My sophomore year in college, I entered my first flute competition. As the fall wore on, I found myself lying awake at night, exhausted yet sleepless, every breath an effort. It took me a ridiculously long time to piece it together. One day the light bulb went on. “Oh!” I said. “I’m stressed!” And then,…
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Publication -10 weeks: Green Bank Telescope
I am officially ten weeks away from PUBLICATION DAY! A Song For The Road is the story of a musician on a road trip across America, following a smart phone app written for her by the daughter she lost. Planning the road trip was, hands down, the most fun I had writing this book, but…
Read MoreA peek behind the curtain: revision
I had a lovely writing day yesterday. The Women’s Fiction Writers Association has been amazing on every level–community, networking, professional development, skill building. But just when I thought I’d discovered every way I could tap into its resources, I started attending virtual writing dates. I never used to need other people to motivate me, but…
Read MoreRandom Observations of a Writer On the Reality of Living Through the Coronavirus Shutdown
It’s been a week since the kids came home from school for the foreseeable future, and today is day 2 of an official “stay at home order” where I live–though we can still go hiking (and we intend to continue doing so as long as we’re permitted, weather permitting—which it hasn’t done much of lately).…
Read MoreThe Sheer Terror of the Blank Page
It’s been a long time since I started a new novel. Well, maybe not as long as it seems. I had an aborted attempt around a year ago. But I’m really zeroing in on novel writing now, and I’m discovering something I probably knew, on some level, but didn’t really, y’know… KNOW. Namely, that when…
Read MoreEnough
My word for 2019 is “enough”: I am enough, I am doing enough, I am good enough, this moment is enough. It’s a combination of learning to recognize the goodness in saying “no” and of living in the moment, being present in my own life instead of always feeling dissatisfied. I’m working on it. But…
Read MoreCover Reveal and Award Nomination!
It’s been a crazy few months for me, both in real life and in my writing life. I’ve been working on a major revision of my newest novel in response to agent feedback. This is the first time I’ve tried to do such a thing on a tight turnaround and now I understand the stress…
Read MoreThe State of an Author-Composer’s World
Do you ever have that feeling that there’s just too much going on? No, of course not, she says (wink-wink). This summer hit me like a Mack truck, and the grace in it was that I was so focused on two weeks in July–my week at NPM in Cincinnati and our trip to Colorado last week–that I…
Read MoreThe Couple That Plays Together…
I’ve heard people say that wallpapering is a test of a marriage. I think they should try critiquing each other’s creative work. Christian has always been my earliest set of eyes on a piece of music, and unlike most people, he’s never felt inhibited about telling me exactly what’s wrong with it. In the early…
Read MoreI. Hate. Waiting.
Sometimes you have no choice but to wait…& wait…& wait. No matter how much you hate it. @Liguori_Pub #JoyToTheWorld
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Kathleen M. Basi 