What story changed your life? Maybe that's too dramatic? Well, what story shaped or moved your opinions one way another? My parents didn't tell me often how or what to think. "It's up to you," they said. How did my mother vote? I don't know. She wouldn't tell me. "You have to decide for yourself," …
Category: memory
Action!
Are you ever too old to play with action figures? Mt action figures started with Charles Dickens. As a joke, I bought a Charles Dickens action figure for a friend, but it turned out she already had Mr. Dickens. Of course, she did. She's his biggest fan. (Other than the Doctor--for you Whovians.) Then I …
Home
I grew up in the Florida boondocks. A few feet from my side bedroom window grazed cows. Looking out the back windows of the house, we saw our backyard, more cows, and highway 27. A field of overgrown grass stood between us and our neighbor. Our property, divided in half by the road, extended down …
Where does writing begin?
We all have a story why we write or make art or create whatever it is we create. How far back does the story go? Does my story go back to the first book I fell in love with? (Watership Down) Does it go back to my mother's love of books? My grandmother's love of …
The Questions
My son found the CNN page with profiles and photos of the victims in Newtown. He read every single one, and several he went back to. One little girl, for some reason, struck him more than the others. An hour later he told me he was thinking about that particular girl a lot. I asked …
Speaking of mug shots…
Do you ever google people from your past? Hmmm? Well, okay. So. I set my novel in 1985 because that's when I was a teen and because I didn't want to deal with cell phones and google. I used my hometown as a starting point for my novel. But then my fictional town of Lake …
Is that the best you can do?
In high school I spent one year on the yearbook staff. I started the class really excited, and I ended the class hoping never to speak of it again. When my mother saw the section I'd worked on--the advertising section, which I hated but did work hard on--she said, "That doesn't look very good. That's …
The Feminine in the Sky
A smart and talented woman I know wrote this book: The Coming of the Feminine Christ. (Which due to some technical difficulties, I've had to unlink to.) This is not a review; I haven't read the book yet. And this is not about your religion; I don't need to know (and let's not ruin a …
The Butterfly Effect and Dreams
At 17 I put away my dream to be an artist. Art turned from dream to hobby. Sometimes people mistook me for an artist--usually because I wore a scarf or long earrings or too many bracelets. I don't know. What do people mean when they say, "You look like an artist." I figured they meant, …
String Theory Childhood
Have you heard the theory that there are countless parallel universes, that at particular moments in your life when one decision was made, another universe began with another you who lived the choice you didn't make. What moment in your childhood would change where you are now? Of course, perhaps it the small forgotten decision …
Marta Bacon 