This may become tedious. Forcing myself to blog and write a short story every single day is a challenge all right----to me and my readers. Okay, maybe not my readers. You aren't obligated to do anything. But what is all this writing for? This morning I read an article in Vanity Fair by Christopher Hitchens----Unspoken …
Category: other blog
Maybe a Temper Tantrum
Sometimes I may begrudge every other published writer everything. You know, in moments of personality collapse. Meaning, those moments when I'm not the great and fantabulist soul I want to be. (Yes. Fantabulist.) Those moments when I'm resistant, cranky, jealous, and generally not nice. (All you saints out there can begin throwing stones at any …
Maybe Numbered
Blogging may betray my incessant need for reassurance. What else are all these like/share/tellmeyouloveme buttons for? Sometimes I am envious of writers-gone-by who just wrote in the silence, unconnected world of their homes and then waited to hear back eventually from their editor. And then wait to perhaps get a few letters from readers. I …
Maybe Imperfection Is Okay
May beastly things happen in my stories but not in my writing of them. Eleven stories in to Story-a-Day and my brain seemed to have suffered a structural collapse. I finished the story because, well, Time said to. But what really--no maybe about it--bothers me about this story is what it lacks throughout. A layer …
Maybe the Ending Is All Wrong
This story may best be forgotten. I have no perspective. How do you get perspective? How do you judge your own work? I can't get a handle on my own neurotic, self-obsessed spinning. But what makes a story a success? When you read a story, how do you know this one works but this one …
Maybe Characters Do It
Many things may befall your characters, but one of those things, eventually, somewhere, in some story, unless you're writing for children, surely----implied or direct (have I drawn this out enough?), good or bad----is going to be sex. And I'm going to avoid the euphemism "love scene." Plenty of characters aren't in the story for love. …
“You May Be Right. I May Be Crazy. But I Just May Be the Lunatic You’re Looking for.”
This story may beg the question: is this writer crazy? Okay. I exaggerate. I'm a writer. It's what I do. But be that as it may. It isn't as if I don't know what I'm writing when I write. I do. Sort of. Nonetheless, I get to the end and find myself thinking, "Really? Did …
Maybe a Boy
I may bend those gender lines successfully. I may not. Story number seven for Story-a-Day jumps from the mind of the girl to the mind of the guy. The stories before that I spent a lot of time in the male character's head. Writers should be able to put themselves into any character, right? Put …
Maybe Again and Again
I may beat my head against the wall before this is all said and written. And you may wonder why anyone would try and write a story a day. What is the point? And you may have a point. Sure. But at the very least, this exercise teaches me something about my writing... and maybe …
Maybe Behave
A character may behave in any number of ways. Although as the writer I should have final say. Right? Some writers believe characters take control of the story. Other writers are quite sure they've got the characters under their thumb. Or keyboard as the case may be. And sometimes it seems that each type of …
Marta Bacon 