A week or so ago, I read a post by Porter Anderson over at Writer Unboxed about mystique. At the same time, I was reading Amanda Palmer's book The Art of Asking. They are two different ways to live your creative life. Very different ways. Amanda Palmer has stripped naked and let her fans draw …
Continue reading Mystique, Social Media, and Other Distractions
I'm working on one of those newsletters. I think I may have said before, but now I'm finally getting my act together. It's hard to know how to make one of these that is essentially about yourself and not come across as Me! Me! Me! Anyway, it will include any news about upcoming books, publications, …
That other project of mine is here.
I visited my dad in August. We were sitting around a table with friends when I shared a memory of my childhood. This memory was of a key moment in my childhood and I'd shared it with many people over the years, but I'd never related it in front of my dad before. I don't …
I hate it when I come up with a title only to discover someone else has already used it. Have you done that? What are the rules? I've searched for books before and found several books with the same or very similar titles, but usually they're in different genres or written generations apart. Most of …
Last week, thanks to the work and help of friends and strangers, I traveled to Salem, Massachusetts for the Writer Unboxed UnConference. Have you ever been to Salem? I found it magical. Maybe it was arriving three days after Halloween and meeting people I'd known online, but had never spent time with in real life. …
The Obituary Project is almost done. Most every participant has received her obituary. I say "her" because for some reason, almost no men signed up for the project. Only one. Not sure if that means anything. Two people asked me to make stuff up. Those were fun but more daunting. How do you write an …
In a few days, I'll celebrate another birthday. This birthday will make me older than my mother (pictured) was when she died. She died when I was 21, and I remember one night (though it was probably actually many nights) failing to sleep and thinking about the future without my mom. In my dorm room, …
Nothing scary is happening. Not yet, anyway. Oh, scary things lurk nearby, certainly. Ebola has come to my state. War wages in far too many places to list. Terrorists plot somewhere. Something you don't expect waits right around the corner. But I'm sitting on my patio, glimpsing fireflies and listening to the whir of the …
The other day, I finished reading Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. I discovered the author, Caitlin Doughty, around the same time I received my cancer diagnosis. I watched her video about talking to children about death. Now, I had an optimistic outlook on my cancer treatment, but I had to tell my kid, and my …
Marta Bacon 