I was recently on an internet radio show called the History Czar. The host, Paul Bruno, asked about my books, my writing business, and my experiences in Iraq. It was a fun interview, and I thought I'd share...

You can find the webcast by clicking here and then going to "download show" at the top of the page ...

Life and business are great, and thank you so much for visiting my blog. Four years after returning from Iraq, I still get an average of 20,000 visitors a month!

Most of my time and energy now go into running my company, Desert Sun Writing (and of course raising the kids). Please take a look at my company website. I am actively seeking new ghostwriting projects!

Well, as with most things in life, this writing career of mine did not take the shape I quite expected, but it is still evolving and I can see how my current path makes much more sense and actually fits in so much better to my long-term plan than my own lucid daydreams ever did.

To wit: For almost two full years now I have been running my new company Desert Sun Writing, and I am happy to report that I have exceeded all of my own expectations. I am living a life of letters for at least 40-60 hours a week, and I love it! I recently updated my website, and I invite you to check it out by clicking here.

The war in Iraq (especially the Sunni Triangle where I was stationed) seems to have subsided, and now the focus in on Afghanistan. Many of my clients are senior military officials, and I help them transition from their military careers into executive federal government positions. I also write for recently retired military officials who now work for NASA, the Department of Defense, or major contracting organizations around the globe.

I do miss certain things about the Army, kind of miss being "Captain K." But then again I have never been happier, I have an absolutely amazing girlfriend, and the kids are wonderful so I do not regret getting out even one little bit. Still, it's really fulfilling to help out those still wearing the uniform, and I find it highly intriguing to collaborate with my clients while they are preparing to return from the Middle East. I know where they are.

I'm happy to report that I recently completed my newest book - A Life Well-Built: The Authorized Biography of Brigadier Geeral Richard E. Fisher. It is available online at at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Books-a-Million, and was chosen as an iUniverse Editor's Choice. Please click on the image below to buy a copy today.

I have also been hard at work promoting my collecton of essays, and it has won 1st runner up in the the Military Writer's Society of America's 2009 non-fiction book of the year category. Additionally, it garnered the 2009 American Author's Association 2009 Golden Quill Award. Please click on the image below to buy a copy.

When you’re managing all tactical communications for a battalion of 600 soldiers in Iraq, in the most technologically advanced military force that man has known, and interfacing daily with Marines and other Army units, you find yourself in a dynamic work environment that requires strong time management skills. I remember my soldiers gave me a hard time because I always carried this little green notebook around with me. That’s because I had so many things to do. Some of these things helped to save lives, like ensuring backup satellite communications on a mission to try and spot an IED being put in. Some of them were just for convenience, like helping someone with a software glitch or installing a printer. It was easy to get your head underwater. Whenever I was asked (or told) to do something that was not a high priority, I would write it down and say “It’s on my list. It’s not at the top, but it’s there. And once it’s there, it shall be done.”
 
The art of time management is one of the primary skills that I took away from the Army. I once read a definition of a military officer as “an expert in the art of managing chaos.” This serves me well as a Dad. Yes, I have become a Zen master of multitasking, an innovative engineer of time, and a kitchen ninja who can deftly prepare meals while helping the kids with their homework, washing a load of dishes, and any number of other things that must constantly be done. 
 
One of the main ways I manage time is by keeping lists. I reflexively keep my mind organized with lists. I have multiple lists, which sometimes overlap, but for the most part are autonomous. Some are digital and some are written by hand. Not only do I use the Microsoft Outlook calendar to keep my work organized, but I have a white board in my office that I update at least weekly, and a calendar with important dates circled. I go through sticky notes like no other. I also keep hand written lists of my goals and plans for the next couple of years. Ironically, my passion for keeping lists and defining my goals so clearly is fuled by the deeper desire to achieve a state of living in which I can ignore the clocks. I love to let an afternoon or an hour or a week get away from me, as it were, and just be present in the moments that make up my life. But I have to plan for something like that or it will never happen. It has to land on my list.
 
I see a list as a sort of challenge, a comedy of an attempt, a race against fate, and a cause and effect fiesta to watch how much your list drifts from the actual happenings that make up your day. It would be interesting if we all went back at the end of the day (for our daily lists, as opposed to monthly, short-term, long-term, and master) and revised them to show what ended up happening at a given time, as compared to what was planned. I imagine a future full of more lists. True, everything will be so automated that the list is replaced with personal reminders we earn by simply speaking our appointments and plans into the air, but there will still be a list of some sort in the circuitry of the computer -  a line of code, perhaps, but a direct heir of that scrap of paper torn from a notebook sitting near someone's hand when they decided to write fruit, dish soap, toothpaste, ground beef, and beer on it.
 
A thousand years from now, our lists could be archived in museums as ancient relics, historical research tools. Picture it: A worn piece of ruled yellow paper with a genuine 21st century coffee ring stain near the top right corner:
 
- Pick up dog food
- Take kids to get flu shots
- Balance checkbook
- Mother’s Day gift
- Read Chapters 4-6 from Brit Lit 4501, rough draft of essay
- Stop at Wal-Mart after work
- Finalize ghostwriting project
- Help with math homework
 
In these futuristic museums, our lists will appear the same way hieroglyphics do to us now - symbols etched on paper or reproduced from Microfiche. Lists are not only important organizational tools, then, flag posts at which we can shoot the azimuth of our days, but they are timeless relics, documents of period study for future enthusiasts of the past. A simple list is a bit of free verse, a look into the age and mindset and priorities of an individual in a given time; but it is also a cross-section of that society, that age, that era, that social class.
 
Yes, the list is a powerful document that is taken for granted, when it should be cherished - an instantaneous historical reference point.  Like now, I can turn off my computer and line through "write a new blog post" on a list that has four entries scratched out, two circled with stars next to them, and one highlighted, then scratched out. As I said, the Army gave me some solid time management skills, but here now as a Dad I believe I have taken it to the level of living art.   I often feel like a master conductor of the complicated, inspirational orchestra of my life.
 
And like life, I know that my lists will change, but at least nothing is blowing up around me. At least I’m here to experience it all, alive and able to change. I create the kind of days that I desire. I can put whatever I want on my lists and the very act of doing so makes it possible. 
 
I say come on people, try to keep it together. Keep typing away on your spreadsheets or scribbling away in your leather planners, or on your dirty napkins.

Challenge the inertia of possibility - go ahead and write your lists. 

Please use the links below to get your copy today ...

Amazon 

Create Space

You can also click here to read the first review of my book by the Military Writer's Society ofAmerica (MWSA), and click here to read another review by the American Author's Association.

My latest essay for the New York Times goes live tonight. Please click here to read it.

Happy New Years from the Glass Half-Full Report !! 

My second book review has been posted by the American Author's Association.

Please click here to read it ...

I was recently contacted by a writer for the Military Times. He's a really nice guy named Jon Anderson, and he interviewed me for over an hour.

The article ran in The EDGE magazine, which is an insert to the Military Times. The magazine is geared towards military personnel transitioning out into the civilian sector, and this article is focused on my journey over the last couple of years - from  soldier/blogger to full-time freelance writer.

You can also check out the article online by clicking here. 

My next piece on the New York Times Home Fires blog should be up soon. I'll keep you posted...

As always, thanks for reading!

My book, Fire in the Night: Creative Essays from an Iraq War Vet, has been reviewed for the first time.

You can read the official Military Writer's Society ofAmerica (MWSA) review here.

Also, the New York Times has contacted me again, and I am excited to be writing for them starting in October. I will post about it with links when it begins, but for now here are some links to my NYT articles over the last few years:

 2005 articles

 2007 articles

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."   Dr. Wayne Dyer

A couple of nights ago I was sitting at my desk doing some writing for a client in Iraq. Though I probably looked quite serious, a smile played across my mental mood as I wrote. I am no longer in the military, but I am lucky enough to make a living as a creative freelance writer. I write for a lot of military or ex-military people, and I enjoy the interaction. It's very rewarding to help them out in my own way. After all, I don't regret my decision to end a promising military career, but I do miss certain aspects of the military, and my role as an Army Captain. My military memories are crisp and starched like one thousand soldiers standing at attention in a freshly mown field at a Division change of command ceremony in the morning, in April, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

I picked the kids up from daycare at 4pm, hung out with them for a while, made dinner at around 5:30, and then gravitated back to my computer. I had been writing for an hour straight, and I was on a roll, but I needed to get the kids ready for bed. I stood and walked down the hall and into the kitchen to grab some water. I passed my son's room. He was lying on hs back with one foot crossed over the other leg for a spot to balance his Gameboy, on which he was playing Galaga. Old School from back in my day when I was maybe twelve and playing Galaga because it was new and I was good at it, and hey, I was at Skate Country on a Friday night and there were lots of cute girls around and what else was I going to do?

"Hey Dad. What's up?" he said, without one single filament of worry or doubt or fear in his voice. He's a little zen master, and at that moment, with the light coming in through the plantation shutters in thick swatches, and his pet turtles floating in the bog of a habitat next to his bed, the world revolved around those little alien insects dropping bombs on his fighter ship. He's really good at Galaga, but not good enough to beat his dad. At least not yet.

"Nothing, buddy."

I then knocked on my nine year old daughter's door, because knocking is the new opening. She's serious about the knocking before entering, and I respect that. It's her brother that seems to forget. "Lee, if that's you then you can't come in," she said. I opened the door and mocked her brother's voice, "Why not, Chloe? I'm your brother..."

"Daaaaad," she said, blowing my cover before I even walk in.

"Hey. Bedtime is in one hour. Watcha doing?"

"Nothing."

"Are you having fun doing nothing?"

"Yes Daaaad."

"I think we're about all done with the TV for tonight." 

She smiled, because she already knew the answer to her next question. "Five more minutes?" 

"Okay." I started to walk out. "Hey Dad?" She wanted something.

"Yes?"

"Will you pay me five dollars to clean my room?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because cleaning your room is automatic. You only earn money when you do extra chores, not normal chores. You know that."

I walked out again, leaving her only half smiling. Lately she's been saying that she wants to start saving her money to buy an mp3 player.

As I exited her room, I noticed that the ambient light in the house was golden brown, the light of a rusty sun exhaling one last creosote sigh across the desert before making room for the energetic moon. I am 37, and some of my memories from childhood still seem so immediate. So fresh in my mind like a song I just heard. The light sends me back. Effortless.

When I was still a kid, (as opposed to just feeling like a kid, which I do almost every day lately), I was a gifted participant in every game of hide and seek I ever played. Don't ask me why. I just knew the places to hide. They called to me. The bushes. The curtains. The deep shadow behind a tree. I also had a keen ability to move silently between hiding places undetected. In my family, I have a bit of a reputation for sneaking up on people and startling them. Also known as scaring the shit out of them. 

I am still me. I walked across the room and squatted behind the recliner in such a way that I couldn't be seen. I called my son's name, cupping my hand to throw my voice, as if that realy works. I stayed there quietly, looking a the walls from an angle I'd never noticed before, and heard my son come out of his room. He went into my room, where he expected to find me working, writing, at the computer tapping my fingers to some low music, and leaning back and smiling as I always do when he enters the room ready to give him some direction like "I need you to get your pajamas on and brush your teeth, okay little man?"

I then heard him walk into the kitchen, not far from where I was hiding. He's sharp. His footsteps got faster. He ran and checked the garage and when he didn't find me there me immediately opened his sister's door without knocking. She, of course, said, "What are you doing? I told you to knock!"

"Chloe, I think Dad is hiding," he said.

Though she is nine, and growing up too fast, and even though she made me take down all of her princess posters about two years ago, she let out a joyful laugh and started whispering to her brother, but I can still hear her:

 "Okay, we have to split up. I'll go that way and you go that way."

"Where is he hiding?" my son asked. I think I heard him clapping his hands as he said it.

My left foot was going numb, but it was worth it. I had to maintain the integrity of the games of hide and seek I played when I was a kid. Up to twenty of us would gather in my front yard for a group briefing on the rules of the night. Hide and go seek in the dark. You can't leave this block. Only green cars are safe bases. If you get caught you have to help catch the others, until there is only the one.

On this night I didn't have my mojo about me. Outdoor hide and seek is so much more liberating. I was stuck inside my living room and they had split up and I could not move from that hiding spot to another without being seen. I stayed perfectly still, as he moved a little closer. Chloe was in the same room by then, but just standing there looking back down the hall, thinking of where I might be. Yes, it's true, they had the master cornered.

I cut my losses and jumped up, barking like Cujo. They both electrified in primal fear, eyes wide, hands in the air, leaping backwards while yelling "Aaaaaaghhhhhhhhhhhhhhha ha hahahaha ha ha." Yelling quicky fell into laughter. "Do it again, Dad. Hide again," they said as soon as the initial scare wore off.

In the next round, my hiding place was so creative, so perfect that they never did find me. I have a dresser in a corner of my room and there is a small space behind it. If I crouch down, I fit in it perfectly. Not too comfortable, but it's worth it. The kids walked right past me. I eventually had to come out of my hiding place and sneak up on them like a ninja, putting an end the impromptu hide and seek so I could get them to bed and get back to my keyboard.

Life gets complicated, and like most I certainly have my own private sorrows and regrets. But I am grateful for so much, and just thankful to be here, at home, raising my children. All things considered, our little game marked the end of a very fine day.

"If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older." - Tom Stoppard

On Independence Day 2006 I had been home from Iraq for only a couple of weeks. Things have changed a lot. This year, I spent the 4th being appreciative of so much, surrounded by family, and watching dueling fireworks displays.  

As the holiday weekend comes to an end, life is filled with joy, gratitude, fulfilling work, 105 degree desert summer days (I actually like it when I can wear flip-flops instead of combat boots), and lots of swimming.

The kids have been home with me for the three day weekend, and they have officially worn me out! I'll be back to work in the morning. At home. At the computer. Seeking more jobs. Writing my heart out.

I'm happy to report that the writing jobs are rolling in and referals are already starting to happen. If I can keep this pace up, I'll be matching my old salary in no time!

My buddy David Stanford over at Doonesbury.com has re-posted one of my pieces on The Sandbox military blog.

Please click here to check that out.

Also, I was asked to respond to some questions about blogging for an article that ran in Stars and Stripes magazine.

Sitting there in the grass watching the fireworks, fully content and relaxed, I could't help but think of the men and women serving in the Middle East, and specifically in the Sunni Triangle, where I spent the majority of my time.

The kids fell asleep in the truck on the way home after the fireworks, and I was left to shine my own thoughts over this glistening city and the lights on the interstate. After I carried them in, one at a time, and put them in their beds, I spent some time on Google Earth.

I zoomed in on my old base, my old office, my old room. I smiled at my monitor because there I was looking at satellite imagery of the place, while I remembered exactly what it felt like to be there, in the darkness, looking up at the satellites.  Back then, I'd go back into my room, climb into my bunk, and lie there thinking about my family.

I'm okay now. I came home. My kids are asleep mere feet from me as I write this. Safe and sound. What more could I ask?

"Every man's memory is his private literature." Aldous Huxley

Shameless plug: Please check out my freelancing website at Desert Sun Writing. Maybe I can help you or someone you know? 

Two years ago today I stepped off of that airplane in Salt Lake City. No cliches about "time flying by" seem fitting at the moment. Life is too colorful, too much of a grand adventure to taint its description with an overused play on words.

I remember everything as if it were yesterday, and yet I've learned and grown so much in the last two years that it's like watching someone else in my mind - some other soldier, some other father, some other soul.

Many of you know that my hometown is New Orleans, but I've been living in Salt Lake City, Utah (on and off) for the last 12 years. Well, after 1/3 of my life there, I have now moved my little family to an absolutely gorgeous town in southern Utah where I'll be closer to family. It's actually a desert climate not so different from the deserts of Iraq. Do I smell irony?

Finally, in the name of my anniversary and the inspirational, exciting changes in my life, I'm going to re-post something I wrote two years ago, when I was flying back and forth across the Atlantic on emergency leave because my mom was very sick and Hurricane Katrina had recently struck. I saw soldiers walking around my hometown with loaded weapons, but I had to go back to Iraq. Each time I flew back, I felt frustrated and wondered if I should be serving in New Orleans or the Sunni Triangle. I questioned my own path and sometimes grew cynical and philosophical about the way Americans were supporting their troops. We are still a country at war, and I still have soldiers in Iraq who I sent there personally as their company commander. And yet very few people that I meet in my little microcosm of America seem too concerned. This is a bit of generalization, but I don't know... is it just me?

A Letter to the Republic for Which We Stand

LONDON

Emergency leave

never ends well

when a mother

is lost

to breast cancer

I, an Army Lieutenant

flying back to

the Sunni Triangle-

a face in the window at

thirty thousand feet-

for the final

six months

of the tour

A layover in London.

The moist weather,

and a soft couch 

in the dim hotel lobby

Queen's Gate Garden

Hyde Park

I, a lone American.

Emotions ornate

as the gates

I peer through

at Buckingham Palace

in the rain,

seeing nothing.

I’m not sure how I’ll view this place from my side of the Atlantic, but I do think we did an important job here. Some soldier must put on his body armor and secure this area, someone must leave his community and stand in a guard tower for 12 hours a day, having RPGs and mortars shot at him, and someone must drive around the streets of this city trying to convince the locals that we actually want to help them, not hurt them. America has chosen to fight here. America’s leadership has sent us. There is only one thing to do: complete your small piece of the mission.    

   Last weekend I took the kids to an art gallery in downtown Salt Lake City. A friend of mine was one of the featured photographers in the exhibit. We spent a couple of hours strolling through all the galleries in the building, as I drank coffee and let the kids lead the way. It was a relaxing end to a crazy week at work.

   His name is Brian Schiele and his innovative and compelling photography can be found here. He took a portrait of the kids and I two months after I came home from Iraq. A few weeks later he asked me to write a few words in my own handwriting on the bottom of the print. Looking at the photo, the words came easy and fast. When it was taken, I had only been divorced for a couple of weeks and the overwhelming transition to single parent was upon me. Here's a link to the portrait and text. And here's a picture of us standing in front of the picture, a year after it was taken. 

Brian is affiliated with a photography group called The Salt Lake Seven, and they have a great new book out that showcases all of the work from the exhibit last weekend.

      The piano is for you; its keys cut from your bones and teeth. The bass and drums are in rhythm with your pulse. And the guitar sings only your melodies, the memories your eyes have recorded and cherished over the years. The tones the musicians chose just happen to reach into the same astral well that your thoughts did on a day that, while you cannot place it chronologically, nonetheless has harbored a quiet place in your soul, waiting to be struck and ring out like an ancient crystal bell. 

      Music's magnetism stops clocks. Your sensibility of time elapsing is replaced with a flowing of soft sound, like sand through fingers, water against wood. If you watch very closely the second hand on the clock as you listen to your music, you will notice that if it is not exactly on time with the tempo of your tuneage, it is at least so a good portion of the time - it is trying. Time wants to join in the backbeat of the chorus, as much as your foot wants to tap.

    Likewise, as certain people can't hold a tune, or do not have natural rhythm, so the second hand lacks the dexterity to veer from its monotronomic pacing. Clocks love low batteries; it gives them the chance to dance.