I'm sifting through ideas and have little to say. I'm also trying to finish several short stories. When the stories are done, I'll have to decide what to include in my MFA application... If some of you have the time and inclination, I'd love to have a reader. Let me know if you wouldn't mind …
Month: September 2009
Is that a review in your hand or are you just here to kill me?
Do you read book reviews? Sometimes I read a review that makes me want to read the book--like this review of Her Fearful Symmetry--and also fills me with despair. Or maybe it is jealousy. Hard to tell the difference. I tell my son that he should worry about his own work and not everyone else's, …
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Have you worked hard enough, yet?
"Teacher, the test was hard," he said to me. "Well, you did miss a lot of classes," I replied. "Yes, I know," he said and smiled, slightly embarrassed and charming. "But, it was very hard for me." I smiled back. "And you didn't have the book for the first four weeks." This was week five. …
Snap Your Fingers
Today a student was asked what he would change about himself if he could anything with a snap of his fingers. He said he wouldn't change anything. Some people might say this if they have accepted themselves flaws and all. Some people might say this if they believe themselves right. They can't conceive that anything …
The Reader
Do you focus on the negative? On Friday morning went down to IF+D where my art is for sale. Kristen, the owner and fellow crazy coffee drinker, reminds me of the woman who had spent the last month reading my novel over her lunch hour. Once or twice a week, this woman was coming into …
Let’s Do Lunch
I wonder when I will spend time just hanging out with friends. The writing/art-making life gets in the way. How understanding are your friends if you don't see them because you have to write?
Let’s Pretend
I had these Let's Pretend records when I was little. I've kept them because for the art. With tracing paper I'd try to copy pieces of the covers. My father read me fairy tales even though he'd only recently learned to read. I recorded The Wizard of Oz from TV onto tape player and play …
It’s the End of World…
A new radio station decides to play one song for its first day on the air. It plays the R.E.M song, It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine) all day. Over and over again. My roommate and I are washing our cars and we leave the station on. …
Will you still love me?
I still have stories to tell. I can't decide whether I want to tell them. You might not like me anymore. Perhaps I fail at writing well-rounded complex characters--but I do try. Do you listen to your characters? Can you be sympathetic to fictional characters if you can't manage it for real people? There seems …
The Butcher, the Baker, the Mad Screenplay Maker
The MFA program I'm applying for wants a screenplay. I've never written a screenplay, and so I thought that taking my novel and turning it into a screenplay would be the easiest thing to do. More the fool me. I've cut the first chapters. Three or five? I've lost count. Characters are deleted. Scenes relocated. …
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Marta Bacon 