Me@20

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of an organization all of you have never heard of: The Association for Personal Historians (APH). For the past ten or so years, off and on, I’ve wanted to start my own company publishing people’s personal histories. Then I found out that the idea wasn’t original—an organization for it began when I was still a junior in high school (1995)!

To celebrate today’s twentieth anniversary, the APH has decided to start a marketing campaign called Me@20. What we want everyone to do is post a photo of yourself at age 20 and answer a few questions, telling us what life was like when you were 20. Funny anecdotes are obviously encouraged. The goal is for Me@20 to go viral today! Make sure to tag some of your friends and include the hashtag #APH20.

Let me start:

1.      Where I lived @20. I lived in Los Angeles County, being a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On my 20^th birthday, which was March 1, 1998, I lived in the mansion of a well-off member of the Church in Diamond Bar, California. (One of these days I’ll find photos I took of the mansion and post them. I’m not exaggerating—it was a mansion!) However, then I found myself in the ghetto-ish cities of El Monte and Baldwin Park before I ended up in Chino by the time I turned 21 in 1999.

2.      What I did @20. I would get up at 6 a.m. every morning and either study scriptures by myself, study the Missionary Guide with my companion, run around to different areas to get supplies to other full-time missionaries, or hold/attend early-morning district or zone meetings. At 9:30 a.m., we would leave our apartment and go proselyte, mostly “tracting” (knocking on doors). We’d teach people the gospel at every opportunity and baptize converts, returning to our apartment by 9:30 p.m., with lights out(ish) at 10:30. Whereas most people dread Mondays, full-time missionaries look forward to Mondays—that’s the one day a week we didn’t have to start proselyting until 6 p.m. I would sleep in until 6:30. We’d get laundry done, write letters, play basketball, and rest.

One day, while in Baldwin Park, my mother sent me a package of brand-new white shirts. The “white” shirts I still wore were stained from bleeding backpack straps and black and maroon belts. Against my nature, I decided to take part in an apostate missionary tradition—I burned my old shirts. I put them in a pile on the apartment balcony and lit them up. For a minute, I suddenly realized the stupidity of what I had done, but I managed to keep the fire contained until it burned out. When it was over, I disposed of the ashes. I never got called out on the carpet by our landlords.

3.      What I dreamt @20. I dreamt of home. No, seriously. I once dreamed of the day I could call myself a returned missionary. Other than that, I don’t remember my dreams because shortly after my head would hit the pillow, I’d find myself waking up to the alarm in the morning. I’ve never slept like that since returning from my mission.

4.      My favorite song @20. As a full-time missionary, we weren’t allowed to listen to non-mission-approved music. When I was 20, Enya was approved. That year, my favorite song was undeniably “Memory of Trees” by Enya. To this day, it still reminds me of El Monte, and I still get nostalgic over my mission.

5.      What I wore @20. Proselyting clothes consisted of a white, short-sleeved Van Heusen, a conservative tie, black slacks that could handle proselyting but wouldn’t work with a suit, and tracting church shoes—Doc Martens were not allowed on my mission. Every day.

6.      Whom I loved @20. I’ve loved only one woman my entire life; however, that year I received a letter that was kinda sorta a “dear john.” In the letter, she mentioned her “boyfriend” and then I didn’t hear from her again for many months. I humbly told myself I was happy for her, and I focused on preaching the gospel. The next year, I received a letter from her suggesting she was still single—living in Utah and going to school. In 2001, I married her. I’ve been happily married to her for the past 14 years.

7.      What made headlines when I was @20. A little blue dress.

#APH20

  

I encourage everyone to read the posts of the following personal historians: 

Clinton Haby at http://www.storykeeping.com/me20/

Jennifer Korba-Gill at http://storyboxmovies.com/news/

Emily Koppelman at https://rainmakervideo.com/me20-sky-high-beauty/

Dave Bloom at http://www.milestonesandmeanings.com/#!me20/c114h/555c8d480cf298b2d3cf351d

Your turn! Please answer these questions!

1. Where I lived @20:
2. What I did @20:
3. What I dreamt @20:
4. My favorite song @20:
5. What I wore @20:
6. Whom I loved @20:
7. What made headlines when I was @20:
‪#‎APH20

My Next Mountain

I teased on Facebook that I’d provide more information on the “summit” of the metaphorical mountain I had finally ascended back on March 25. It’s not the tallest peak there is, but the tallest peak I've ascended to this point in my publishing career. Now it’s time to tell you more about the climb and the view. For more background on what I’m talking about, refer to my blog post “Recording More than Just Cats” (October 28, 2014).

In a nutshell, for ten months of my LDS mission I talked about each day’s events into a tape recorder rather than writing the experiences down in a longhand journal. From 2003 to 2011, I transcribed all thirty-six hours of recordings and then edited, proofed, and added end notes to the text. In 2011, I started formatting the text in InDesign CS4. In the past twelve years I've worked on this project, there have been a few years I haven’t touched this project at all. When I have worked on it, it’s been no more than an hour at a time because of full-time employment and other conflicting priorities.

After becoming self-employed in December as a personal historian, I decided that in order for anyone—including myself—to trust me to publish anything, I'd have to have published something. I've been in the writing business for years, but I've never been the person to take a project the final steps to publication.

While at BYU, publishing opportunities slipped through my fingers in situations beyond my control. My English 318R class required me to publish a short, personal history project. After I finished it, no matter how many times I took the zip disc to the BYU Print Shop or even to Kinko’s, no one could print it. There were always problems, like missing fonts or a corrupted zip disc. In 2002, the student publication adviser chose me to be the co-editor of a student journal called Inscape: Conference Edition. Soon afterward, the English department pulled funding. Funding returned a year later—during my final semester of college, as I limped and crawled to the finish line of graduation.

While a newspaper reporter, I worked in a bureau in a separate county from the newsroom. For a single month, I worked in the newsroom. I proofed the paper each afternoon on the day prior to circulation; however, I never took part in taking it to the printer. I had a much, much larger role to play in a magazine production process at Harris Publishing; however, once again, the artist formatted the magazine and prepared it for publication, not me. That’s where my experience has stopped.

Until now.

As this year began, having taken a year or so hiatus from my missionary book project, I didn't know where I had left off. Tired of putting it together piecemeal, and while finding side jobs wherever I could, I've spent most of my time—hours per day—working on this missionary journal, which I now call My Captain’s Logs. 

At the beginning of February, I started proofing the entire book—five chapters and an epilogue—for the umpteenth time. I realistically cannot count how many times I've proofed this book, but I can say I've completed every step in this production process myself. I did that for the bragging rights, not because I should have.

I intentionally made this project more complicated than it needed to be, partly to give me my first taste of publishing a truly professional book, and partly for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with LDS jargon. The preface explains how the project came to be. The epilogue concludes my mission between the time the final cassette ended and when my stake president released me three days later. End notes explain details or complete events I had forgotten about while recording the captain’s logs (so that those memories won’t be lost for all mortality). The glossary explains LDS jargon and missionary culture mentioned too frequently in the text to be included in the end notes.

Starting on February 4, I devoted the entire month to proofing the main text—several hundred pages—one last time. During the proofing process, I came up with scores of new end notes for every chapter I hadn't yet written that needed including. So as to not derail my proofing, I marked each spot in the text for a new end note and continued on. Once I completed proofing the book, the day after my birthday I went back and wrote all of those missing end notes—as well as even more notes I hadn't thought of while proofing it that final time—and renumbered the end notes in the Notes section and corresponding text. I also had to confirm every cross-reference I mentioned in every chapter.

At one point I felt like Lewis Carroll's Alice, metaphorically plunging down a rabbit hole. Much like picking rock in a field while growing up on a farm, the more rocks I picked the more I found. With this, the more I corrected the more needed to be verified/corrected. Once I finished writing new end notes, I proofed the end notes. And then I proofed the glossary. Then based on the sixteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (2010), I corrected front matter, back matter, general formatting, and I checked for style consistency throughout the entire Book document until I finally felt satisfied with the changes I’d made. Since the day I felt I had finally reached the summit—finishing a complicated project I started twelve years ago—I've even added a few final end notes. Just this afternoon, I even revised one end note to make it more factually accurate.

Now that I stand on this summit, feeling the cool wind on my face and enjoying the spectacular view of a completed project, I look ahead to the peak rising yet above me on the next mountain over. I've already run into hiccups on my way up the new slope—the website of a book printer based in Caldwell, Idaho, won’t even let me send them a quote request, which I've attempted several times. I’m still working on it.

My plan is to have it printed, bound, and delivered no later than the sixteen anniversary of my release from my mission (June 23). I’ll distribute those ten or so copies to family members and mission friends. Like I mentioned in my blog post in October, if you want a copy let me know. Donations will be gladly appreciated.

However, you’ll notice—after the countless hours and years of manpower I've poured into this book—it doesn't even have an index or an ISBN number.

I’m saving those for the second edition.

Reaching a Checkpoint

Today I reached what I thought was a milestone in my journey to publishing my first novel, only to find out it’s just a check point.

I've been working on my first novel for a few years now, tweaking it sporadically while I mainly focused on meeting magazine deadlines. Most of the time I've worked on the manuscript, I've been “perfecting” the Prologue rather than actually finishing the first draft. More than one published author has told me how foolish that is. One published author told me in 2013 that I need to know how the novel ends before I can find out how it begins. (Wrap your head around THAT!) Last November, another published author explained to me that if writing a novel is like baking cookies, the first draft is like putting all the ingredients onto the table. Once I've got all the ingredients out and the oven has been turned on, then I can start to mix the ingredients to make the cookies.

Today, I triumphantly raised both hands in the air, believing that I had finished the first draft of my first-ever novel manuscript!

My novel, the first in the Nova Chronicles series, is called A Reason to Run. It’s about a young man who lives on the planet of Elba, as part of a society divided into clans. Elba’s orbit around its star is such that the planet is habitable for three years at a time, followed by a fatally cold and uninhabitable year of winter. While the protagonist, Errol Nova, and his sister live under tyrannical rule, the theme of the novel is more about how family trumps society.

Once I reached a satisfactory climax and denouement today, my novel clocked in at 46,246 words. However, as I did some research on novel length, I found that, yes, it’s technically long enough to be considered a “novel” rather than a “novella,” but it’s more stranded between the two. It’s like in a game of Clue when you roll the dice and exit one room, having successfully pinpointed the right suspect, room, and weapon—you just need to get to the right room—but because luck wasn't a lady you’re now stuck on a square in the void where you can’t do anything but watch helplessly as your sister enters the Hall and solves the game.

In other words, the typical length of an adult novel is more like 80,000 to 90,000 words, and fantasy novels can be over 100,000 words without being considered too long. Going back to the analogy of the cookies, I've only got half of the ingredients out on the table. I guess I’d better turn off the oven.

At any rate, what I've finished writing today will be considered “Part I,” whether it’s published as a stand-alone, teaser novel or is the first half of a much larger, complete novel. That means I've got a lot of work to do revising Part I. I already know the direction I’m going to take with Part II, I just need to find where those ingredients are stashed.

Stay tuned, Elbers.