’ve read that alluded to social media by using versions the author made up and it rings false to me. That said, there are books written several years ago that did choose to use the names of real social media sites and those sites are either not very popular anymore or not used by teens very much. It’s hard to keep up and even harder to figure out how to use social media effectively in a book (at least for me). In historical fiction, no such problems exist! In my next book, The War on All Fronts, a college freshman has to wait to use the community pay phone in his dorm. Imagine the conflict if he can’t find a dime or someone is using the phone! In order to communicate with his secret boyfriend overseas, he has to write letters. Yes, writing historical fiction has its challenges. There is so much you have to get right! Alas, social media and all the problems that come with it is not something you have to worry about.

YouTube: Beyond Cat Videos

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I would love to ask a historical fiction writer what researching was like before the internet. For my latest book, The War on All Fronts, I made many a trip to the library, conducted interviews, and became good friends with the people at the University of Wisconsin Madison Archives. But Google was my go to when it came to figuring out what day of the week Christmas was on in 1967 or finding out when the Slurpee was invented. YouTube became my best pal when it came to primary sources.

When reading about personal accounts about enduring boot camp in the 1960’s didn’t give me the details I needed, YouTube came to my rescue with a video made during that time that was over a half hour of drills and life on base. When I found out the Walter Cronkite gave a report about the Tet Offensive in January, 1968 that changed many a perspective about the war, YouTube had footage of the broadcast. It also had clips from a PBS special in which Vietnam veterans discussed PTSD, protesters in Grant Park at the 1968 Democratic National Convention recounted their experience, and of course, songs of the sixties.

It’s still a great place to go for music videos, movie clips, and cat videos but YouTube can be a goldmine of information for the historical fiction writer too. Those poor people who conducted research so long ago had no videos of people tripping to distract them, though. I bet they got a ton of work done.