Can art or story be too pretty to be any good? I've heard people say that art shouldn't be ugly. I've heard people say pretty art has no depth. A story with a happy ending isn't literature. A story with a tragic ending is pretentious. What are your expectations when you walk into a museum …
This is what I want you to see.
We'd been married a week when my in-laws came to see our first apartment. My husband, my mother-in-law, an aunt and uncle stood in the bedroom. "Can I look in the closets?" my mother-in-law asked. "I'd rather you didn't," I said. She stepped closer to a closet door. "But you were so excited about having …
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Words on a page are not exactly bits of glass in the only food left to eat. Why do they frighten so many of us? Look. Lines. Marks. Put together and arranged to tell you something. That's it. Yet many of us will do anything to avoid arranging these marks ourselves. I love people who …
This Takes Me Back
"You're so tall! You can wear anything!" Sure. Anything that fits. And when you are 6'1" very few things fit. Only in the past few years have I been able to find jeans that are actually long enough--and I pay plenty extra for the privilege. Some stores have tall sizes--tall meaning 5'11". Sleeves are never …
If you invite yourself to the party, who will find you entertaining?
Possibly I've picked this picture because we've had 55 days of triple digit heat here in Texas and I needed to be reminded how much I hate to be cold. Classes started at 7am. Well, when we had the morning shift. The building was used by another high school, and so for one month we …
Continue reading If you invite yourself to the party, who will find you entertaining?
Beauty is as beauty does.
When I got out of the pool, a group of boys shouted at me, "Hey, you're ugly." I was 19. They were 12. And though I know better, it has been near impossible not to equate beauty with success. Or more to the point--if I were prettier, I'd be more successful and more talented. More …
More Credit–Less Angst
I'm throwing myself into my own crash course on screenwriting. Part of the so-called curriculum is watching special features on DVDs--specifically those from movies made from books, interviews with writers, that sort of thing. In spite of my rampant insecurity and angst, I think this process might be fun. I'm stripping my novel The Labyrinth …
Sick.
"I wouldn't be very proud of it," my mother said. She was looking at the work I'd done on the high school yearbook. I closed the book and put it back in my lap. My excuses rang in my head, and I looked out the window. "Sorry," she said. "I shouldn't've put it like that." …
Making a Mess
How important is a clean desk? What could I straighten out that would straighten out the clutter in my head? It is hard to tell what work I should be doing? What I have done is post page two of the latest novel. And I've finished a promise I made that I very much wanted …
Dance with the one who brought you.
My father often said to me, "You're all the time thinking. Don't you know anything?" No. No, I don't. A while back, I put forth this notion of a book swap/discussion--a previous post. Shelly was kind enough to send me The Echo Maker by Richard Powers. I am supposed to send a book in return. …
Marta Bacon 