After drinking way too much coffee, I decided to post an excerpt of this years NaNo novel on my NaNo profile. I'm not sure how it is that the fear-of-exposure resides so closely with the desire-to-be-read, but they are constant companions in halls of my caffeinated soul. So, if you care to see what happens …
Into the Woods…
What to do? What to do? This fellow in my NaNo novel is either about to do something wicked or something good. He's capable of both... That point has come in NaNo where nothing makes sense. And since I've created this world before I started, this Lake Belle, these characters, I've got more contraints than …
…and your most promising partner is?
Here's the task--figure what kind of writer to be. Not just whether to be a good writer or a brilliant writer (as if I could shoot for one of those adjectives and hit the target) or whether to go pulp, trade, or vanity press. Too many choices dance in my head (pure pain for a …
When You Start Throwing Adjectives Around, the Trouble Starts
Okay, I give in. I'll just say it and get it over with. I'm a writer. I must be because my hands are killing me from all the typing. And I'll confess. It isn't about whether or not I'm a writer--I write everyday and when I'm not writing I'm thinking about writing. Surely that is …
Continue reading When You Start Throwing Adjectives Around, the Trouble Starts
Won’t Somebody Think about the Trees?
For a while--perhaps a whole month!--I will give the am-I-a-writer-angst a rest. Maybe it will become a habit. But that doesn't mean there isn't some other angst running around in here waiting to be wrestled with. So, I go into a bookstore and see the shelves of books, most of which no one will pick …
We Shall Never Speak of this Again.
I've written several times about my mother and her impact on my writing life while my beleaguered father gets so little attention--even though he was an equal force. Well, the last time I visited him, back around the New Year, I decided to tell him I'd written a book. (I admitted to only one of …
Name-Calling
Now I wonder why so many of us insist on labels anyway. I'm a writer, I'm a this, I'm a that...seems like we might be better off just doing whatever it is we want to do with our lives and leave the name-calling to others. If you've got the courage to say, "I am a …
Words on the Page or on the Air
There are moments when I believe I am a writer. In that moment I believe I am going to be a published writer. (Arguments about the value in that another day.) But should someone ask me about what I want to do, I never say writer. Then the belief becomes foolish--a bit like saying I …
A Fallen Tree–the Afterlife or the Imagination? (neither, no doubt)
Yesterday's fish has gotten stuck in my head and pulled me along other twists and turns through that mysterious place called The Past. I heard a theory that memory is not something tucked away in a file cabinet in your brain. It is not a bit of RAM (or whatever you calls these information bits) …
Continue reading A Fallen Tree–the Afterlife or the Imagination? (neither, no doubt)
The Original Fish
In high school, like so many other adolescent fools, I took a psychology course. And one bright day the teacher gave us all this "test." On the test paper were four rows of boxes, four columns wide, and each box except one had some kind of mark within. A tiny dark box, a semi-circle, a …
Marta Bacon 