Bernadette Benda

1.

I think contentedness is better than happiness. Or maybe I simple prefer the word content to happy.

Both are emotions. But happiness evokes a evokes a certain vibe, a style, an emotion that demands certain mannerisms. Happiness is energy. Happiness is yellow. Happiness can feel frail, always on the verge of flying away, forgetting you and gracing someone else with its sunny presence.

But when contentment comes, contentment wants to stay. Contentment pulls out a chair for you and hopes you can stay for dinner. It will ride the waves of every day disasters, broken cups and bad weather, lending a broom and umbrella. Because contentedness wishes to abide with you and walk with you.

It’s the candle in the window, always welcoming you home.

2.

It’s good to be writing on a September afternoon, listening to the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack. Not that I’ve figured out what I’m writing about, and not that I’m doing a very good job at writing at all. In fact I’m doing a very poor job.

I’ve kept blogging over the years for a lot of reasons, most of which we won’t go into. But the reason I’ve been dragging myself back to this WordPress page this year, is the same reason I drag myself to the gym (though to be honest I usually don’t drag myself. I actually do like going to the gym and running and doing bar squats because it makes me feel cool).

I go to the gym to get stronger, and I come back here to write to get better (get better at writing).

Write every day. An old maxim that most people have busted, citing that you do not have to write every day to be a good writer, and it is just darned impractical after all (just like how you shouldn’t workout every day. You need rest days).

But I do admit I like writing every day. I like best when I start the day writing. It’s cathartic, just as much as it help me become a better writer, word by word.

So maybe you can’t write every day. I certainly don’t. But I definitely want to.

No, blogging doesn’t help me write every day. But it does make me write. It makes me fulfil a deadline.

3.

You know those moments when you’re not supposed to laugh but you can’t help it? (The worst is when you’re performing on stage.)

Well I was editing (like….when am I not editing??) and I was reading through a fight scene. Serious fight scene. The first fight scene in the book, and it’s supposed to be really formative for the main character, etc. A lot of important and serious things happen.

Then in the middle of the fight, the main character slips on the snow and wipes out flat onto his back.

I laughed. I laughed, sitting alone at my desk at 8:30 am. When I wrote that, I did not mean for it to be funny.

But totally biffing it is like the oldest gag in the world so what was I suppose to do?

The question is will I keep this moment in the 2nd draft. Probably yes.

4.

Ahahhaha….I did not write a blog last week. Woof. But that’s alright. We’ll move on past it.

Though the days are still infuriatingly warm, we are heading back into fall (yay!). Last October, I journaled almost every morning, sitting on the porch. It was invigorating, though my hands eventually got quite numb, but I hope to repeat doing that again this fall. (Maybe I’ll scrounge up some fingerless gloves.)

BUT, there will be one change. My notebook.

Last year, the paper in my notebook had a nice warm color. It wasn’t yellow like a legal pad, but it was on that side of the color wheel. The color reminded me of parchment and old manuscripts, something that Bilbo Baggins would write on.

But this year, the paper in my notebook is not warm. It’s quite cold actually, because it is stark white.

Whole different vibe, whole different texture.

White is colder, but it’s also cleaner. It has a sense of newness to it, a sense of this space needs to be filled up. Warm paper gives the impression that I am pulling the words out of it, like Michelangelo when he found a block of marble and declared that Moses was inside.

But white paper? It gives you nothing. It simply asks, “fill me.”