Tag Archives: fiction

The nonfiction behind the fiction of Pretty Much True…

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A friend told me I was being too “journalistic” when answering interview questions about
Pretty Much True… .

You wrote a fictional story in which the characters and actions were different but the feelings and the fear were the same. Get PERSONAL.

I never wanted to do that before, because I wanted to emphasize that the overall feeling of the experience, not my experience but the experience, was what was important. But she made me see that one experience, the story, wouldn’t exist without the other, the reality. Continue reading →

The things you forgot you put into your fiction…

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I just found this in a file while doing a search for something somewhat related. After spending so much time with Pretty Much True…, there are actually times, now, I can’t remember whether something in the book happened only in the book, or whether it’s a real memory.

A lot of Pretty Much True… rings true because I used my experience to guide the fiction, but now and then I’ll be reminded of just how many little pieces of reality also became Mia’s reality. The following true (real true, not pretty much true) account was saved as a file called “guest post,” but I don’t remember who it was for or whether it was ever sent: Continue reading →

Giveaway: Two signed A(dvance) R(eader) C(opies) of Pretty Much True…

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Yes, Dad, I know it’s blurry. Who doesn’t look good in blur?

I’m so excited about the Sept. 4 release of Pretty Much True…that I can’t wait – I have to give away a couple of copies, and exactly a month before the release seems like the perfect time.

Continue reading →

“Honorable Discharge” by Cindy Betsinger – a short story

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Cindy Betsinger graciously allowed me to re-post her story here.  “Honorable Discharge” was first published in 5th Story Review.  Enjoy.


HONORABLE DISCHARGE

I only had three more days to spend with them, my son, Jeremy, and his family, when he received orders for deployment.  It wasn’t that unexpected, but the timing could have been better.

Livvy was only two and had just gotten to know her daddy since he returned from the Army’s basic training six months prior.  Living on base at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, was all she knew, really.   Now he was packing his duffle bag and preparing for the Middle East; Iraq, maybe Kuwait – he didn’t know for sure – they didn’t tell him, or so he said. Livvy had no idea he’d be a stranger once again when he came home. Almost a third of her life will have passed by then.

“Can I help you, honey?” I asked him as he carefully placed his fatigues and equipment in the bag.

“Nothing to help with, mom,” Jeremy replied. “You can see if Sheila could use you in the kitchen, though.” He didn’t look up.

I rose from the couch and walked across the living room’s tan, blasé carpeting. The two-bedroom house on base had seen better days, but Sheila had done a nice job with the place. Her natural-born talent for decorating was obvious. The silver-framed family photos on the wall complimented the refinished oak end table and wrought iron lamp she had found at a rummage sale. Potpourri-filled mason jars covered in seersucker fabric and satin ribbons were strategically placed among the house. Even the mounted head of Jeremy’s first deer kill when he was sixteen was tastefully hung on the far wall, the offending arrow strewn across its eight-point rack.

“What time do we have to leave?” I asked Sheila as I entered the kitchen.

“Well, it’s about a half hour ride to the airfield. He’s supposed to be there and ready by nine tonight, so I suppose we should take off by eight, just to be sure.”

I nodded my head as I watched her carefully chop the carrots for Jeremy’s last dinner at home.

“Can I help with anything?”

“Um, sure . . . I still need to peel potatoes and get them on the stove. They’re in the pantry.”

Livvy was busy exploring the Tupperware drawer at the other end of the counter. I picked her up under her arms and gave her an unexpected kiss on the cheek before she cried “No” and wriggled out of my grasp.

“Awww, Livvy . . . grandma just wants some lovin’,” Sheila said as she slid the carrots from the cutting board into a waiting saucepan.

“How many? Five? Six?” I asked as I began peeling.

“Better make it six. Jeremy loves mashed potatoes with his meatloaf.”

I heard a slight sizzle on the stove and looked up to see Sheila wiping her eyes with her apron.

***

The ride to the airfield was somber and with little conversation. I rode in the back with Livvy and observed Sheila rubbing the back of Jeremy’s shaved head as she gazed out the passenger window.

I unbuckled Livvy from her car seat when we arrived. As I carried her over to the hangar, Jeremy and Sheila walked arm-in-arm behind us. The interior of the shelter was huge and a hundred or more people were milling around; some in uniform, others obviously civilian family and friends. Soldiers were posing for pictures and children were running and playing.

Nine o’clock came and went and, in pure military style, notice was given that their ride would be delayed another two hours. By then, I had Livvy propped up on my shoulder and she was starting to doze, thumb in her mouth.

“Jeremy, why don’t I take Livvy back to your place and put her to bed,” I suggested.

“Okay, mom. That’s probably a good idea.”

I reached up and gave him a squeeze around his neck and a kiss on the cheek. “Take care, honey. I love you.”

“Love you, too, mom. Thanks.” He put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a hug. He planted a long kiss on the top of Livvy’s head and stroked her soft red curls.

“Can you get back okay, Sheila?” I asked.

“I’ll get a ride with Keith’s wife,” she said, nodding toward the couple across the room.

“They don’t live far from us.”

“Okay then. I’ll see you when you get home.”

I rubbed Sheila’s arm and headed out to the car. By this time, Livvy was sound asleep and totally oblivious to the fact that she may never see her daddy again.   I gently put her in the carseat, strapped her in and wrapped her blanket around her, pausing to look at her sweet innocent face. “Dear God, please bring him home safe and sound,” I whispered.

I ended my visit the next day.  American Airline’s return trip to Wisconsin was uneventful and, remarkably, on schedule.  For the next sixth months, it was my job to send weekly care packages to Jeremy and reassure his wife that I was only a moment’s notice away if she needed me.

***

I was numb the entire flight back to Ft. Bragg.  As I peered out the window before landing, I couldn’t help but think that twenty-six years is not enough time to spend with your only child before he goes off to war. It’s not enough time to prepare you for his unnatural death at the hands of an unseen enemy. And, twenty-six more years will never be enough time to explain to a little girl that the daddy she doesn’t remember is a hero.

Moving on.

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I’m very excited to announce that a small publisher (with great distribution) will be publishing How to (Not) Have Children and Homefront. (Yay!) The details are still out, but when they’re available, I’ll share them.

I’ve removed Homefront from print distribution, so whatever copies are currently at Amazon or other online stores are the only remaining copies of Homefront as Homefront. It will be completely (aesthetically) revamped – new cover, new title.  And, I hope, new life.

I love my baby as she was, but I’m excited to see her become a teenager. *Mua.*

Interview with Murray Dunlap

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The worst two things that can happen to a writer are losing the hands and losing the mind.

Just a little over two years ago, on 6.7.08, a man who wasn’t watching the signals breezed through a red light and slammed into Murray Dunlap’s blue Volkswagen Jetta. After a three-month coma, Murray woke up to a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and amnesia.

The accident cost him not only much of his memory (which he’s slowly regaining with the help of good friends and a loving family, he says), but also his wife, his dogs, and his job.

We can choose to look at Murray as the poor writer who suffered a traumatic brain injury. We can choose to look at him as someone who lost the kind of life it could kill a person to lose. Or we can choose to look at him as a writer who went through some shit and now has another story to tell.

I recently had the pleasure of getting to know, and interviewing, Murray Dunlap. For the full interview published at Night Train, click here.

“Homefront” reviewed at Kindle Obsessed

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Homefront was recently reviewed at Kindle Obsessed, and I’d like to thank “Mrs. Kindle”  very much for taking the time, as well as the interest.

A snip from the review:

I was in no way prepared for what I read…It’s hard to image [sic] what it feels like to watch a loved one go off to war, unless you have been in those shoes…“Kristen Tsetsi” did what most authors wouldn’t dare do… she wrote the ugly side of waiting. She wrote it without flowery words or manipulated perception…what she wrote was, simply put, the truth…Grab this book. Read this book.

If you haven’t heard of the blog “Kindle Obsessed,” this is an incredible resource for Kindle owners (or any owner of an e-reading device). Mrs. Kindle, as she calls herself, is an avid reader and prolific reviewer.

I’m very aware of how time consuming a process book-reviewing can be, and I have such respect for any and all book reviewers. No smoke-blowing. Thanks again.

March 7 – 13 is Read an eBook Week!

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And in honor of Read an eBook Week, Carol’s Aquarium and Homefront are both free at Smashwords March 3 – 17. Books are available on Smashwords in a variety of formats for the many different e-readers being used, but if you don’t have an e-reader and instead use your computer, there’s a format for that, too. Happy Read an eBook Week!

-Kristen

Lost and found.

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According to Microsoft Word, I wrote this in 2004 and titled it “True Intimacy.”

Can I ask you a question, he says, and I tell him he can as long as it isn’t personal, and as long as it doesn’t require more than a one-word answer.  He’s asked me enough and I’ve told him enough, and at this point he knows me better than I know him.

So he says, “Do you think two people—”

I stop him right there with a hand in the air between our faces, inches apart.  Both of us try not to blink, because that’s part of what we do. We try not to blink when we look at each other.  I read somewhere once that one way to gain true intimacy is to look ‘into’ each other, to stare at each other’s eyes without looking away, for as long as we can.  But we can’t just look – we have to search. I made up the blinking rule because when I get uncomfortable with eye contact, I blink.  So, I thought, maybe he does that, too, and I decided it would be best if both of us try not to.  But I haven’t blinked for at least thirty seconds, so I let a quick one get by before I ask him,  “Two men or two women?”

He blinks, too, and I think he really needs it.  His lids squint, like they’re trying to pull moisture from his tear ducts.  “One of each.”

“Okay.”

“So, if two people were—”

“Wait,” I say.  “That’s not what you said.”  I notice he has a clump of hair sticking straight up on the top of his head.  I smooth it down and pull a piece of dandruff from a thick strand.  It’s a perfect white square, and it clings to the tip of my finger.

He runs his own hand over his hair and the clump springs back up.  “What did I say?”

“You said, ‘Do you think two people’.”

“The first time?”

“Yes.” I blow at the fleck of dandruff, but it won’t come off my finger.

“What’s the difference?”

I shake my bangs out of my eyes and look at him.  He takes a breath and raises his hand to my hair, parts it on the side, and looks at my scalp.  Hair touching is personal, too – intimate.  I read somewhere once that the scalp is so sensitive that touching it is like reaching into the emotional core of the person being touched.  So we do that, too – touch each other’s heads.  Finding something like dandruff or an under-the-hair zit is a bonus, because it’s a flaw we ‘acknowledge and appreciate rather than tolerate and try to ignore.’

“It’s different,” I say, “because when you change the phrasing of your question, you’re changing the question entirely.   ‘If two people were’ is very different from ‘do you think two people.’”

“Not if I go on to say, ‘Do you think two people, if they were…’.”  He pulls his hand away from my head and rests it in his lap.

“Telephone,” I say.

“What?”

He’s exasperated now, I can tell.  He’s trying not to be – he’s so good to me – but I can always tell when I’m getting to him because his eyes get more steady.  He focuses.  No part of him moves.  It’s like his whole body is concentrating on not rolling his eyes at me.  Eye rolls, I read somewhere, are the quintessential sign of disrespect.  I never told him what I read about that, but I did get upset once when he rolled his eyes at me, so now he tries not to.

“What do you mean, ‘telephone’?”

“It’s just like the game of Telephone,” I say.  “You know – the sentence starts out one way, then ends up being something completely different.  ‘I want some pea pods’ becomes ‘I haunt some bea bops.’”

He smiles at me.  Sometimes I wish I could read his mind because  I’d like to know what’s behind that smile, and  I know if I ask he’ll give me some kind of answer, but I’ll never know whether it’s true.  But then, almost instantly, I’m glad I have no access to his thoughts.  If I could read his mind, couldn’t he as easily read mine?  I read somewhere once that animals communicate telepathically, which means they each have to have something in their brains that allows for that type of sixth-sense brain-wave transfer.  One couldn’t possibly have it and not the other, because that wouldn’t work.  It would be like picking up a telephone with a disconnected cord and expecting to place a call.

“Why are you smiling?” I say.

He shakes his head and rests his chin in his hand.

I wouldn’t want him to know what I think about.  One day, sometime last week, I looked at him and thought,  I don’t really like you very much.

“Homefront” and/or “Carol’s Aquarium” purchase will be donated to Haiti relief

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100% of the proceeds from the purchase of  “Homefront” (novel) and/or “Carol’s Aquarium” (fiction collection) at Smashwords (which allows you to download the books in a variety of formats you can read on your e-reader or on your computer) between now and March 1 will be donated to Doctors without Borders.

See sidebar, or click the “books” link above, for information about the books.