Construction Tales:Volume I
by Leslie Jasper
About The Author
Leslie
is a journeywoman electrician who works within Westchester County,
New York, Fairfield County, Connecticut, and the five boroughs of New
York City. Leslie has worked within the construction industry for the
past 17 years. She is also an evening OSHA instructor/writing coach
working part time for Empire College. Leslie recently graduated and
received an MBA with honors at Iona College in New Rochelle, New
York. She lives with her two sons, Tom and Johnny, in Lake Carmel,
New York. Leslie enjoys spending quality time with her sons such as
snowboarding and visiting haunted houses throughout New England. She
also enjoys cruise ship traveling around the world, renovating her
home, and spending time lifting weights in the gym.
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Welcome
to BK Walker Books Etc. I'm so happy you have invited me into your home today to chat.
BK:
Looking out the nearest window, describe the scene you see to our readers.
I’m
sitting at my kitchen table looking out a big window. I see my big
yard, loads of leaves tossed aimlessly about, a long brown stained
fence, and my annoying neighbor’s house. The fog that is rolling in
limits my view on this chilled November morning.
BK:
Tell us about your office. Is it a mess like mine, or is everything
in its place?
I
have two extremes. It can be organized and spotless. Then it can be
a mess with a pile of papers that need to be organized when I have
some down time.
BK:
What is a must-have, such as coffee or a favorite pen, that you need
to write?
I
like to have my big black comfortable chair so that I may kick up my
feet and be relaxed when I write. I need to feel at ease so that the
words may flow on my laptop. I have needed to stop a few times to
get some coffee. If I have a good thought to write about, I will
spend hours getting it typed out.
BK:
Do you like to write in silence, or do you need music or background
noise?
The
ideal situation would be to sit in silence. However, I learned to
adapt a long time ago. I just need to be in the zone and have a
clear roadmap in my head of what to write about. Then all the noise
around me fades to the background.
BK:
Tell us a bit about your hero/heroine, and their development.
In
my book, I played the heroine in a sense. I pushed through barriers
and past people who said I should not be on the job. I somehow
managed to defeat the odds and challenges that were stacked against
me. I did many things normal people would not be willing to do.
This was in an effort to chase the almighty dream of a great wage,
pension, and benefits. I never gave up, never showed emotion, and
always kept a smile on my face. Now that I write this out, I realize
I was indeed the heroine in my book. I started out as a young woman
with a dream and chased that 100%. By the time I finished, I won
many men over and finished my apprenticeship. It was indeed a
success story. Other women must know it is possible as well!
BK:
As a writer myself, I'm always curious how other writers get through
stumble blocks. When you find a story not flowing, or a character
trying to fight you, how do you correct it?
I
have actually gotten up from writing, put my sneakers on and hit the
gym, and have returned with a fresh perspective. I have even skipped
that thread of writing and went onto another topic in the past.
Sometimes, writing about the second thread jars my memory and gives
me some material to pick up on the prior thread.
BK:
Using the letters of your first name as an acronym, describe your
book...
Leadership,
Endurance, Strength, Legacy, Independent, Entertaining
BK:
How did your writing journey begin?
I
started writing the book back in 2009. I know that I am a woman that
belongs to 2% of the female construction workforce. No one really
knows what it is like and people should hear the stories. I had no
idea of the long process to get a book published. My long stint of
unemployment, which was sparked by the recession, made me decide to
re-group. I started writing the book but I had no means of getting
it published so I stopped. I then shopped hundreds of literary
agents and publishing houses for a book deal. I combed through
hundreds of rejections. A lot of them did say that the book was
interesting. However, I am unclear of how to market your book. The
story is so unique and does not fit into a typical genre. I then
discovered that I could self-publish and it would be available on
Amazon. Armed with new information, I dived back into writing the
book. The last few months of the summer were grueling working with
my editor. Now that I have gone through the process, the second
volume should come sooner. I have many more stories to tell to make
Construction Tales: Volume II.
BK:
Using the letters from the word, Summer, how would friends and family
describe you?
Strong,
Undefeated, Musclebound, Malleable, Electric, Real
BK:
What is the craziest thing you've ever written about, whether it got
published or not?
I
wrote about how one of the people I was working with was pacing back
and forth on a major, world renown, trading floor, speaking loudly,
about all of the sexual encounters he wanted to have with this
attractive employee. She was working on the floor and he was not shy
about letting her, and anyone else, know of his vial intents and
desires. It was rather embarrassing yet extremely funny to witness.
There are many more stories similar to that in the book.
BK:
Tell us one thing you've done in life, that readers would be most
surprised to know.
I
worked in a dirty trench with yellow boots spinning 85 lb. lengths of
rigid pipe while pregnant in the summer. I did not want to be treated
differently or lose my job. Therefore, I kept my pregnancy a secret
until almost 6 months. It was the biggest endurance race of my life
doing my job and not wanting to vomit. I will be writing about that
experience in Construction Tales: Volume II.
BK:
What can we expect from you in the future?
I
plan to find time to write Construction Tales: Volume II this winter.
I have already started brainstorming on what I want to write. There
are more funny stories to tell. I will cover my newly minted
journeywoman experience that I will pick up after the last story from
Volume I. I talk about being pregnant in construction. I also talk
about my stint working in jail and the interaction with inmates. I
also intend to get a collection of stories from a group of old timers
(from all construction trades) from the business who want to get
their stories on paper.
About
The Book
Genre:
Self Improvement
Publisher:
Self-Published at CreateSpace
Release
Date: August 6, 2013
Strap
on your work boots and put on your hard hat. Let me take you on a
sheetrock dusted journey to
Excerpt
Chapter 3- The Big Job
Construction Tales: Volume
I: A Woman’s Journey To Become An Electrician
I
was sent to work on a brand new job coming out of the ground in
Connecticut. This job would provide massive amounts of overtime and
help my living situation tremendously. I learned real quickly that
the pace on this job was very different from my last job. It was
more of a laid back, easy-going work environment. I would have never
guessed that I was about to meet a whole group of characters on this
very large job.
I
set foot on the largest construction job I had ever witnessed at this
point in my apprenticeship. By this moment in time, the country was
coming out of a recession and this massive deck job was going to
catapult many trades’ people into a good financial position. My
first day was in a giant room that was in the process of becoming the
data center for a very large trading floor. As an apprentice, my
first three hours of the day were all about getting coffee for a
third of the crew of roughly 100 electricians. There were no
elevators so two other apprentices and I had to walk up a minimum of
six (up to thirteen) flights of stairs and provide coffee for the
group of hungry and hung-over electricians each day.
The
coffee trek was a half-mile walk to the deli each morning. I placed
my order and sat there with the other apprentices until the order was
ready. I had to make sure I had proper change for each person who
ordered and double-checked all orders for accuracy. Coffee was the
most important part of the day and screwing up the order could ruin
the entire day. This was especially true when we went into overtime.
If you got the coffee order wrong, plenty of these guys would react
like spoiled children and have an actual temper tantrum. I started
to get to know two fellow apprentices, Ryan and Todd, very well while
getting our daily orders of coffee. I will never forget my
friendship with these two fellow apprentices.
Ryan
was a tall, dark-haired, and very hairy guy from a community normally
filled with rich and upper-class folk. Ryan often reeked of body
odor, cigarette smoke, or booze from the night before. He was and
probably still is clearly a fish out of water in his community, yet
he fit right in on a construction site. Ryan played in a band. He
was very rough around the edges, with plenty of piercings all over
his face. Ryan came in to work on a regular basis hung-over, often
stinking as if a keg of beer had been splashed all over him.
1 comments:
what a great interview!
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