Member Spotlight: David W. Betterton

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Growing up in small-town Pleasantville, New Jersey, I did poorly as a student. Having been left back in the second and fourth grades, I couldn’t handle being left back again in my freshman year of high school, so I quit and joined the U. S. Navy. At my first general quarters exercise, a damage control manual was passed around so that each sailor could read a page aloud. I remember the fear welling up, as that book made its way before my eyes. When it made it into my hands, I hemmed and hawed and stuttered and mispronounced the simplest of words. The petty officer in charge recognized that I couldn’t read, and kindly asked me to pass the book along. That day I began forcing myself to read. One thing led to another and, to put it quite simply, words have become important to me. While I spent a good portion of my life thinking that I was stupid, I found that I have a knack for crafting words and telling stories. Because writing never really came easy to me, I have developed a love relationship with this unique human attribute that allows me to share truth and happiness with my fellow travelers. Writing truly is about as close as one can get to seeing the interiority of another human being. It can start wars; it can end wars. It can alienate another; it can make someone fall in love with you. And that’s why . . .

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? I’m sorry. I can’t answer this one. I’ve never had it.

What is your favorite time to write? Early a.m. If I’m a good boy, I get up at 4 a.m. or thereabouts and work for a couple-few hours. But I consider thinking as writing, so I’m pretty much always writing. I know where I leave off, and then I think about that on and off until I get back to it.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? Well, it wasn’t given to me personally, but it’s a quote from Charles Bukowski: “Don’t try.” That’s it. I really don’t know the details behind him saying that, but it’s what’s on his gravestone. I appropriated it to mean, don’t try to be famous; don’t try to be popular; don’t try to be better than anyone–just write your slow best writing.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? Ha! Well, at my age in today’s age, I can tell stories about things a lot of people don’t even remember. They go: “What?” “That happened?” “You were there?” and “Wow!”

David W. Betterton’s Pleasantville Stories: Sex, Dancing, and Shooting U.S. Navy Jets (Growing Up in South Jersey in the 1960s) is out now with Progressive Communications.