This blog really should support the lakebelle blog. At first, being new to this whole blogosphere, I thought of writing about the writing life, but that's not enough (for me anyway and I'm the blogger, so there you are). I'm going to try using this space to better describe lake belle and the people there. …
Wonderfully Lunatic Agents…Do Exist (I’ve got proof in my hot little hand)
So, I'm reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke and I keep finding these clever lines and pitch-perfect descriptions--writing that makes me jealous (Oh, why didn't I write that?). But here's the thing--the book 846 pages long (I'm on page 225 at the moment) and I'm thinking this: an agent was sitting in …
Continue reading Wonderfully Lunatic Agents…Do Exist (I’ve got proof in my hot little hand)
Edit or Die Trying (or is it edit ’til you die?)
You can't be a writer unless you're willing to hack it to bits and mow down those darlings as they run for cover. Okay, maybe that's a bit melodramatic, but writing is an ugly business even if you never resort to using blood instead of ink. Editing exhausts me. Not in the way toiling away …
Continue reading Edit or Die Trying (or is it edit ’til you die?)
money makes the world go ’round & the pen move with more ease
There's nothing romantic about money. Starving artists in garretts are not cooler or more authentic than artists in air conditioned studios. And so this month when I am without any classes and therefore without a paycheck for three weeks, I am with a wonderful amount of time with which to write and create--hours at a …
Continue reading money makes the world go ’round & the pen move with more ease
Torn Between
I've never been someone searching for what to do with my life. I've never had a radical transformation from one religion to another, one political belief to another, one way of living to another. I declared my college major at seventeen and never considered changing it. Plenty of my friends wonder what they should be …
The Little Blighters
One reason to stay up late writing is that when I try to go to bed at a civilized hour, my characters won't let me sleep anyway--like they're jostling in my brain with their thoughts and things they need to say and do. It's mental. At one point I realized that I couldn't tell if …
Tension–The Good Kind
Most of the time my writing is dreadful, but once in a while it works so well I have to do a little dance in my closet and say, yes, Yes, YES! What fun to capture a scene so filled with tension--of many kinds--that it vibrates off the page. Can I say that about my …
art everyday
My son's contribution to art everyday--which he really wants to see on the computer!
sideways writing
Lots of friends have told me that my husband and I have to watch the movie Sideways because it is about wine and my husband is in the wine business. What no one, not one of my friends, told me was that the main character is a writer. As far as I'm concerned, this is …
notes to myself
Keeping a plot in order is no easy task. Not for me anyway. So I need to make notes to remind myself of things--like, how long should it take Paul to decide to ask Valerie to marry him? Gotta have something go wrong, of course--what could it be? Someone from somebody's past is the most …
Marta Bacon 