[John DeRosa] What are some of your daily routines? What does the first hour of your day look like? What time do you typically wake up?

[Katie Putz] Unlike Phil, Ty, and everyone else it seems, I get up at 7:00am. Previously I had a regular consulting job that required me to be in the office three days a week. Now that I’m full-time with The Diplomat, I will keep my 7:00am wake up time. I usually get up shower, drink tea, and read the news from overnight.

[JD] Hard copy or electronic?

[KP] I start with an RSS aggregator, used to be Google Reader, but they killed it. So I use Feedly which aggregates feeds from anything I have subscribed like the New York Times, Washington Post, etc. I’ll also check Twitter.

[JD] What are the subjects you are looking for?

[KP] I start with general news, so I know what is going on in the world, even if it is not in the region I am focused on. I have a section dedicated to Central Asia and Afghanistan and another for Asia-Pacific more broadly. In my editing for The Diplomat I need to be aware of things going on throughout Asia. When I was splitting my time and going to the office to my other job, I’d do this reading before leaving.

[JD] Are you doing any note taking during this time? What does your note taking system look like? How do you gather information for your writing?

[KP] I have a Google Doc open all the time with news and notes, especially when I am expected to write something for the magazine. If I am writing a piece for the magazine, I am looking for trends above the tactical view. We are trying with the magazine to take a more strategic view, to move beyond “something happened in Beijing.” So I will look for events that may be related and consider what does that mean for the general political direction.

In my Google Doc, I will file things that I find related to various topics. I’ll copy the URL and a couple of paragraphs that I find particularly interesting to start to string together a longer piece.

[JD] Laptop or iPad?

[KP] A laptop and an iPad. I just cleared a space in the front room of my house for a desk. My roommate appreciates that because I have been working off the kitchen table. So I will generally work from my laptop but I use the iPad and a bluetooth keyboard for the same function depending on where I find myself working.

[JD] Nothing written down?

[KP] I do have a black notebook that I always keep with me. If I am on the bus or someone says something interesting, I will jot that down. Yet when I am pouring through a number of resources, I keep it digital.

[JD] What are some of your other morning routines?

[KP] I will read and listen to music while commuting from [REDACTED]

[JD] Do you devote time to reading or are you reading because of the time commuting?

[KP] Previously had about an hour and a half to read while commuting. As my commute got shorter, I still kept thinking of the commute as my alone time to reading. I have missed a metro stop in the past because of my focus on reading.

[JD] What are you reading lately?

[KP] I just finished re-reading a fantasy novel [picking up her Kindle] The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I have read it before but I wanted to go back and re-read it. It has a set up that is cool and an approach broken into two part — that of the Chronicler in the present recording the past of a guy named Kvothe, who tells his own epic story.

[JD] Is fantasy the genre reading you prefer?

[KP] Fantasy, history, and basically anything that sounds interesting I am willing to pick up. I have very divergent tastes.

[JD] How do you find what to read?

[KP] If somebody has mentioned a title or author, I’ll look it up. Even though I have a kindle I really love going to bookstores. I have an extensive collection of hard copy books. It use to be a much larger collection but my parents sold their house so I had to downsize, just didn’t have the space. If I really like a book that I read on my kindle, I will buy the hard copy and add it to my shelf.

[JD] So you can use an orange highlighter?

[KP] Sorry Phil, no, not so that I can use an orange highlighter. Although I do use a pencil in my hard copy books. Kindle allows you to highlight text, too. I started to use that highlighting function in graduate school. It was more economical and I didn’t have to carry around a 700-page book that I would only read three chapters from.

[JD] Only fiction books on your Kindle?

[KP] No, no…I just finished reading The Yellow Birds by Kevin Power, which is fiction but not fantasy, and before that The Guns of August [by Barbara Tuchman] which is the book about the beginning of World War I. Before that I read The Wrong Enemy by Carlotta Gall which is about Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan. It is a short history of the war in Afghanistan paying particular attention to Pakistan’s role.

[JD] What are you reading lately?

[KP] A lot of Afghanistan books. I also just read War Comes to Garmser [by Carter Malkasian]. And I just read a book of poetry called Load Poems Like Guns, which is a collection of translated poems by contemporary Afghan women poets. I interviewed the compiler/translator for the next magazine.

[JD] Your job is writing so you don’t have to find a creative space to write. Describe your space to write in a professional sense?

[KP] I will continue to do what I did on what I called my “diplomat days” when I was working two jobs. After my morning routine of getting ready and reading I will sit down by 9:00am with a “to do list” for the magazine. Whether it was editing, processing things, or contacting authors pre-publication or on a lighter week I will need to write something. Since writing is my job, I treat it like a business task. I don’t get to say, “I am not inspired.” If I’m not feeling particularly inspired, I will follow a schedule. Writing, taking breaks, back to writing, lunch, reading during lunch, and back to writing. I know for specific time blocks I need to be writing. I tend to be pretty disciplined. If it is your job, you need to treat it that way.

My parents have both done consulting work, my mother often from home. My mom had an office and she was not someone who usually did her work on the kitchen table. If you are going to work from home you need to treat it like an office, where you sit down and do your work. There is flexibility with working from home but you need to put in your time.

[JD] Since writing is your job, do you write to decompress? How does your routine change on the weekend to decompress?

[KP] I do. But on weekends, I try to write on different topics. I tinker with short stories or longer pieces that may not see the light of day.

[JD] Do you use the same atmosphere for this type of writing?

[KP] Basically, but I do like going to coffee shops and writing creatively there, where I can people-watch. I like to make up stories about strangers, who they are and what they’re up to.

[JD] How do you decompress?

[KP] Reading and music. I was a musician in high school and college. I don’t get to play much anymore, but I always have music on.

[JD] What kind of music?

[KP] Just like my reading — everything. You are just as likely to find metal on my headphones as you are to find Johnny Cash or jazz. I have been to four Dream Theater concerts and I also enjoy the symphony.

[JD] So you have a soft spot for the Villanova piccolo player?

[KP] I do. I was in the marching band. I have been in those games. I played the tenor saxophone though, much cooler than the piccolo. I was a musician all through college so I know sports sadness and joy. When your team loses, sometimes there’s tears. You have to play anyway.

[JD] How do you bring multiple formats of notes into the same thread?

[KP] A big table. I will have my notebook, my laptop with thousands of tabs open, my ipad, and my phone. Writing can be like harnessing chaos. You are literally lassoing a bunch of ideas and trying to bring them together. It certainly is what I do.

[JD] What is the book you’re most likely to give as a gift or one you’ve recommended the most?

[KP] I don’t regularly give books but I will go out of my way to recommend books. If someone is not a reader, I will recommend something shorter like, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. It’s exciting, interesting and it rings for a lot of people who are interested in history, politics, and culture.

[JD] Who’s your favorite author in the fantasy realm?

[KP] Right now, Brandon Sanderson. Without a doubt. I really like The Way of Kings, but it is not an entry point to his work. It is very complex and the start of a massive cycle that he is going to do. An entry book for him is Elantris. It is a relatively simple story that is still really interesting and he has a lyrical style I really enjoy.

[JD] You were going to recommend another genre?

[KP] History and travel memoirs. My favorite travel memoir is The 8:55 to Baghdad [Andrew Eames]. The author tries to retrace the Orient Express as close a possible. It has a journey mixed with literary history — it’s a biography in part of Agatha Christie — mixed with all of the things happening along the way. Since you can’t retrace the trip now, you can read this book.

One of my favorite history books is Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala 1952–1954, by Nick Cullather. He was hired by the CIA’s Center for the Studies of Intelligence to write it, in part as a review of what could be declassified in the late 90s. It is a interesting book as historian to read because it is both a secondary resource and a primary source. Parts of it are still redacted. When I read it in a diplomatic history course, I wrote in the margins words that would have fit in the redactions. I treated it like “Mad Libs.”

[JD] Where was the most adventurous place you have traveled?

[KP] I got to spend about a month in the summer of 2008 traveling around China. It was a scholarship trip sponsored by the honors programs at Pennsylvania’s 14 state schools. Each summer they send two from each university on a study abroad trip. In 2008, it was to China and I was lucky enough to go. We never stayed in one place for more than a few days, I saw Beijing, Zibo, Qingdao, Kunming, Lijiang, Dali and Shanghai. I climbed a sacred mountain and ate a scorpion on a street corner.

That is a great story, in Qingdao I ate a fried scorpion. There was a guy in the Night Market with a bowl of pinky-sized live scorpions and a boiling pot of oil. He dumped the scorpions in, put them on sticks and sold them to people. To eat them you hold it by the stinger and bite off the rest. They were small so it was mostly crunch.

[JD] What bold steps would you like to see the MWG take?

[KP] It’s not so much a big bold step, more incremental in scale, but focusing on the community aspect of the Guild. We share a topical interest — military affairs, national security — but have different backgrounds and experiences. I’m not from the military, I don’t come from a military family, so Guild members are a big resource for me. In return what I bring is a red pen. I am an editor and I am more than happy to devote some time to review others’ writing. Sharing knowledge, experiences and writing resources with each other is a small thing, but has huge impact.

[JD] It starts with a DC get together of the Guild!

[KP] Yes. It does. I’m a big proponent of getting together in a casual setting. In fact, that’s sort of how I got involved in this. I’d been tweeting with Ty and he suggested we get together in person — he’s a writer and wanted to get to know some editors — I was a relatively new editor and wanted to make a real effort to meet new writers & people. He then invited me to a Cigars, Scotch and Strategy night, introduced me to Nate and a few others. And here I am!