Responding to Readers' Questions

Since I began this blog at the first of the year, I have received a few messages via my personal Facebook page. Some of them contain questions that, instead of just replying individually, I thought I might answer publicly here:

1) Can you come teach a class on writing at the high school where I work? For a day or two? Or more?

The answer is yes! However, I would either need to do this via Skype, when I happen to be in your area visiting, or if we can work together to find a way to fund a visit.

I have experience teaching creative and nonfiction writing in academic and informal settings. My experiences performing stage theater for over 9 years and teaching at the college level for 6 years have allowed me to hone my public speaking and audience interaction skills. I have worked with children as young as 7 years and adults as young as 65.

Teaching and mentoring the writing process is probably one of my greatest joys outside of my mainstream career. Message me so we can talk about what you'd like to do for your students.

2) Are you writing a book? It sounds like you're writing a book.

I am. Currently, I am working on a full-length reflexive historical novel set in the 60s & 70s in Vietnam. While the setting is the height of the Vietnam-American war, the story goes beyond the conflict. The book is based on my father's experience as a Volunteer Physician for Vietnam, the trip that my father and I took to the areas where he served in Vietnam, and my own research in conflict processes and transitional justice.

The name of the book is The Translator. You should expect to see excerpts on this blog throughout the year. For now, you can visit the book's website.

Behold: A non-graphic designer's interpretation of my future novel's cover.

I am also working on a series of personal essays for individual publication, but that I hope will be compiled into a single book-length publication.

Finally, I have my dissertation and my Dissertation. The Dissertation will be pitched to publishers by June 2015.

3) How much coffee do you drink?

Copious amounts.

4) I thought you were in politics or something. What exactly is it that you do, again?

I have degrees Political Science and Public Health, the specific foci of which are International Relations, Comparative Politics, Conflict Management, Violence, Transitional Justice, and Methods.

Currently, I am the Global Health & Governance Advisor to Peptineo, Inc., an innovative pharmaceutical company developing solutions to the Ebola crisis. My other interests and positions include serving as a conflict analyst, community-based participatory research advisor, and monitoring & evaluation specialist for complex situations in resource-poor areas.

If you want to know more about what I do and what I've done, feel free to pop over to my professional website or my LinkedIn profile.

5) What process do you use to keep yourself organized? I'm working towards my PhD and I feel like I can never find the best way to stay organized (and sane!).

I hear you. Everyone is different with regards to how they process and retain information, so your organizational style may be very different from mine. However, I can tell you that I almost always do the following to keep it pulled together:

I am an abstract sequential thinker. Even though I have a lot of things going on in my workspace, all of those things are where they belong at the end of the day. It's truly organized chaos.

• Use a pen/paper planner. 
• Use folders with labels to organize loose papers (even if you only have a couple pages to store).
• Make your planner the first and last thing you look at during your work day. And check in often.
• Organize your books or research materials by project. If you're really committed, create a project folder and list the books or materials required to complete it.
• Create progress reports for your projects. Update these, even if it's a quick note to mention successes or disappointments. Keeping a record makes you accountable and keeps you honest.

I have more tips, but I'll leave those for a future post. I can also share my own progress reports, planner pages, etc. in future posts. 

That's it for now, but keep the questions (and the encouragement!) coming. If there's a topic you'd like see on this blog, feel free to make a suggestion. I'd love to hear from you!

Happy writing!