I wanted to start February with something a little different. So often in the many books I have been
reading the word badass is bandied around. It has these wonderful connotations
of being able to handle things no matter what and I thought to myself I
wouldn’t mind feeling like that. I want that title. However the reality is I am
more the too scared to do it variety of
person and no one in their right mind would ever think of referring to me
as a badass. Well, actually that’s not
quite true as I have just remembered a time when I did earn that title. Ha! My post so I can make you listen to my
story. I just love having a blog.
My eldest daughter and I were teaching and living in Italy a
few years ago and had decided we needed a better apartment. We found one and we needed the bond money
just like what happens here but when you are a visitor in another country
things are often not so easy. Basically
what happened was we were carrying the cash around with us as the landlord
wanted to be paid that way, with cash.
Now you are probably thinking what is the big deal about this and you
would be right except for one very small thing.
Stupidly mother and daughter decided to go shopping (clothes) before
going to see our landlord. This is where
it gets exciting. Some people, two women
and a man, came into the store and started hovering around my daughter. She was young, pretty and I suppose
vulnerable. They kept leaning closer to her and sensibly she kept moving
away. They followed. We started to
wonder about them considering the amount of cash in my daughter’s bag. Yes we were absolutely idiotic with our
priorities but hindsight, well it sucks.
Things then became a blur.
One of the three reached over to unzip my daughter’s handbag. The sales assistant noticed and started
shouting for help literally screaming that there were thieves in her
store. I turned, saw what was happening,
raced across the room and laid into the man.
He had his hand too close to that money not that he knew that. Yelling like a banshee in Italian and English
whilst pulling my child away from them, I formed a fist and hit him. Surprised between my action and all the
commotion in the store, he and his female companions hesitated and thinking
myself a superhero (note this word as it comes up again later) I went back for
seconds, the smacking on the face bit I mean, and hit him again. In that same instance people came running
hearing the noise (my yelling and to be fair the sales assistant was just as
bad as I was) and before I could finish the job of breaking both my hand and
wrist they took off without the contents of the bag.
Tara and I left the store without purchasing anything. We made it outside and then sat down in the gutter
(it was a street so no chairs were available).
The truth was neither one of us was capable of standing so the gutter
seemed appropriate but in any case surroundings seemed to fade when she turned
to me and called me her hero. Man, hearing
those words I was in lala land, you
know the place? It’s where the badasses
live. I was such a badass that day and couldn’t stop crowing about it until my
cousin told me later that night these people carry knives and we were lucky to
walk away. We were very lucky.
Maybe being that kind of badass isn’t such a great idea
especially when you have no fighting skills, running skills and common sense
but man did I feel like I was invincible for that small space of time. I will admit that perhaps I was a little
ambitious so imagine my pleasure when I found out that apparently there are
other ways to be a badass that may be a little easier on the body and writing a
book is one of them. I don’t know about
you but I find this rather appealing.
You may be questioning my sanity at this point but I assure what I am
saying is true. I read an article about
it. It was called 7 Reasons Writing a Book makes You a Badass and was written by
Brian A. Kleins. The link is at the bottom of this post.
Anyway I decided that his reasoning made sense so thought I
would share his thoughts. His first reason is that writing a book is hard.
Absolutely! Try it yourself; go on, I dare you!
Sit in one spot and write and rewrite and then keep writing. Brian is right when he says if you can do
this then “it really makes you feel good about
yourself—an important quality in a true badass.” Secondly editing is painful. I
don’t even want to think about this and the ‘D’ word. ‘D’ stands for deleting. This involves
deleting the hard work you put in as well as the words you wrote; you know the
ones where you sat in one place to write them.
You have to be pretty tough to do the ‘D’ word.
Next
is one aspect that resonates so much with me I want to run away from home. Brian says ‘knowing when you are ‘finished’
is impossible.” He also says “at some point, every writer has to take a leap of
faith and have confidence in his or her work.” Now to me that last part, that
is really being badass or maybe just crazy. His fourth reason is not so
bad. He discusses cold-querying agents
or in simpler terms the handing over of your manuscripts. This one I find easy. After all I don’t know
these people; I don’t have to look at their faces as they read.
Unfortunately
the fourth tends to lead to the fifth one which is getting rejected time and
time again and ‘yet you still carry on.” That takes courage. Being that brave is being a badass and so is
the sixth aspect. This is the one where
you accept (getting paid for your work) is not ever going to happen and still
you continue. Of course you do. You are
doing something you were born to do.
Brian says believing that is like a superhero mantra and everyone knows “that
a superhero is a badass in costume.” I don’t know about anybody else out there
but I am liking this idea more and more because at the end of the day
‘accomplishing a dream is rare –and awesome,” and who other than a badass could
do it.