"DO YOU LIKE BEING YOU?" 'Bettejo Dux' (Classic Wednesday)

Bettejo Dux  one of Kauai's true gems, 
guest-blogs  about the creative mind!

www.bettejodux.com

DO YOU LIKE BEING YOU?

“Do you like being Bettejo,” one of my favorite people on Kauai asked me. A living treasure, a gifted director, he read THE SCAM and praised it highly. You can read his praise on the back cover if you  check it out on Amazon. Go to Kauai humor.

“Yes,” I said and it’s true, I’ve loved being Bettejo. Her rants, her raves, her ups,  her   downs are second nature to my now. Like breathing out and breathing in…

Wonder if GBS would have liked me?

“Is she Karen, the narrator of The Scam?” Our very own KIMO  asked me.

“Well it’s a first novel, so there is a resemblance.”

“Karen is very witty,” the island treasure said and I walked with both feet off the ground for a week.

One of my favorite author friends on Kauai-so gifted, so great-made this profound remark, “Writing  a book is ike playing gawd,” and it’s true. A writer creates some human beings, sets the scene-where, when, what, plots some plot- and puts pen to paper and writes the first sentence.

Pen to paper? What’re you talking about? We don’t write books on paper anymore. We type letters on a key board and watch them pop up on a scree. A chapter can be written in a day. Spell checked in an hour.

Too sad.

Like most writers my age we began with a pencil and scribbled words on long yellow legal. We scratched and swore and wrote some more. Words words words. Over and over. Then punched these words into a clunky typewriter.

I think one of the reasons I fell in love with Bill was: he came with a rickety, stickety old portable he took with him to Cal.

It took me a week to write a chapter and THE SCAM  was written in the zone. It wrote itself, I just sat back and took dictation. I remember the day when a character popped in unannounced-Gypsy Jake, I’d never seen him before- and he turned out to be one of the most important characters in the book. Famous writers often tell the same story. The writer is no longer creating the story, the story is creating her. So much for gawd.

I think there is nothing more fun than owning a creative mind and I thank whatever gawds there be-if there are any-for giving me one’a'dem.

…and here we are: back to a mythical figure aiding a struggling writer in a little piece of a fictitious world she calls her own.

And thus- with gawd firmly established in the picture, somehow I aways manage to squeeze ‘him’ in, I’ll add in response to the first question, “Do you like being Bettejo?”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t want to be her for all eternity. One lifetime is enough.” Guess that’s what makes me different.

By the way I like to write dialog best. Maybe I should talk this over with gawd. If he’s young and cute, and likes to imbibe, I’ll invite him in for a Chardonnay and some crackers and asks him.

“Do you like being gawd?”

And then, dear reader, I’ll ask you, “Do you like being you?”

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