Coming into the home stretch

[aadler]

10:30AM Central Afghan Time

We have less than a month remaining in our Afghanistan deployment, but things are not going well. The problem isn’t ours — as in, we not only aren’t the source of the problem, we also aren’t the ones who will be affected by it — but with our replacements. When I saw the schedule for their arrival, compared with that for our departure, I believed we would have almost a month to do an organized handover, show them how we’d been doing things, put them in touch with the people who handle different aspects of operations here, work alongside them for a few weeks while they became accustomed to the procedures …

Nope. They’ve been in BAF for three days now, and it appears that it will be another four before any of them make it here to KAF. Meanwhile, the schedules for air transport over here are so volatile that we have to get our own teams back here at the earliest opportunity, in order to be sure they’ll be on hand for travel to BAF by the time we have to be there for customs inspection. We’re drawing ever closer to a “high-five” handoff, wherein we (outgoing) wave to our replacements (incoming) as we pass in opposite directions.

This isn’t the way it should be done. It isn’t the way we planned doing it. And we won’t be the ones living with the consequences. Why in the world did those people wait until they arrived in Afghanistan to start deciding which teams they would send to which locations?

Meanwhile, I’ve spent the last ten days intending (and expecting) to begin my next story any moment now. I have a bit over three weeks to meet my self-appointed goal of nine stories during this deployment, which should be more than enough, if I ever get started. Just one of those things.

I haven’t made or attempted to make reservations for WriterCon II; somehow it just doesn’t seem like a good idea while I’m still on a different continent. The moment I clear Fort Bragg, though — and I might do it as soon as I hit the States — I’m jumping on the program. With the advantage of LJ activity and interaction, I’ll know a few more people than I did at the first one, and I’m happily anticipating the opportunity to talk and party with like minds.

On my return from Iraq, I wrote only one story over the course of an entire year. (It wasn’t a really big story, either; it took me two days.) I have some ideas I’m wanting to tackle — including one which is long overdue — so I believe I can do better than last time out. I’ll have other things also to do, and I actually pushed myself harder here than I should have (given my duties, six stories over a year’s time should have been sufficient), but I still believe I can manage three or four stories in a year. That seems not only achievable but respectable.

Once I do begin the story currently in planning, it will be #30 for me. (Drabbles don’t count; they’re fun, but I don’t take them seriously.) Which will mean, in turn, that almost a third of my total output will have been produced in the past year.

I can live with that.

Comments

[draconin.livejournal.com]

I'm not American and have no vested interest but... is this really info that you should be putting on here? Aren't you basically telling anyone who has access the web that in a month's time the US contingent in Central Afganistan will be a) new & inexperienced, and b) much more disorganised than normal?
Not meaning to be offensive here - I'm not military and am probably not understanding.

[jgracio.livejournal.com]

Heh. I don't think the whole contingent's going home, things don't work that way, not unless the US was leaving en masse. Nope, all this says is that somewhere in Afghanistan one experienced team is going to get replaced by a less experienced one. Which, okay, isn't good, but I seriously doubt that's so uncommon.

Anyway, all the best to you aadler.

BTW, do you count linked drabbles? Like the ones nwhepcat sometimes does?

[jgracio.livejournal.com]

I meant aadler_. Evil underscore... :)

[aadler]

nwhepcat is in a different class. I’ve read her linked drabbles, and that’s a demanding and accomplished art form. Of course, the same is true of pretty much anything she does.

If I did something like that, I would cound the collection as a single story.

[aadler]

You raise a legitimate concern, but this isn’t “the U.S. contingent”, it’s one small unit replacing another small unit. Plus, I’m speaking only of the detachment (one segment of the unit) that will be replacing the detachment from which I’ve been operating.

Set against that is the fact that I didn’t really consider those issues before making the post. I’ve been watching what I say for so long that it became habitual, which means I wasn’t consciously looking ahead to what such information might reveal about our replacements. In this instance, no harm (I haven’t been explicit about just what I do, and the replacements won’t necessarily be placing their teams in the same spots where we had ours), but it would have been better if I had kept such considerations in mind.

[draconin.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I hope no offense taken, it was just of concern. Regardless of whether or not one regards the whole situation as correct/moral or not, the last thing anyone would want is for things to be made easier for the terrorists.

[aadler]

I take no offense, and I agree with you.

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

That's got to be frustrating, when you can't do a proper orientation for your replacements. Even more frustrating for them as they have to reinvent the wheel periodically.

30 stories is pretty astounding to me. I might reach that when I'm a blue haired old lady. It would help if I stopped writing long stuff. Reassembling just topped 100 pages (I have no clue how many words) and I'm barely halfway finished.

I hope we get to meet at Writercon. I look forward to it.

[aadler]

It didn’t move quickly at first; I started in 1999, so we’re looking at seven years’ worth of output. I did three stories in 1999, five in 2000 (a good year), two in 2001 and two in 2002. It averaged out to three a year, of varying lengths (the shortest 1,300 words, the longest 24,500 words). It was during my time in Iraq that I discovered how much I could accomplish if I drafted it all out on paper in one sustained push, and then went back to fine-tune, rather than revising as I went. I found something that worked for me, and I’ve stuck to it.

Yes, I am eagerly anticipating WriterCon. First one was fun, and I’m smarter now.