Just a quick post to say thanks to everyone who came out to the Electric City ComiCon, and for all the folks checking out my books and portfolio for the first time! I had a great time meeting you all today, and I appreciate the interest in Woodwalker and my artwork!
I plan to return to EC3 next year, hopefully with a table full of prints and other stuff you can snag! Hope to see many of you there again! (And by that point hopefully we'll all have Woodwalker's sequel in our hands!) Just as a general jumping-off point, here are the other places you can find me and my work online (they're listed in my footer, too): Facebook: facebook.com/EmilyBeeMartin Twitter: @EmilyBeeMartin Instagram: @EmilyBeeMartin Pinterest: pinterest.com/deisi DeviantArt: deviantart.com/deisi Keep an eye on these outlets and my Events tab for some upcoming booksignings around upstate South Carolina, dates TBA!
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I can’t believe how fast the summer is going. In just another few weeks, our interns will leave, kids will go back to school, and visitation in Great Smoky Mountains National Park will scale back dramatically, at least until leaf season in October. It’s been a great season full of bug-hunting in the river with Junior Rangers, telling stories on the Mountain Farm, and shaking our fists at the elk standing defiantly in the garden eating acorn squash. But I’ve been keeping a list. I started this list last year in Yellowstone. It’s hard not to. So much of a front-line park ranger’s job is visitor services that we quickly figure out how to get to the bottom of what a visitor is looking for in their park experience. I’m currently reading The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker, where the golem can sense other people’s wants and desires. I can’t think of another superpower I would rather have when a visitor comes to the desk, tells their kids to hush, and asks me, “What is there to do here?” I’ve compiled a few suggestions for folks planning to travel—anywhere, really, but especially to your national parks. It’s not exhaustive. I’m sure other rangers at different parks could chime in with a thousand more things. But these are some basics to keep in mind when planning your trip. 1. DO PLAN YOUR TRIP I think there is a very romantic idea in people’s heads about hopping in the car with a full tank of gas and half a pack of cigarettes and embarking on a spur-of-the-moment Great American Road Trip. I doubt this method worked well even in the Halcyon Days of Route 66, but it works even less well now, despite what Instagram will have you believe. National parks, at least at high season, are crowded places. Campgrounds fill up. Entrance lines are long. Rangers are harried. And a sure way to make sure your children never, ever want to visit a national park again is by packing them in a car and telling them you’re going to visit Yellowstone today—a park that could easily take a week to see in its entirety. And that’s just the frontcountry. Not to speak ill of visitors—we appreciate you all, we really do—but we can easily pick out the ones that have clearly done no research whatsoever. I had a visitor walk up to me when I worked at Old Faithful with a confused look on his face. He said, “Where are the big trees?” I prepared to go into my little pocket program about the lodgepole pines, and why there were so many dead ones. But he interrupted me. “No, I mean, like, the really big trees.” Me (a little perplexed): “We have a petrified tree… is that what you mean?” Him (irritated): “No, the really big, famous trees! The ones everyone takes pictures with! The ones everyone goes to see!” Me (realizing): “Oh. You mean the redwood trees.” Him: “Yes! Where are they?” Me: “Um, California.” Do a little research. With the Internet, there’s no reason not to. You don’t have to learn everything, and it certainly shouldn’t replace talking to a ranger. But getting an idea of the general layout of the park, the main highlights, and what you hope to get out of your trip means that when you do come into a visitor center, you’ll be able to… 2. Specify Visitor centers can be crowded places, with kids screaming for stuff from the bookstores while parents ask about waterfall hikes as Ranger Bob tries to give a raptor presentation in the corner. If you come in and ask me, “what should I do here?” chances are I’m going to take a big deep breath before answering so I can do it with courtesy. Some parks are big, some are little, but they are all diverse, dynamic places. If I had an hour, I couldn’t cover all the things you could do in the park. And I don’t have an hour. At 1 PM on a Saturday in July, I have maybe four minutes, tops—less if there’s a line. I want to give you the best park experience I can, but first I have to know what you’re looking for. (See I wish I was a golem, above.) The most relieving moment for me is when a visitor comes to the desk with a map and a list and says, “We have four days. We’re camping near the South Gate. I have two kids under five who like to hike, but not more than four miles or so. This is what we were thinking of doing—can you give me your thoughts?” She’s given me parameters to work with. She’s anything but a blank slate. She’s looked up a little online, talked to friends, and made notes of what she wants to do. So now I can tell her that sorry, this one trail is closed, but this other one may work well for you. Oh, and if you want to visit this location, I’d do it early so you can avoid the crowds. And if it were me, I’d flip these two days so you can see the bluegrass music we have on Saturday. The other wonderful, glorious, hand-kissingly gratifying thing this visitor has done is to… 3. Allow yourself some time. Another thing that will dismay a ranger is if you come to them and say, “I have an hour. What should I do here?” Here’s the likely answer, borrowed from Yosemite naturalist Carl Sharsmith: “I’d cry.” Unless you’re visiting a small national monument or historic site, there is simply very little you can do in a national park in an hour beyond sitting in traffic. I can potentially point you to the closest highlight of the park, but as I mentioned before, these are crowded places, and those highlights—think Old Faithful, or Clingman’s Dome—are going to be the most crowded places in the park. Parking will be impossible and people will be everywhere. It’s not going to be a pleasant experience. Sometimes we can point you to a quiet trail or lookout nearby where you can take a moment and breathe before getting back in your car. If that’s what you and your family are looking for, tell us so, and we can try to make something work for you. But if you want to see the park’s greatest hits in a short timeframe, you may wish you hadn’t. Allow yourself a little time. Spend a night, stay a while. I had one father and daughter from Brooklyn who spent three days just around our visitor center. They came to each one of my ranger programs and popped up now and again to ask about this hike or that hike. We got to know them so well that on their last day we had the daughter help us feed the pigs and chickens on the farm, and I had her help me take down the flag while her dad took pictures. What a neat experience for a little kid—to pal around with the rangers and have several days to just explore. Breathe. Plan for a few days. Be realistic about time. You’re on vacation. Unfortunately, if you visit during high season, you will probably still be running into crowds no matter how much you plan or how much time you have. So as a ranger, I will often advise folks to… 4. Consider looking outside the national park. I know, I know—a national park ranger telling people to go outside the park. Hear me out. Some national parks are islands in the middle of an urban jungle, but many aren’t. Many are surrounded by other forms of public land—national forests, state parks, wildlife refuges, et cetera. And in lots of cases, these areas are going to be just as beautiful as the national park, and they’re going to see a fraction of the visitation. This is especially useful for folks looking to camp. Some of the cleverest visitors I’ve met are the ones who pitch their tents in the national forest next door, where camping is free and they’ve got the campground to themselves, and then they hike into the park, skipping the lines and vehicle fees (yes, that’s totally legal). Others will use the national forest as their base camp and drive in from there, planning for the added hour or so it may take them to get in the park. If you truly want an off-the-cuff adventure, consider sticking to less traveled places like national forests or state parks. Be prepared on the basics: always fill up on gas when it’s available, always pee when you have the chance, and carry plenty of food and water with you. That will give you a little more wiggle room to explore those backcountry roads and remote areas. And if most of this is news to you, I ask you to please… 5. Dispel with the notion that park rangers are keeping secrets from you. First of all, if there are places you can’t go, unless it’s the employee break room (our safe space), it’s likely we can’t go there, either. The only secret we’ll keep from you is what our favorite restaurant is, to avoid accusations of the park patronizing certain businesses. Don’t think that we as rangers joyfully snigger at visitors having to plod along the boardwalks in the geyser basins while we prance across the sinter cones. We have just as much chance of falling in a hot spring as you, and we are just as vulnerable to mama grizzlies on trails that are closed because of bear cubs, and we cause just as much damage to revegetation zones, and we wait just as long as you in road construction traffic. (I worked with two rangers who were married and worked at two different visitor centers. It was only about 45 minutes between the two centers, but for much of the spring a key bridge was under construction, so instead they were forced to drive five hours around the loop road to see each other. We used to joke about them standing on either side of the bridge and signaling to each other in semaphore, or else playing Frisbee over the river.) We’re not hiding the best places in the park from you. The highlights of the park are highlights for a reason—they’re gorgeous or significant in some way, and they’re easy to get to. Is the view down Cascade Canyon from Lake Solitude to the Teton Group better than the view from popular Inspiration Point? Yes, absolutely, A+, 100%, Would Date. But getting up to Lake Solitude takes eight miles of hiking one-way, whereas Inspiration Point is a short walk from the boat ramp. Most people are looking for the latter. This is why specifying is so helpful (see point 2). If you are looking for things that are off-the-beaten track, tell us so, but don’t expect them to be close by or convenient to get to—that’s why they’re less crowded. If you truly want to be let in on ranger secrets, then you should definitely… 6. Go to a ranger program! Park ranger programs are called “interpretation” (as in, you’re “interpreting” the park for the visitor) and have evolved waaayyy beyond Ranger Frank clicking the button on a slideshow of sedimentary rocks (although we do still have traditional programs like these, and sedimentary rocks can be pretty sweet). A large bulk of our job is researching, developing, and delivering interpretive programs, and we’re going to pull out all the stops to make sure it’s engaging for you and your kids. We know you don’t have to attend our program. We want you to want to attend our program. Even if you have a high level of nature literacy and could hike Mount Rainier blindfolded, you might still be surprised at what you can learn following a ranger on a guided two-mile walk. We’re storytellers by trade. We aim not just to explain, but to inspire and provoke. We design our programs with that guiding principle in mind (throwback to that time a few days ago when I squealed and clapped my hands when one of our interns finally got her copy of Tilden’s Interpreting Our Heritage in the mail). If you walk the south rim of the Grand Canyon, you’re going to see the stone wall along the edge, and you might even know it was built by the CCC. But unless you go on Ranger Molly’s History Walk, you’re going to miss the heart-shaped rock the CCC boys put in the wall right in front of the Harvey girls’ dormitories. There are so many little stories that whisper through the parks. I’ve seen people in tears while listening to a ranger recount the family ties of the inhabitants of Mesa Verde. I’ve seen the Badlands transformed into Narnia and Middle Earth with a ranger who paralleled the otherworldly landscape with those from fiction. I’ve seen kids laugh with delight as the ranger uses her handkerchief to show how Wind Cave “breathes.” And yes, I’ve seen visitors sway and sing along with the ranger by the campfire as he sings “Home on the Range” in Yellowstone while the buffalo do, in fact, roam behind him.
Park rangers aren’t gatekeepers or armed guards. We’re ambassadors for the parks we represent. Come see us. Prepare a little beforehand. Let us know how we can help you. Our goal is to give you the best park experience we can. We want you to leave with fond memories, a greater appreciation for our country’s resources, and a heightened sense of the world around you. We want your kids to believe in the magic and majesty of our public lands. That’s why we do what we do. That’s why we wear the hat. That’s a pretty sweet deal for the price of an entrance ticket. Friends, I think the only way we make progress is when we stop saying "you, you, you" and start saying "I, I, I."
I am racist. I have made assumptions and had disrespectful thoughts based solely on someone's race. I have wrapped myself in my privilege and kept silent. And so... I promise to listen. I promise to take it upon myself to learn, and not force someone to teach me. I promise to believe that someone's pain is real even though it is not my lived experience. I promise to stop and examine myself when I make assumptions and look for justification. I promise to be more inclusive in my home life, in my work, in my parenting, in my writing, and in my art. I promise to work to undo the ramifications of my silence and privilege. This started off as a Facebook post but quickly became much longer and more involved, so I brought it over to the blog instead. I am slowly (veeerrrrrry slowly) garnering reviews on Amazon and Goodreads for Woodwalker. At the beginning of this adventure, I wasn't sure how I was going to approach reviews. Some authors can't bear to look at them, good or bad. Some obsess over each one. I read my first few without actually meaning to---I went to Goodreads to copy a link a few days before the book released, only to find two advanced reviews already up. 4-stars and 5-stars. Nice! My reviews on both sites are still overwhelmingly positive (I'm at 5 stars on Amazon and 4.27 stars on Goodreads, where I have more ratings). But as the weeks have gone by, I've started getting a few not-so-good reviews, too. I've found I approach them in a kind of detached, academic way. Maybe it's the vestiges of grad school--approach all criticism with full consideration. I suspect, though, it has something to do with the fact that the main theme of complaints about Woodwalker are things I've suspected or worried about all along. "A run-of-the-mill adventure...all in all, very mediocre." BAM! Shot through the heart... The cultures in Woodwalker ARE very monolithic, and it drives me crazy, too--I can't stand shallow, lazy worldbuilding. I think in the beginning, I was going for a Lord of the Rings feel, where if you're in Rohan, you know people are going to be good with horses, and if you're in the Shire, you know people are going to be good at gardening and drinking, and if you're in Mirkwood, you know people are going to be good at getting their culture waxed and candy-coated by filmmakers. But as Woodwalker grew, this kind of characterization ended up giving a very one-dimensional effect to each country. Or at least, it appears that way based on the motives of the protagonist and the circumstances of the plot. The Wood Guard is a small, elite portion of the Royal Guard, but because Mae was one herself, they're the main focus of the plot. Pearl-diving in Lumen Lake is more of a cultural thing, like football or defacing National Parks over summer vacation--during their independence, there are some people who would dive professionally, but many more are doing the things a country needs to thrive--being merchants, artisans, farmers, politicians, homemakers, etc. But because the country is now under Alcoran control, and because Alcoro is only interested in pearl exportation, the setup of the country has been reconfigured to revolve solely around diving. So on the one hand, yes, the protagonists do tend to reflect the main activities and mindsets of each country, but on the other hand, if the story was narrated by, say, King Valien, or a Silverwood silver miner, or an Alcoran soldier, we'd get much different views of each country. I don't write this as a response to the people who didn't enjoy my book. The more people who read it, the more mixed reviews I'll get, and many will be far less polite than the few I've gotten already. I'm preparing for that. But, this is why reviews are so important. I love hearing that people enjoyed the book. But I also like looking at the common threads that pop up and then taking a critical eye to my current and future manuscripts and saying, "how can I make this better?"
And not everything is going to be relevant. Some people, like my mom, are so totally blindsided by the plot twist that they have to go back and read the thing again to see the clues I laid down for it. Others see it coming from chapter one. That's just a difference in readership, and that's not something I need to rework. My books won't be for everyone. That's okay. But hopefully I can make a concerted effort to think a little more holistically with each manuscript I write. The moral of the story is: PLEASE LEAVE REVIEWS. PLEEA-HE-HE-HEEEAAASE We had a party! A big book party! After weeks of planning and a day of near misses (including a rushed attempt to close on our old house, a torrential downpour while I loaded the car, and a frightening hydroplane in rush-hour Easley traffic) we threw Woodwalker a big old party! The event was at M.Judson Booksellers, a fantastic bookstore/café located in the old historic courthouse in downtown Greenville. We set up several big posters, a slideshow of artwork, and the signpost my dad made from chapter two of Woodwalker. Things started off with some unscheduled time—I sat and signed books while folks took a look around the bookstore, colored pictures, and ate cupcakes made by the wizardly hands of the Chocolate Moose staff. We also had a raffle going on—folks could donate a dollar for a ticket to win a prize package of book paraphernalia, including a tote bag and poster printed with Mae’s mantra, “One crisis at a time,” a copy of the book that I had sketched in, and a handful of bookmarks and stickers. All the money went into a box to donate to Friends of the Smokies, a nonprofit organization that supports Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is where I work as a park ranger, and which served as the inspiration for the main setting in Woodwalker After some free-range time, we gathered together. I said a few special thank you’s and then launched into a short reading and discussion on Woodwalker’s protagonist, Mae. I’m used to standing up in front of crowds of people and talking—it accounts for roughly a third of my job, after all. But I’m usually expounding on the virtues of some natural or historic treasure, so talking about my own work was weird. I think I chose the wrong passage to read—I’ve heard it pays to pick an action-oriented scene, and if I could do it over again, I’d have chosen Mae’s encounter with the bear over her dialogue bit with Arlen. I also read too fast—my friend recorded me reading, and as soon as I saw the video I curled up on myself, twitching, like a dying cockroach. Listening to oneself speak is AWFUL. But necessary. Speaking too fast has always been an issue for me in my ranger programs. Time to work on dialing it back again. Fortunately we moved on to Q&A, during which people asked some great questions, including a question about whether the plants and animals in the book are all real (answer: yes), so I got to put on my ranger hat (not really, I can’t wear it out of uniform) and talk a little bit about the book's fireflies and plants that are all native to the Smokies. Someone else asked about my motivation behind making my protagonist a heroine, to which I talked about my desire for “girl Aragorn where it doesn’t matter that she’s a girl” and about the heroines I might want my own daughters to read about as they grow up. And then several people were curious about a sequel, to which the answer is YES! In January (probably). We closed things out with the raffle drawing. I had my four-year-old Lucy pull a ticket out of the jar. She picked my dad’s ticket! He said to pick another one. So I gave the jar to my two-year-old Amelia. She pulled out a fistful and then picked her favorite one. The tote bag, poster, and illustrated book went to a long-time family friend, Jackie. Some of the coolest moments of the nights were the ones I didn’t expect. My high school art teacher and chemistry teacher showed up—and my chemistry teacher brought with her a picture book I’d written for a Mole Day project in her class! It’s been twelve years since I was in her class, and she’s kept it all this time! My art teacher also nudged me about another picture book I had illustrated for my senior project in her class. I felt so fortunate not just to have had so many fantastic teachers in my life, but to have ones who have followed and supported my work. I had old friends from high school show up, some of whom drove several hours to be there. My college roommate, my financial adviser, my in-laws, and many honorary aunts and uncles… so many people turned up to celebrate. I met new friends from local library systems, friends-of-friends, and people who just happened to wander in during the event. I loved seeing everybody hanging out, coloring pictures, and talking about books. I especially loved the moment when the event coordinator, Mary, sidled up to me to inform me she’d sold out of books. My sweet friend Susannah had bought her very last copy. Thanks to everyone who came out and made this event so special. Thanks for supporting me and Woodwalker every step of the way. Thanks for your kind words about the book itself and your interest in the futures of Mae, Mona, and the other protagonists! See you guys again in January 2017 for round two! Tomorrow my paperback releases. Several months ago, I asked my editor if I should be planning some kind of launch party. He replied with an emphatic yes, that this was an accomplishment worth celebrating. I worried a little bit because I knew that at the time of my release, I wasn’t going to be at home—I was going to be several hours away in Great Smoky Mountains. I couldn’t really throw the kind of party he was thinking of.
But tonight something wonderful and spontaneous happened. A whole bunch of us rangers got together for a bonfire and s’mores, swapping stories of other parks we’d been in and geeking out about interpretation. And then, in a sort of spur of the moment kind of decision, several of us decided to drive to a nearby trailhead, where we’d heard reports that our native synchronous fireflies had been flashing. Woodwalker is set in a fantasy southern Appalachia. The Silverwood Mountains are the Great Smoky Mountains. And to Mae and her folk, firefly season is a sacred time full of celebration and reverence. So it struck me, as I walked up the trail in the dark with my fellow rangers, that this was, in fact, the greatest way I could have chosen to celebrate Woodwalker’s release. We reached a bend in the trail, near a patch of that damp, open woodland the fireflies like so much, and we were met with a dazzling wave of synchronized light flashing through the forest. Six, seven, eight bursts of coordinated flashing, and then darkness, like the flick of a lightswitch, and then a few seconds later—they began again. And the evening fireflies were out, swooping yellow with each blink. The flashbulbs were out, their strobe-light lanterns so bright they cast visible shadows on the path. And my favorite—and Mae’s favorite—the blue ghosts, were out, drifting gently among the flickering and flashing, glowing that soft, moonlight blue. I am filled with gratitude for everyone who has helped and encouraged me along this journey—my family, my friends, my agent, my editor, my publicist, my fellow Harper Voyager authors whose camaraderie means so much to me. And I’m filled with gratitude simply to this place, and to these bugs, and the pillowed moss and the curling mist and the tumbling creeks that have saturated Woodwalker with so much life. Magic exists, and it exists here in these hills. Woodwalker releases in paperback form in just a few short days! So let's make it official! You--all of you--are invited to a BOOK LAUNCH EXTRAVAGANZA to celebrate the release! I have been working closely with some truly awesome folks to plan this event, and I am super stoked to invite every single one of you to come! WOODWALKER BOOK LAUNCH! THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2016 at 7 PM M.JUDSON BOOKSELLERS in DOWNTOWN GREENVILLE, SC There will be something here for book-lovers, food-lovers, and fun-lovers of all kinds! Do you like bookstores? What better place to host a book launch! Do you like gorgeous, one-of-a-kind, locally-owned bookstores? This shindig is being hosted in the incredible M.Judson Booksellers and Storytellers in downtown Greenville, SC! Do you like free food? There will be plenty there. Do you like free AMAZING food? The Chocolate Moose, celebrated Greenville bakery and cafe, is catering the party! Do you like free stuff? Come grab fun handouts I've designed specifically for this event. Do you like MAKING free stuff? Bring your art skills and color one of the grown-up coloring sheets I've drawn to celebrate the adventure and nature of Woodwalker! Do you like winning prizes? Buy a few raffle tickets for the chance to win a sweet prize package featuring, among other things, a special copy of Woodwalker with my own sketches on the title page. Do you like winning prizes while benefiting a worthy cause? All proceeds from the raffle will go to Friends of the Smokies, a nonprofit group that supports Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which, as many of you are aware, was the main inspiration for the setting of the Silverwood Mountains. Do you like booksignings? I'll have my pen ready. Do you like going a step beyond and hearing tidbits from the book, asking questions, and having discussions with the author and other readers? I will be doing a brief reading, sharing some of my inspiration for the book, and holding a friendly discussion about whatever you want to know!
Mostly, I'm looking forward to a fun night meeting readers and celebrating great things in life, like books, mountains, adventure, new friends, and new beginnings! This event is free to attend and open to the public. For location details, please see my Events page. If you are interested in coming, please let me know by responding to the official Facebook event. I hope to see you all there! It’s that time of year again. Summer. Travel season. When vacations planned years in advance finally come together. The kids are out of school. It’s time for families to take some time and just be together. It’s time to create memories everybody can share further down the line.
For me, though, summer is starting to mean the opposite. Summer is when I pack my suitcase, get my ranger uniform out of storage, and leave my family behind. My life as a stay-at-home mom transitions abruptly—not just into being a working parent, but being a working parent far away from my husband and daughters. It’s not as extreme as it sounds. Last summer, I spent a month on my own in Yellowstone before my husband and kids came out to spend the summer with me. They aren’t able to stay with me this summer, but being in Great Smoky Mountains means I am only two hours from home. They are visiting right now—the kids are napping on the couch cushions spread on the floor of the living room, since I only have one bedroom. So it’s not so bad. Some people face much more intense separations from their family for much longer lengths of time. But that doesn’t make saying goodbye any easier, and it certainly doesn’t alleviate the significant level of guilt I feel as I drive away from my husband—left alone to be a single parent, and my kids—without their mom for a chunk of the summer. I have gotten pretty good at driving while crying. I usually end up holding lengthy conversations with myself to talk through this decision to put my two degrees in park management and visitor services to use. They often start with the same questions. Why am I doing this? Is it really worth it? I have my degrees my whole life—my kids are only young once. Is it unfair to them? Will they be sad? Will they miss me? What if they don’t miss me? Will they behave for their daddy? Is it unfair to him? At least when I stay home during the school year, he comes home at night. He says it’s okay, that he likes having the chance to spend more time with the girls than he does during the rest of the year, but is this going overboard? Those other moms at church—the ones who homeschool their children and teach Sunday School and host juice and cookie parties—they wouldn’t do this to their families. Their families are more important to them than a career. And that’s right, isn’t it? That’s how it should be for a mother. At the most recent goodbye, when I pulled out of the driveway for the Smokies, this narrative got me through civilization and into the national forests at the state line. The sprawl of urban South Carolina gave way to the Chattooga River and the evening light of the Georgia mountains. The land began to rise and fold. I wound up, up the steep road through Flowers Gap while the Avett Brothers serenaded from my speakers, I just want my heart to be true, and I just want my life to be true, and I just want my words to be true—I want my soul to feel brand new. Shifted into low gear on the far side and careened down, down, flanked on all sides by the emerald swells of the Appalachian foothills. Turned north to Cherokee. It’s no secret that this landscape is magic to me. I wrote an entire novel romanticizing the mountains and the culture and the flora and fauna. Heck, I sanctified our native fireflies. And here in the Smokies, we’re in the thick of firefly season! I get to give a ranger talk to people who have traveled from far and wide to see them! The synchronous fireflies, the evening and flashbulb fireflies, the blue ghosts—my favorite—I get to be the cover band for folks riding the trolleys to see them. The Catawba rhododendrons are blooming at high elevation—bursts of ostentatious purple-pink amid all the green. Women’s Work festival is coming in a few weeks—women will stream into the farm to show visitors how to spin yarn, cook on a hearth, and forage the forest for medicinal herbs. My programs on mountain farm life, birdsong, and stream creatures have to be researched. I’m surrounded by ranger hats! Surrounded by the background chatter of the park radio, the rooster screeching down on the farm. Kids bringing me their Junior Ranger books, ready to show me their work and be officially sworn in and given their badge. My family got to be here for my first day back in uniform. As I got ready to head out the door, Amelia put a Frisbee on her head and said she was a park ranger. Lucy has already learned to identify mountain laurel and veeries, just as quickly as she learned aspen trees and ravens last summer. They leave tomorrow, and I’ll spend my days in uniform and my nights writing and drawing (except when I’m with the fireflies). During the week, I’ll Skype with them and hear about how they got to go to the hardware store and how Dad had a surprise for them and it was pudding! And then on my next set of lieu days, I’ll drive back down to see them. And do it over again. The goodbyes might get easier throughout the summer—but I doubt it. Despite this, I am happy with what my family has chosen to do with our summers. I was happy about it last year, and I’m happy about it this year. There are sacrifices to any lifestyle. Because I have a family, because I have kids who will be in school and a husband with a solid job, I know I will not be pursuing a full-time ranger position, not for a long time, if ever. I will be working seasonally long after my colleagues have landed permanent jobs or moved on to a more stable field. But I’m happy with that, too. And I’m happy to think about where we might go in the future—what new places and exciting adventures might become just another part of my kids’ childhoods. Last year it was seeing Old Faithful erupt every day. This year it’s probing deep into the rich forests of southern Appalachia. That, to me, is worth it—even if we have to say goodbye for a little while to make it happen. It’s Ms. Amberg’s seventh grade math class. People are packing up for the lunch bell. Near the door, a group of students huddles around something, sniggering. I have a bad feeling in my stomach. “Hey Emily,” says one. He waves a scrap of paper. “Emily, Jacob Brent wants you. He wants you so bad.” This was at the very turn of the millennium, when the internet was just moving from being a weird, mythical beast to an everyday commodity. Fan websites were sparse and ill-organized, and search engines were clunky and slow. So it was a significant occurrence to find rehearsal photos of one of my favorite Broadway actors online. Significant enough to write an exuberant note—probably with a lot of capital letters and literal squees—to my best friend, who shared my obsession with musical theater. A note that had been read by my friend, acknowledged with mutual amounts of enthusiasm, crumpled, and thrown in the trash, where it belonged. She knew something like that couldn’t just be left lying around. But it didn’t stay there. For whatever reason, the note had been subsequently pulled out of the trash and read by this group of popular, cliquish friends. “Hey Emily,” says the ringleader. “Jacob Brent thinks you’re so hot.” I remember exactly who that student was, his name, his face. And I’m sure in the years since seventh grade, he’s matured into a kind and generous adult. But it doesn’t matter—I will always remember him this way, laughing at my nerdy note—my private note—where I had shared a little bit of my delicate tween heart with the only other person who would cherish the information. I’d venture to say middle school isn’t easy for anyone. Everything is uncomfortable and everything is important. During those years and beyond, I was painfully embarrassed by my undeniably geeky interests and hobbies. Musical theater was only the first strike. Epic fantasies were strike two (this was before the Lord of the Rings movies came out and hobbits became suddenly desirable). My own novels handwritten in spiral-bounds were strike three. And, to make matters worse, I documented the ebb and flow of all my obsessions in my sketchbooks. I think I would have stopped drawing and writing, if I could have. In fact, in many cases I would sit, picturing a sketch in my head but resisting the urge to put it on paper, because it was simply too geeky, and I didn’t want it physically existing in the real world lest it fall into the wrong hands for someone to judge me. But art was my main creative outlet, and I couldn’t stop everything. To compensate, I drew hunched over my page with my free hand blocking my pencil. I guarded my sketchbook carefully and shared it with only a few people. My writing I kept even closer. These were pieces of my heart, laid down in dangerously concrete form—God forbid the wrong people (which was nearly everyone) see them. It shouldn’t have mattered. Everyone knew I drew, everyone knew I wrote, everyone knew I was into sword-and-sorcery novels. Everyone knew I was a nerd. It shouldn’t have mattered. But it did.
I don’t share this because I want a pity party or to bemoan the fact that kids can be dicks to each other. I share it because I want to illustrate my baseline—the underlying current for much of my life. I was the opposite of a proud geek. I did not let my geek flag fly. I was so, so embarrassed by the literature, movies, and pastimes that interested me. Art and writing mean being vulnerable—you’re airing out the inner workings of your head and heart, which are usually best left locked up. And that was nearly unbearable to me, from middle school all the way to around, oh, 2014. My husband didn’t even know I wrote recreationally until nearly four years into our marriage. It was the only secret I ever kept from him (except for the chai lattes I occasionally buy after exceptionally grueling grocery store runs). And that’s why I’m sharing this blog post now, the week of my first novel’s release. Because know what? I don’t feel this way about Woodwalker at all. If you follow my Facebook page, you see all the sketches and finished pieces I post. Facebook! Not DeviantArt, where I can lose myself in a community of other geeky artists and hide behind a username. Not Twitter, where I’m insignificant enough to just be part of the background noise. Facebook—a place where you can see my face in my profile picture, where my actual, legal name accompanies the images and excerpts I post. Where I am personal acquaintances with at least 50% of my followers. And I don’t care at all! And I know when I started not caring. It was when my husband found out about my writing, shortly after my second daughter’s birth. In our old house, our WiFi was pretty patchy and would often cut out during bad weather. One stormy night, after the kids were asleep, I was working on a different novel, always careful to keep my screen tilted away from my husband, who was doing some work of his own. I was getting pretty excited about my impending plot twist, and I’m sure my typing was louder than the rain outside. After a little while, my husband looked up and said, “What are you working on?” My answer was automatic. “Oh, you know, just Facebook and stuff.” (Because that’s so much more worthwhile than fiction writing.) He paused. “Do you have Internet? My Internet’s been out for an hour.” Well, I was caught. I’m not that good of a liar, and even if I was, my brain was too wrapped up in my thickening plot to come up with anything. He saw the slightly panicked, deer-in-the-headlights look on my face and got suspicious. “What are you working on?” “Nothing.” “You’re typing like crazy, and our Internet’s out. What are you doing?” “I’m… writing.” “Writing what?” “A story.” “A story?” I’ve found there are generally two kinds of people—those who find writing enjoyable, and those who find it to be a unique form of torture. My husband, a civil engineer, is decidedly the latter. So his consternation was mostly born from the revelation that I was willingly subjecting myself to such drudgery. “It’s a fantasy story,” I said, with that same sudden flight instinct I felt in my seventh-grade math class. “Like… sort of like a book.” “How long have you been working on it?” “I dunno, a while.” Months. He could have responded in any number of ways. At the time, we were a four-person family just getting by on his single income, so he was understandably money-conscious. He could have asked why I had been wasting so much time when I could have been contributing to our finances. He could have gone back to his own work and ignored me. He could have laughed, or blown it off. It’s a mark of how sensitive I was about my art and writing that I half-expected these things from him—not some cocky tween athlete, but my husband, the guy I picked out and said, “yeah, I’ll hang out with you for the rest of my life.” That’s how delusional twenty-six years of self-fabricated shame had made me. Because of course he didn’t do any of those things. He said, “What’s it about?” And then neither of us needed WiFi for the next four hours, because we talked the rest of the night. We talked about my current story, my characters, my plot, my setting. We talked about my past stories—the things I had written in middle and high school and only shared with my best friend, the things I had written in college and shared with no one. We talked about my future stories, including this little germ of an idea in the back of my brain—the one about a forest ranger on a quest to restore a fallen country. And then he asked the obvious question—“Are you ever going to try to publish something?” “Oh no,” I said quickly. “No, I have no idea how any of that works, and I couldn’t publish this anyway.” “Well,” he said. “It might be neat to try.” Apparently that was all I needed, that little bit of affirmation. I started writing Woodwalker later that week. A little over a year later, I signed a contract with my literary agent. And now, a year after that, I am approaching the publication date for my debut novel. Yes, this means I needed outside validation to legitimize myself and my passions. I admit it. And I don’t care about that, either. After my overblown childhood sensitivity, it honestly doesn’t surprise me at all. I wrote a novel! It’s being published! And you know what? I LOVE MY NOVEL. Not all of it, and not all the time, but I wrote it, and I love that I wrote it and that it’s mine. And it’s going out into the world! People are going to read it! Some people will hate it! Some people are going to leave disappointing reviews! Some people will even get nasty and mean-spirited! The book may tank and sell terribly and be pulled from shelves! And I don’t care! I’m so excited to have gotten to this point, to be sharing it and my art—my geeky, compulsive art that throws wide all the windows and doors to the quirky, convoluted parts of my brain—and not be feeling like I need to hide it or apologize for it or awkwardly laugh at what a geek I am. That feeling, even more so than publication, is Success for me. This post has clearly turned into something with some kind of moral, and I’m not sure what it is. I’m not going to tell you to believe in yourself, because God knows I didn’t despite being ordered to in every Disney movie and grade school pep rally ever. It could be surround yourself with supportive people, but even that doesn’t ring true, because I had supportive people around me my whole life and didn’t even trust them. In reality, the takeaway message is probably just grade school blows, especially that one guy in math class. But maybe I’ll just leave things blank and let readers create their own meaning. I’m just happy to have gotten here, proud of my work and excited about sharing it with people. I talked to a high school friend on the phone the other day, and she was congratulating me on my book. I told her how strange and surreal it still felt to be publishing something. “Nobody is surprised, Emily,” she said with a laugh. “Absolutely no one is surprised by this.” Maybe no one, then, except me. We have a date for Woodwalker's paperback release! TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2016! This is so epic, because the e-book is being released on May 17, which is my mom's birthday, and the paperback is being released on June 14, which is the day after my dad's birthday. It's like I'm gifting my parents a successful adult-y milestone!
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