Writing in little pockets of time - Interview with Bethany Jarmul | A Creative Life
A Creative Life is an interview series looking at the road less travelled. You’ll hear from artists, writers and other creative practitioners. And you’ll learn about their paths to discovering a new sense of freedom through a creative project or business.
How to start your writing career in little pockets of time
“My mom always tells this story about how, before I could actually write, I would dictate to her what I wanted her to write for me,” Bethany says. “And then I would draw a picture to illustrate it. So at like three years old, I was writing through my mom. Then my love for writing just grew from there.”
Writer, editor, artist and work-from-home mother Bethany Jarmul has had 70+ pieces of writing published with The Citron Review, Literary Mama, Salamander, Flash Boulevard and many other literary magazines since she started her writing career in 2021.
With 5,000+ Twitter followers and a growing community of people dying to know her secret to submission success, Bethany joined me on a video call from her home near Pittsburgh, where she lives with her husband and two children, to talk about her journey with creative writing.
Before the writing life
“When I went to college, I studied communication studies and I went on to work for a magazine for a while doing writing. Then I became a copywriter for an advertising agency.”
While Bethany was working in advertising, she met her now husband and they had their first child together in November 2019.
“At that time, we just kind of decided that, financially, what made the most sense was for me to stay home with our son,” Bethany explains. “At that point, I had moved into more of the management type position at work. I wasn't writing a lot in my job and I wasn't writing at all for myself, just with the pressures of life. I also had some mental health issues that were holding me back from doing my own creative writing.”
The magic of writing resolutions
After Bethany decided she was going to leave her job and stay at home to care for her son, she says, “I had a lot of, well, not extra time, but time that wasn't being used by my mind in the same way.”
While she settled into motherhood, Bethany filled most of her limited free time watching TV.
“At the beginning, I had a newborn. I was breastfeeding. I was changing diapers. And I was just watching a lot of TV. And I got to the new year and I decided my resolution was going to be giving up TV. I decided to read as much as I could. So I gave up TV completely, then I read about 30 books in just a couple of months.”
From bingeing TV to devouring book after book, Bethany’s writer brain woke up and she couldn’t help but start writing again. She quickly discovered that she couldn’t stop.
“For my 29th birthday, I gifted myself a writing class,” Bethany says. “I took the writing class and then several other writing classes since then. And my next resolution was, ‘I'm going to pursue writing with all that I have, with all that I can, for a year’. I wanted to see what could be possible in a year of me just pursuing writing, pursuing publishing.”
In 2021, Bethany got her first two pieces of writing published. “I just loved it,” she says. “I just couldn't get enough.” Although pregnant with her second child, Bethany continued to write as much as she could.
Submitting to literary magazines
“I kept taking more classes and joining webinars. I joined a writing group. I started a writing group. I just started surrounding myself with other writers,” Bethany says.
“And through that, it just kind of exploded, I guess you could call it, my writing career. I got a ton of stuff published that year because I just was doing it so much more.”
Bethany ended 2022 with a staggering 52 pieces of writing published in literary magazines and journals. This is something that any submitting writer will know is a hugely impressive feat and it all comes down to Bethany’s commitment to read and write as much as possible. She dedicated every small gap of free time to writing. And writing, and writing.
Going into 2023, Bethany made another resolution and set her goals for the year. “I had gotten so many things published the previous year, I decided that I wanted to try to reach for some more prestigious literary magazines. And I wanted to publish my first chapbook which has now been accepted for publication!”
Bethany has also started hosting her own webinars to help other writers improve their craft and learn strategies for submitting to literary magazines.
Becoming immersed in the craft of writing
You’re probably wondering: how did she do it? How did Bethany go from having two pieces published one year to 52 pieces published the next?
Bethany explains that the process she uses for submitting her work to literary magazines has evolved since she first started.
“Sometimes I'll write for a specific call if there's a theme or something that is interesting to me. But usually I just write whatever I feel like I want to write, whatever feels most passionate for me. I do write pretty much all short pieces, though. So that is how I'm able to write so many things. I think the shorter pieces work well for my life, just with being a mom and writing in little pockets of time.”
Bethany used to write a piece, research literary magazines and then submit to five or six of them. If the piece was rejected, she’d make edits and then send it back out to more submission calls. But she says her process is much different today.
Now, Bethany has a bank of work that she continues to build on, adding more pieces of fiction, nonfiction and poetry as she writes them. When she sees a call for submissions, a writing competition or a new literary magazine launching, she already has a bundle of material ready to choose from for submissions.
“I just react with whichever piece I have that could fit for that call,” she says. “So now it's less about one specific piece and trying to find a place for it and it's more just submitting almost as a habit.”
Writing goals for the future
Bethany’s long-term goal is to publish a full length collection of her work with a small press. She says she would also love to continue building her writing and editing business.
“I don't know if it [writing and editing services] will ever be like a full-time thing,” she says, “but at least a part-time job of doing writing and editing, specifically creative writing.”
“My kids are young right now. But as they get older, they'll be in school, and I don't want to go back to working in an office full-time,” Bethany says. “What I'd love to do is, when they’re in school, I’d like to be using that time to build up this writer platform that I've created and help other writers.”
Before Bethany started seriously writing and submitting a few short years ago, she didn’t have an MFA in creative writing or any literary connections. She had never tried to publish anything in a literary magazine before.
“When I came to this world, I started from scratch.” And now, Bethany wants to share her knowledge with other writers. “I just want to help other people who are in that same position that I was like, ‘How do I do this thing? How do I submit to literary magazines? How do I write a flash creative nonfiction piece? How do I write a prose poem? What even is a prose poem?’”
“I just want to share what I have learned with others and if I can do that and have a little bit of income from it, that's kind of the dream. And I get to be a big part of my kids' lives which is so important to me.”
How to pursue a creative path
When I ask Bethany what she would say to someone who is thinking about writing or starting any other kind of creative project or business, she says, “I would say, just go for it.”
“The great thing [for me] was that there wasn't a whole lot of risk involved at the beginning because we'd already decided I was leaving my job. So financially, there wasn't a lot of risk. But I think, take the leap and do it in a smart way,” Bethany says.
“I'm not saying everyone go quit their jobs. I think sometimes it's more about fitting your creative life into the life you're already living.”
Bethany explains that with being a mother and having a young family, she probably won’t ever be able to write for eight hours a day and have no other responsibilities. She says, realistically, most people won’t be able to do that. “But what is realistic for me,” she says, “is to find those moments and that time to pursue my passion. So that means I get up early before my kids get up so that I have time that's uninterrupted. And I write after they go to bed at night.”
“I think it's about making the time in your schedule to prioritise what's important to you. And if that something, that creative thing, whether that's writing or whatever, is something that's life-giving for you, then you need to pursue it.”
Where to find Bethany Jarmul
Wanna learn more about Bethany? Read some of her work? Or get in touch with her for some writing tips? Here’s where you can find her.
Website: bethanyjarmul.com
Twitter/X: @BethanyJarmul
Reading list
Check out Bethany’s book recommendations
If you’d like to be featured in A Creative Life, get in touch at hello@sophiecampbellwriter.com
