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Beauty Was Deceptive. I Would Rather Wear My Pain, My Ugliness. I Was Torn And Stitched. I Was A Strip Mine, And They Would Just Have To Look. I Hoped I Made Them Sick. I Hoped They Saw Me In Their Dreams.

-Janet Fitch

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Beauty Was Deceptive. I

Janet Fitch

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Beauty Was Deceptive. I Would Rather Wear My Pain, My Ugliness. I Was Torn And Stitched. I Was A Strip Mine, And They Would Just Have To Look. I Hoped I Made Them Sick. I Hoped They Saw Me In Their Dreams.

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At Least If You Were Ignorant You Could Do Wat You Wanted. You Had No Idea Wat Had Been Acheived In The Past. You Were Free Instead Of Chewed At By Bleeding Impotence, Dissolved Away Like A Pearl In Acid

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Collective Unconscious

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The Nearest I'd Come To Feeling Anything Like God Was The Plan Blue Cloudless Sky And A Certain Silence, But How Do You Pray To That?

When You Started Thinking It Was Easy, You Were Forgetting What It Cost.

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To Know I Was Beautiful In His Eyes Made Me Beautiful.

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I Felt Like An Undeveloped Photograph That He Was Printing, My Image Rising To The Surface Under His Gaze.

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The Decor Bowled Me Over. Everywhere I Looked, There Was Something More To See. Botanical Prints, A Cross Section Of Pomegranates, A Passionflower Vine And Its Fruit. Stacks Of Thick Books On Art And Design And A Collection Of Glass Paperweights Filled The Coffee Table. It Was Enormously Beautiful, A Sensibility I'd Never Encountered Anywhere, A Relaxed Luxury. I Could Feel My Mother's Contemptuous Gaze Falling On The Cluttered Surfaces, But I Was Tired Of Three White Flowers In A Glass Vase. There Was More To Life Than That.

He Hated Crowds, Never Liked Punk. He Couldn't Handle The Nakedness Of The Rage -his Own So Sophisticated And Finely Tuned. He Could Never See The Similarity Between Himself And Donnie Draino Screaming Into A Mic.

To Make Films, You Have To Have Boundless Energy; You Have To Work And Play With Others Really, Really Well, And I'm Really A More Contemplative Kind Of Person. I Like To Sit At Home And Think, A Lot.

I Took The Volume To A Table, Opened Its Soft, Ivory Pages... And Fell Into It As Into A Pool During Dry Season.

I Think That Oprah's On A Mission To Improve The Lives Of The Average American In Various Ways. And One Of Them Is To Bring Literature To People Who Would Normally Not Be Quite As Demanding In Their Reading Tastes, To Show Them Writing That Can Be More Than Just Entertainment.

The Poets Are The Standard Bearers Of Language. Their Work Lives Or Dies Word By Word. When I Write And Can Hear A Clunky Sentence, I Try To Write Up To The Poetry That I Have Recited Beforehand.

Beauty Was Deceptive. I Would Rather Wear My Pain, My Ugliness. I Was Torn And Stitched. I Was A Strip Mine, And They Would Just Have To Look. I Hoped I Made Them Sick. I Hoped They Saw Me In Their Dreams.

What Was Beauty Unless You Intended To Use It, Like A Hammer, Or A Key? It Was Just Something For Other People To Use And Admire, Or Envy, Despise. To Nail Their Dreams Onto Like A Picture Hanger On A Blank Wall. And So Many Girls Saying, Use Me, Dream Me.

Appealing To The Five Senses Is The Feature That Will Always Set Writing Apart From The Visual Media. A Good Writer Will Tell Us What The World Smells Like, What The Textures Are, What The Sounds Are, What The Light Looks Like, What The Weather Is.

They Dream Of Men With Gentle Hands, Eloquent With Tenderness, Fingers That Brushed Along A Cheek, That Outlined Open Lips In The Lovers' Braille. Hands That Sculpted Sweetness From Sullen Flesh, That Traced Breast And Ignited Hips, Opening, Kneading. Flesh Becomes Bread In The Heat Of Those Hands, Braided And Rising.

We Don't Have A Unitary Society Anymore, You Know; It's Very Fragmented. I Look Up And Down My Block In Silverlake And There Is A Different Universe In Every House.

Different Universes

My House Is Modern, But I Like My Writing Room To Be Old Fashioned. I Write On A Little Wooden Secretary Desk.

We Strive For Beauty And Balance, The Sensual Over The Sentimental.

Remember...we Don't See Objects, We See Light. [...] Light Can Do Anything Water Can Do--flow, Wash, Trickle. It Can Do Anything An Artist Can Do--paint, Burnish, Carve. Candlelight Falls, Licks A Face. There Is Always Light In A Room.

Always Tell Us Where We Are. And Don't Just Tell Us Where Something Is, Make It Pay Off. Use Description Of Landscape To Help You Establish The Emotional Tone Of The Scene. Keep Notes Of How Other Authors Establish Mood And Foreshadow Events By Describing The World Around The Character. Look At The Openings Of Fitzgerald Stories, And Graham Greene, They're Great At This.

I Was Always Mortified.didn't They Know They Were Tying Thier Mothers To The Ground? Weren't Chains Ashamed Of Their Prisoners?

I Couldn't Imagine Owning Beauty Like My Mothers. I Wouldn't Dare.

We Have No Home, She Told Me. I Am Your Home.

She Was A Beautiful Woman Dragging A Crippled Foot And I Was That Foot. I Was Bricks Sewn Into The Hem Of Her Clothes, I Was A Steel Dress

She Would Be Half A Planet Away, Floating In A Turquoise Sea, Dancing By Moonlight To Flamenco Guitar.

Their Love As A Dragonfly, Skimming Over Echo Park, Stoppin To Visit The Lotus. Eating Dreams And Drinking Blue Sky.

Being In The Library Is So Addictive For Me That I Really Have To Exercise Self-control So I Can Get Some Writing Done At Home.

Only Peons Made Excusses For Themselves She Taught Me. Never Apologize, Never Explain.

I Decided That If I Was Never Going To Sell Anything As Long As I Lived, I Might As Well Do What I Want To Do 'cause Then At Least I Would've Done What I Wanted To Do In Life. What's That Worth?

So Much Wanting And Longing, Clutching, Desiring, Passion And Hatred And Terrible Need. Here, Death Was Suitable, There Was Room For It, The Grip Of Life's Relentless Urges Slackened, Replaced By This Icy Simplicity. This Wasnt Her Death. It Was His. That Was The Sad And Honest Truth. Though It Would Stay With Her, It Would Be More Like A Black Onyx Heart On A Silver Chain, Worn Privately, Under Her Clothes, Close To Her Body, All Her Life. The Guilt, The Beauty, Everything. It Wasnt Over, It Had Only Begun. Well Ok Then, Okay.

Take My Advice. Stay Away From All Broken People.

I Thought How Tenuous The Links Were Between Mother And Children Between Friends Family Things You Think Are Eternal. Everything Could Be Lost More Easily Than Anyone Could Imagine.

Depression, Suffering And Anger Are All Part Of Being Human.

A Couple Of Times, I Could Have Turned A Trick. But I Didn't Want To Start. I Knew How It Would Play. When You Started Thinking It Was Easy, You Were Forgetting What It Cost.

Women Always Put Men First. That's How Everything Got So Screwed Up.

You Were My Home, Mother. I Had No Home But You

My Hatred Gives Me Strength.

I Took My Mother's Knife And Played Johnny Johnny Johnny On The Playhouse Floor. I Was Drunk, Stabbed Myself Every Few Throws. I Held My Hand Up And There Was Satisfaction At Seeing My Blood, The Way There Was When I Saw The Red Gouges Onmy Face That People Stared At And Turned Away. They Were Thinking I Was Beautiful, But They Were Wrong, Now They Could See How Ugly And Mutilated I Was.

A Dependent Clause (a Sentence Fragment Set Off By Commas, Dontcha Know) Helps You Explore Your Story By Moving You Deeper Into The Sentence. It Allows You To Stop And Think Harder About What You've Already Written. Often The Story You're Looking For Is Inside The Sentence. The Dependent Clause Helps You Uncover It.

I Felt Beautiful But Also Interrupted. I Wasn't Used To Being So Complicated.

The Story Of Her Life. God Gave You Everything Just To Take It Away. Just So You Knew Exactly What You Were Missing.

She Wanted To Wake Up Like Dorothy And See Michael's Face Peering Over The Side Of The Bed, Laughing. Why, You Just Hit Your Head. But It Was Not A Dream And There Was No Kansas And He Was Never Coming Back.

I Wish My Life Could Be Like That, Knotted Up So That Even If Something Broke, The Whole Thing Wouldn't Come Apart.

If I Get Ideas Independently Of The Act Of Writing, They Never Really Fit. So For Me, There's No Hanging Out, Waiting For Inspiration.

When Most People Looked At Josie Tyrell, They Only Saw A Certain Collection Of Bones, A Selection Of Forms Filling Space. But Michael Saw Past The Mouth And The Eyes, The Architecture Of The Body, Her Fleshly Masquerade. Other Boys Were Happy Enough To Enjoy The Show, They Just Wanted To Be Entertained In The Body's Shadow Theater. But Michael Had To Come Backstage. He Went Down Into The Mines, Into The Dark, And Brought Up The Gold, Your New Self, A Better Self. But What Good Was It If He Was Just Going To Leave Her Behind?

And If There Is No God? You Act As If There Is, And It's The Same Thing.

There Is No God

I'm Always Looking For Something New And Interesting To Say. And It Can't Be Something I'm Directly Experiencing.

One Can Bear Anything. The Pain We Cannot Bear Will Kill Us Outright.

They Wanted The Real Mother, The Blood Mother, The Great Womb, Mother Of Fierce Compassion, A Woman Large Enough To Hold All The Pain, To Carry It Away. What We Needed Was Someone Who Bled...mother's Big Enough, Wide Enough For Us To Hide In...mother's Who Would Breathe For Us When We Could Not Breathe Anymore, Who Would Fight For Us, Who Would Kill For Us, Die For Us.

 loneliness Is The Human Condition. Cultivate It. The Way It Tunnels Into You Allows Your Soul Room To Grow. Never Expect To Outgrow Loneliness. Never Hope To Find People Who Will Understand You, Someone To Fill That Space. An Intelligent, Sensitive Person Is The Exception, The Very Great Exception. If You Expect To Find People Who Will Understand You, You Will Grow Murderous With Disappointment. The Best You'll Ever Do Is To Understand Yourself, Know What It Is That You Want, And Not Let The Cattle Stand In Your Way.

When You're A Little Kid, You Are Small, Your Life Is Small - And You're Terrifically Aware Of That. But When You Read, You Can Ride Arabian Horses Across The Desert, You Can Be A Dogsledder.

Remember It All, Every Insult, Every Tear. Tattoo It On The Inside Of Your Mind. In Life, Knowledge Of Poisons Is Essential. I've Told You, Nobody Becomes An Artist Unless They Have To.

Writing Mirrors The Interior Self. You Know, Any Book Is Like The Perfect Blueprint Of The Psyche Of The Author.

I Use My Fiction To Explore My Own Unconscious Issues. I Usually Don't Even Know What's Going On With Me Until I'm Writing. That Doesn't Mean My Books Are Autobiographical.

I Hated Labels Anyway. People Didn't Fit In Slots--prostitute, Housewife, Saint--like Sorting The Mail. We Were So Mutable, Fluid With Fear And Desire, Ideals And Angles, Changeable As Water.

I Emitted Some Civetlike Female Stink, A Distinct Perfume Of Sexual Wanting, That He Had Followed To Find Me Here In The Dark.

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Crystal Eastman

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