You may be bored by interviews, but I love interviews with writers and artists and scientists. I am reading The Paris Review Interviews: vol. I. Have you read these interviews? My favorite interview so far is with Jorge Luis Borges. Mostly I liked it because Borges came across as someone I'd want to talk to. …
Category: Story-a-Day-May
Maybe Not This Time
May be this is too much. I've participated in NaNoWriMo 7 times. And each time I wrote more than 50,000 words. Last year I wrote all 31 stories for Story-a-Day. But finally, this time, I'm stuck. I started a story, but this day has just not been good.. Oh but who cares? Everyone has a …
Maybe Now
I may begin more stories in the present tense. Well, maybe not. But I've used present tense in a few stories, and it seems the most natural way to describe heart break. Like, you have to feel it right now or your cynicism and experience get in the way. Maybe. Could be wrong. What tense …
Maybe This Voice
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 …
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 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 …
Marta Bacon 