Writing | Bethany Bassett

Tag: Writing

Empty Hat Tricks

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 4 Comments

I must have pulled all the words out of my hat last week amidst the weeping and gnashing of teeth that was me rewriting for a deadline. I am a habitual un-finisher, and very few things in my life have been as hard as sitting down to make my rough draft a little less rough. There was Red Bull involved, and dark pre-early-morning hours, and possibly some cursing, and most definitely some* giving up. Thank goodness for a husband who sat up late with me, helping me glue all my shards of self-confidence and perseverance back together. He had to beat me repeatedly over the head with encouragement, but it worked. I mailed the story in, and even though I’m convinced it is the crappiest piece of crap ever crapped since the dawn of crapfulness, I’m glad I did it. Kind of deliriously excited, actually, with a heaping dose of shock.

The problem is that one week later, I still have yet to regroup**. I’ve indulged in naps and Lego Star Wars and a highly sticky Living Room Waffle Picnic Extravaganza. We even got to spend yesterday with some fabulous friends from the States, exploring downtown in the rain and talking over incredible food until late in the night. Nothing but wide open time between now and summer vacation, but I still feel oddly cramped.

So, consider this an official notice to my writing mojo: Coffee break is over; back to work! ::cracks whip::

—

*By which I mean lots, or even more accurately, LOTS x 10^7,000,000,00. Lots.

**Or blog. ::hangs head in shame::

7May

Pulitzer by December

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

Last year, whenever a new acquaintance asked what I did, I would reply, “Oh, nothing right now.” Or, if I felt the need to impress, “I used to teach English; I’m just on a break.” The truth, however, was that I was writing whenever I could–an hour here, two there, an illicit midday rendezvous with Starbucks–but I didn’t want anyone to know. I didn’t feel like I could call myself a writer before getting published. Plus, if people knew I was working on a story, they would expect me to… you know, finish it.

Right after we moved to Italy, however, we were invited to a dinner party where Dan let it slip that I love to write. “Oh, wow!” everyone exclaimed (in Italian, of course). “That’s wonderful! What have you written? Who are you writing for? What kinds of things do you like to write?”

“Uhhhhhhh…” I replied eloquently.

The moral of that charming anecdote is this: If you want to be motivated to finish those stories gathering megabytes of dust in your “Unfinished” folder, tell a group of Italians that you’re a writer. They will 1) cheer you on with infectious enthusiasm, and 2) ask you about your projects so often that you end up finishing if only to feel less like an international loser.

—

This afternoon, I finally submitted a story for possible publication. Initially, I freaked out a little, but once I calmed down, I was able to FREAK OUT A LOT. Sending that manuscript felt like packing my snackable little Sophie into a basket with a red bow on top and leaving her in the middle of Cannibals ‘R’ Us.

(See?
Definitely edible.)

However, I’m completely enthralled by the fact that I took my first step into a world I want to inhabit. My story may not be accepted, but I’m okay with that (stop laughing, Dan); I’ll send it somewhere else. What makes the most difference to me right now is that I, a notorious procrastinator and fraidy-cat, finished something. I didn’t know I had that final “oomph” in me, and now that I do, I’m seeing possibilities pop out of the woodwork on all sides. My next story goes out a week from tomorrow (I finished the rough draft today, ::happy dance::), and then, who knows? A Pulitzer by December?*

I’ll be spending the rest of my day scattered in giddy pieces all over the rug. Please feel free to join me!

—
* Of 2052?

5May

Two-Minute Increment

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 4 Comments

Announcement: I’m still here.

I’ve been busy lately for reasons that still elude me, rifling through each day for the scraps of what’s most important. Uneventful busyness, I guess you could say. Every single minute has been an exercise in prioritization, and the mental weighing and justifying and second-guessing gets exhausting after awhile.

I adore writing, but it’s hard work–writing for publication, that is–and requires rich, intense blocks of my day. I also adore my girls, but they are both at ages brimming with needs: milk, structure, emergency bubble baths, story time, conversation, potty training, undivided attention, tickle attacks. Housework… well, I don’t adore, but a clean, welcoming home is essential to our survival around here. I love my husband like crazy, but it’s difficult finding our connection through all the pesky details of work and parenting, entertaining guests and early-onset bedtime. I have paints waiting in a giant pink bin under my bed and brand new music recording software I’m itching to try out and winterbaby flab to burn off and an entire language to finish learning already and always more and more wonderful, prismatic bits of life I want to hold onto with all my might… but I come in two-minute increments these days, and assorted parts do not equal a whole.

Do you ever find yourself hopelessly scattered and thinking that maybe the best present in the whole wide world would be a multi-pack of undivided time?

23Apr

Afghan of Exhaustion

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 9 Comments

It’s 9:55 a.m., and I’m sitting at the breakfast table alone with a poorly-made cappuccino. I was too tired this morning to go for a walk before The Hubby left for work, too tired even to have breakfast with my family. It’s a mystery, this tiredness, sneaking around like a cat burglar and stealing a moment here, a good intention there. I eat, I sleep, I exercise, I take ridiculously expensive vitamins, and I’m. still. exhausted. all. the. time. I mean, I’m thisclose to narcolepsy. Really.

Days like this, I feel a bit like a science experiment gone wrong. Some absent-minded professor mixed the blue potion with the red potion, and now I’m fizzing over and shooting purple smoke and growing limbs and speaking in tongues when all I really want to do is bubble quietly in my beaker.

I have a writing deadline coming up (oo, so official am I!) that would be making me spasm with giddy excitement were I not draped over the furniture like an afghan of exhaustion.* I have a lovely start and a lovely end and lots of lovely intentions for the middle, but I’m having trouble peeling my face off the pillow long enough to write a complete sentence these days. Maybe I should just scrap the lovely intentions and write, “At this point, Mr. and Mrs. Sneeth took a nap. A very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, long nap.”**

The tiredness is also presenting problems with the girls. Have you ever tried to make a three-year-old female comply with your No Talking Before Ten Policy? See, when I wake up in the morning, I need an adrenaline shot, a second adrenaline shot, and a team of coffee-buzzed weight lifters with crowbars just to help pry my eyes open. You could say I’m not a morning person. Natalie, on the other hand, wakes up exploding from all the exciting things she didn’t get to tell us during the night. Like, “Mommy! Hey, MOMMY! Good MORNING! Get up! HI! I have something to TELL YOU! I have EARS! And EYES! And… something else! Ummmmmm? Oh, a MOUTH! AND IT’S TALKING! See my buttylunten? [lifting up her shirt] It’s still GROWING! Hey, wanna play with me? I want Fruit Lips for breakfast! I mean Fruit LOOPS! Fruit Loops have all the colors! See? SEE? See all the really, really, really colors? That one is ORANGE! The orange Fruit Loop is a really, really COLOR! SEE? And see all the other colors? Oh my goodness. I really, REALLY like Fruit Loops! AAAAAA!!!!” I, meanwhile, am writhing in pain and groping around the bed for a mute button and begging Sophie to bring me an espresso IV stat.

Any suggestions on how to get my energy back? Because right now, I’m as productive as a dead fish. (Well, maybe not quite dead, but definitely in critical condition.) Natalie would appreciate being allowed to talk again, and the baby would like to be taken off housecleaning duty, and more than anything, I would love to feel like a normal person again. You know, awake.

—
* I really, sincerely apologize for all these similes and metaphors and metaphoric similes and phrases like “afghan of exhaustion.” I can’t help it. I’ve been limiting descriptive comparisons in the Very Official Thing I’m Writing, and the similes have to come out SOMEWHERE.

** The piece doesn’t actually have anything to do with Mr. or Mrs. Sneeth, but! I can see a future for this idea–maybe a short story called “The Grotesquely Long Nap: A Bedtime Story Guaranteed to Put You to Sleep.” Enticing, no?***

*** No.

15Apr

Leafshade Living

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

I’m having a heavy week. It’s not bad exactly, just dappled in shadow like leafshades on the grass.

Sophie’s been a fitful version of herself. She’s allergic to bananas of all things, and I can’t shake the feeling that I betrayed her trust by feeding them to her, even though she loved them. Especially because she loved them. This is such a non-problem compared to Celiac Disease or lymphoma or epilepsy or spina bifida–should I go on?–but I keep thinking about banana nut pancakes on Saturday mornings and deflating in tiny puffs.

The weather is on crack, of course, but no one wants to hear more about rain. No, wait, sun. No, rain again. April, get thee to rehab.

I’ve started an intensive workout routine called “walking around.” I am enough of a wimp that circling the neighborhood every day leaves me breathless and sore and feel-goody the rest of the time. The idea was to build up my nonexistent energy, get my blood flowing enough to wash the breakfast dishes without collapsing into a puddle of wife-slush. What I didn’t count on was loving the effort. The steady push-pull of bright air in my lungs. The rhythm of feet on pavement. Wild wisteria, children playing soccer, twilight reflecting off the city’s peak. Twenty minutes a day to expand my hunchback life.

I’ve also been sorting through the tantalizing sludge of What Do I Want To Do When I Grow Up?, except this week, it’s I Finally Know What I Want To Do, So How Do I Do It? If I ignore the time factor (specifically, how I have none), I feel ready to write for broader surroundings. This blog is my cozy little house where I can wear pajama pants all day, let the dishes pile up, and spill my unedited guts. I feel safe and happy here, but I’m aching to get out the door, maybe wear heels and sparkly earrings, give my creativity a big breath.

Now that I’m looking for them, the opportunities are overwhelming. In fact, I’m having trouble staying in tune with my goals in the face of so many almost-rights. It’s like chugging a strange cocktail of doubt, hope, turmoil, and inspiration. Can you get a hangover from excitement? I’m ready to see myself as a writer, and it’s every bit as scary as you might expect… multiplied by a majillion or so.

Taxes are done, I have a functional computer again, and the kitchen floor may just get mopped this week. I am madly in love with my family, and I know what I want to do when I grow up. I’m thinking this heaviness won’t last much longer than the smoky crack-clouds pausing outside our window.

28Mar

Scrap Paper Possibility

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I scribbled the following on a scrap of notebook paper during my senior year of college. It was a stage of life when everything was simultaneously new and old: A brand new marriage with eternity in its sights; A looming graduation date with old friends fluttering away like leaves; A pulsating awareness of my own possibility shrouded in self-doubt, busyness, writer’s block. I wrote down my confusion, impulsively, and it instantly became a friend as paragraphs sometimes do. We sit down to tea together some days, this paragraph and I, and it says, “Honey. Your life is far from over. See?”

~*~*~*~

12/1/03
There’s a baby chicken inside my head, chipping at my skull. Or an orc, yawning in rage at the membrane that just… won’t… break. One day, my little galaxy will fling a meteor explosion until shards of ideas pierce my sight and the world is a masterpiece waiting to be savored. But not yet. Maybe my head will explode anyway, due to the war inside… but then it will be clumsy and black, dripping a mess of my brilliant possibility on my blank, blank paper. And for now, I’m dull and conflicted, misunderstood by my best intentions, focused on things bland and sawdusty to glean inspiration–a legend, I am convinced. I have never noticed my muse until the work was done.

28Feb

Up Yours

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

I’ve never been afraid of a blank page. It’s really more like a mirror to me, a place to sit and breathe and shed the daily lint collected in my mind… then look deep into the clearness of my reflection and write what I see. This has been my daily ritual for months now — tucking the girls in for their naps, relishing an after-lunch espresso and “Scrubs” with Dan, and then settling into that quiet part of my heart where words happen. Coffee-stained clarity.

I’ve stayed away from blank pages the last few days, though, quite suddenly caught in a tangle of insecurity. Maybe it’s my old journal entries that I pulled out over the weekend–my teenage patheticness slamming into me like an anvil. Maybe it’s the remark from a friend that made me feel guilty for being so self-absorbed. Maybe it’s the six or seven hours of sleep each night when my body actually needs fourteen.

I’m back on my computer this afternoon, tentatively, and only because when I listed my reasons for not writing anymore (I’m pathetic, I have nothing valuable to say, and no one wants to hear more about me anyway), Dan simply said, “I do.”* Well actually, that’s not the only reason. It was just the catalyst. The other reason is my daughters. I want them to be able to read my thoughts, years from now, and understand who their mom was, is. I think if I had gotten that opportunity with my mother, many unfortunate circumstances would have turned out differently. I intend never to take communication with my precious girls for granted, and I see writing about myself now as one way to protect our futures.

So. Up yours, insecurity! And even though I now want to apologize for saying “up yours,” I won’t, because confidence is valuable. Believing in my own motivations is valuable. Even embracing my inner pathetic teenager is valuable.** (Yes, yes it is.) So stay tuned, because my blank-page, espresso-scented séances are far from over.

*No, I won’t share him with you.

**At least in the sense that you will soon get to read VERY DRAMATIC excerpts from my fourteen-year-old tragic love saga, as chronicled in no less than five journals. Look for Mortification Mondays, coming to a blog near you!

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