Interview with a Girl Goddess

I'm so, so excited to have this Q & A with Francesca Lia Block.

The last few questions are my favorite, and her answers are beautiful. I'm honored to have had this opportunity.

If you don't know what this is, read my quick Intro!

About Her Self

Ellie (me) : I've read a lot of things about the different kinds of work you do. What do you do in your spare time? Right now, I'm terribly obsessed with Almond croissants, Adventure Time, and the website JukePop; Do you have any crazy guilty pleasures?

via Instagram

Francesca : Let’s see…Vegan gluten free pizza, Ruben sandwiches and sushi rolls from Sage restaurant in Culver City, tarot readings from The Oracle of Los Angeles, black skinny jeans with pink metallic high top sneakers, Instagram (dangerousangelena) and Pinterest, collaborating on screenplays based on my work, (collaborating with Elgin James on Weetzie Bat screenplay and with Danishka Esterhazy on a short from The Rose And The Beast), dark faerie tales, The Principles Of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman, having pot luck dance parties at the faerie cottage after my writing workshops, my dog, Elphi, and my beautiful, amazing children. 

E : I know that you are a big supporter of equal, human rights, which is fantastic. Are there any other causes you feel particularly strong about? 

F : Human rights covers a lot of it, but I also feel strongly about caring for the environment.

via Instagram

E : It [was] Christmas-time! Any big plans for the winter solstice holidays? What kinds of things do you celebrate? 

F : We celebrate a little Hanukkah, a little Christmas and a little pagan solstice. I mostly stayed at home watching movies  with my kids and my dog. I also had a little party with fairy lights, Indian food and some of my favorite friends.  I don’t make resolutions but I do work hard on a daily basis to take care of myself and my children, be a loving, peaceful person, do my work.

E : I've heard your books described in a million different ways by you and your readers -- almost always on point! -- but how would you describe yourself? Your life?

F : My life? Well, it’s been very rich. I’ve had a lot of joy and a lot of loss.  A lot of magic and a lot of reality.  Dark and light.  So I’m a magical realist.  A punk faerie.  A mom and a lover and a writer and a teacher/mentor and a yogi and a dancer in my heart.  Love is my guide. 

About The Craft

E : What do you love about writing, and your writing career as a whole? Do you wish you'd done anything differently in your life, writing, or career?

Weetzie Bat Tee

F : I love being able to express my feelings in my work; it’s very cathartic.  And I love sharing my work with others.  I’ve made so many friends through my writing.  When I’ve reached out via social media (for readers, students, filmmakers or models for my T-shirt line) I’ve received responses from the most creative and wonderful people I could imagine.I do wish I’d gotten my MFA when I was younger but when I was coming in as a writer it wasn’t as essential in terms of getting published.Plus, I was very lucky to get published early and needed to focus on my writing at that time. But I’ve learned a lot from writing and especially from teaching, which I also love. I was fortunate to have a family who supported my work but I find that most of my students didn’t have that  (usually  parents understandably want security for their children) so I try to be that support for them.

E : As someone who's been in the industry for over two decades, what are a few aspects of the modern publishing world that you have had trouble with or wish were different? Have things changed for the better or worse since you started writing?

F : Things have become much more difficult. It’s very hard to get book deals these days.

The one good thing is that people can self publish and self promote using social media so it allows for more creativity in that sense, and more community. but to self publish successfully you need a strong following.
I recommend that writers who are considering self publishing start a blog and find unique ways to market themselves before they put out a book. 

via goodreads.com

E : One of the things I've always loved about your work is that so many of the important, complicated things in life are seen in a beautiful, magical way, but still so realistically complex. The relationships in The Elementals and Echo come to mind right away. The romance in these books are often deep and magical, while still being grounded in the very common complexities of issues like trust, abuse, layers of sexuality, and struggles with self-identity. I -- and many of your readers, I'm sure-- connect to the problems and complex desires in these relationships on a very personal level.

If it's not too personal of a question; when you're writing about love and sex what experiences, hopes, and/or desires do you pull from to make such vibrant portraits?

F : It’s not too personal! I take everything from my life and add to it to make it an interesting story, which usually means increasing the tension and conflict and developing the arc of the characters.

E : A big draw for me when I first started really getting into your books was the beautiful excess of sensory descriptions. Food caught my attention a lot and I've even made blog posts just about the types of food in each book. But all of the descriptions of sights, smells, and tastes are really fantastic and pull the reader into your worlds in very unique ways. Is that writing style -- so lush and sense-driven -- very intentional? Or is it more organic, happening pretty naturally as you write?

F : I tend to write in a sensory way naturally but in rewriting I always try to add more evocative moments.  I love using scent because that is the sense closest to the memory center of the brain and is perhaps the most affecting.

E : Writer's "blocks" and lack of motivation can be problems common to all artistic people. Do you ever have trouble motivating yourself to keep up with your work? How do you, personally, navigate problems like that? Do you have any ritual/process to encourage yourself?

via Facebook

F : I never use the term, because of my last name. If I don’t feel able to write I read, re-write or  try to fill up on art and music and film  for inspiration. I also talk to my writer friends for ideas.

E : I wrote a piece a while back about a friend I lent my copy of Girl Goddess #9 to. I forced him (now her) to read "Dragons in Manhattan" because it reminded me of him. He read it and felt it and loved it -- couldn't stop talking about it and how it made him feel. I never got that book back, now that I think of it...

And I've read plenty of stories from readers who connected deeply with the issues of sexuality in Baby-BeBop, among many other works.

I'm sure many fans come up to you with stories of how your books changed or affected their lives. Have you ever had a reader's story really affect you in return? Do you have any favorites?

F : That’s a pretty great one right there. The most touching stories have to do with readers who say that my writing helped them through some personal crisis—eating disorders, self harm, heart break, the death of a loved one.  I get these messages fairly often and I’m so grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to help someone through my stories.

E : I just started a simple series of graphics defining beautiful words, to post over the course of the next month. I really love how fantastic and strong words can be and I have a few favorites. Do you have a favorite word to contribute?

F : When I was a little girl I used to look up synonyms for the word light all the time.

i had to make this up real quick, of course...

About Life 

E : My boyfriend and I are about to pack up and move across the country, which is huge and terrifying. What huge events or experiences, good or bad, are you the most thankful for in your life? Are there any life experiences you think everyone should go through at some point?

l.a. skyline

F : For me it was the birth of my children and the death of my mother. The most joyous and the most painful but they were both truly beautiful and encompassed what life means to me.

E : Do you remember what the very first thing you fell in love with about L.A. was?

houdini's mansion

F : The lemon tree outside my window. My dad playing the piano with my toes when I was a baby.  Pink skies.  The ocean. The wild canyons.  Houdini’s mansion. 

E : Finally, what do you hope for in your future? What would you like to see, create, do, or experience?
 
F : I would like to expand my business so  that I have a beautiful space to hold writing workshops and salons with live music. I want publish a fiction journal of my students’ work, design and sell merchandise related to our work and produce films.  I also want to travel and do retreats  all around the world.

Thank you so much to Francesca Lia Block for this awesome opportunity!!

I can't explain how much I appreciate getting to know my favorite author.

If you've never read FLB's books (which would be crazy, since you're here!) check out her work at FrancescaLiaBlock.com, and even check out her writing workshops (one day I will do this!).

happy reading,

stay lovely.

*images are hyper-linked to their original sources

Style Icon :: Lana Del Rey

Lately I have had a terrifyingly sudden and intense addiction to everything Lana Del Rey. Her music -- which i listen to over and over again every day -- her style, her videos, her makeup -- which i attempt to emulate sometimes -- just... everything.

I love the 40s, L.A., Gangster's Girl, Sexy, Hip-hop, Lolita vibe so many of her songs have that makes you want to dance and sway and drive under bright, shimmering California skies.

Her sound is singular, in that I've spent the last few weeks trying to find someone with similar songs or that makes me feel the same way, and I just can't manage it. I've listened to a lot of recommendations, and artists she attributes as inspiration, but still... not the same.
Husky sometimes, deep and soulful others, then light and airy and whimsical.

Her songs sound like pop-hip-hop (Off To the Races), anthems (Born to Die), soul-searching melodies (Ride), lounge music (Body Electric) and James Bond themes (Million Dollar Man).


And her look is sensual and sexy and 1940's glam that I just can't get over. So what if her lips are done or she has a carefully selected make-up artist (which I'm assuming), that's her choice, and I assume she likes the way she looks, which is the whole point!
I have even found photos of her with blue hair, though I can never tell if they're real or photo-shopped. Still!


I read a review of her album, "Born to Die", that complained that too many of her songs re-used the same ideas and styles.

Personally, I love that. Really, really, love that. I hate it-- loathe it-- when I find a song I absolutely love, then get the artist's album only to find that it's the only song like it that they've ever done! The most noteworthy of these I can think of is Fiona Apple's "Paper Bag" which I had a very long love affair with a year or so back. But when I downloaded her discography (yes, I do that, but I support artists when I can, too) I couldn't find a single other track that was like that song. Yes, I like Fiona Apple's songs, but I looove that one, and it's the only one of its kind. That makes me sad.
This is not the case with "Born to Die". Almost every song is jazzy, sensual, sexy, fun, and down-right amazing. In fact, the ones I'm not as big a fan of are the slow, purely romantic/sad songs like "Video Games", "Summertime Sadness", or "Young and Beautiful". Not saying I don't like those, but I definitely don't put them on repeat like others

There's also complaints that Lana Del Rey isn't a real person. Her real name is (was?) Lizzy Grant, and she was a would-be artist that just sort of fell through. When she couldn't make it, she disappeared, and later on Lana Rey Del Mar appeared, touting a huskier, darker voice, a very rich image, and  a new sound. Rey's success didn't take long, but when fans realized the connections, people lashed out at her for faking who she is. Again, i disagree here. So she's not actually Lana Del Rey? I love the character she's created and the persona, even if it's not a real person. It doesn't make her music less beautiful or sexy or fun.

But there are other critiques of her work that I relate to, such as this (well-earned) rant about the video for "Ride" which points out the big flaws in the [very very pretty] music video-- particularly, its glorification of the character's (Lana's) dependence on the men in her sad life, and her complete abandonment of self in favor of their company and support. It touts the idea of independence and freedom, but always seems to be centered around the men she seems to give herself up to.

How Weetzie (and yet still culturally incorrect/rude) is this scene??

So, is she perfect? No.
Does that detract from the inspiration and vibe I find in her?
No!

She's flawed and some of her ideas are flawed, but that makes her much more of a down-to-earth icon that I kind of appreciate. We all do stupid things and hop onto wrong bandwagons. Look at Weetzie's use of Native culture in Weetzie Bat. Do we like Weetzie, or FLB books, less because of these instances? No. It's important to understand and acknowledge the problems in our heroes and inspiration, and learn and seek to not repeat those flaws, but not having them at all...? There's no such person.
Learn from your inspiration's flaws. Be better than them!

Back to the point.

My favorite songs::

Lolita
Off to the Races
Born to Die
Radio
Million Dollar Man
Blue Jeans
Dark Paradise
This is What Makes us Girls
Body Electric

Beautiful Books :: Daughter of the Forest

Beautiful Books

Daughter of the Forest

Juliet Marillier

I spent a while longing for the kind of book I love to read. Epic, sweeping books that pick you up and wrap you in another world, with a strong female that sweeps you off your feet with adventure and romance. After getting through the best of the Kushiel Legacy, and waiting patiently for the next (even though I knew it would never be as good as the first three) I was in a void for a sweeping, epic fantasy. 

But then I started going through my bookshelf, reading books off of a stack of random ones I've owned forever and never really picked up.

Daughter of the Forest was one of these. 

I've owned the book for years. Picked it up at some point as a teenager and just never really felt like reading it.

And now finally I did, and I will never regret it. It is amazing.

"When was the beginning? When my father met my mother, and lost his heart, and chose to wed for love? Or was it when I was born? I should have been the seventh son of a seventh son, but the goddess was playing tricks, and I was a girl." {page 4}

If you've ever heard the fairy tale about the girl who's brothers are turned into swans (sometimes ravens) and she has to stay silent and weave clothing for them for a number of years to save them, this is the story. But amplified, intensified, romanticized, and epic-ized to the power of ten.
It's strong, beautiful, epic, thrilling, and heartbreaking.

The writing is lush and beautiful, and the books that follow are similar in their wonderful details, even if they don't come nearly as close to the amazingness that is this first one.

"I have spoken of the keep where my family lived, a stark stone tower set deep in the forests, its walls pierced here and there by narrow window slits. Its courtyard, its hedges, its kitchen garden did little to soften the grim profile. But there was more to Sevenwaters than this. Without our walled fields, our thatched barns to house herd and flock over winter, our gardens with their rows of carrots, parsnips, and beans, our mill and our straw-rope granaries, we could not have survived in such isolation." {page 45}

The story starts off following the character as a child, and I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but after a few chapters, things pick up quickly, and once they do, events unfold quite suddenly and the intensity spikes like crazy.
This book will make you cry and scream and also, very strangely, make you want to stay very, very quiet.

"'But remember, you must not make a sound, you must not tell your tale, even to them, or they will be swans forever. The task will be long, Sorcha.'" {page 154}

At every moment, my heart ached for Sorcha, the beautiful storyteller, sworn to desperate silence. I was so invested in her strong, silent struggle that when someone interuppted my reading, I'd just stare at them for long moments, trying to regain my bearings in the real world, and having to remind myself that I could speak.

"As for me, I could hardly imagine a life without my brothers, for they had always been there, sometimes kind, sometimes gruff, always ready to help when I was in trouble. They were a part of me, and I of them. Now I was alone, and I must manage without them, for to fail in this task was to lose them forever." {page 157}

Watching Sorcha navigate through her test, her pains (which are, several times, very intense- you have been warned), and the entire struggle of it all was epic and wonderful and I couldn't even describe how much I loved it. Though, obviously, I'm using the words epic and amazing a lot; so there's that.
Even the romance was unexpected. Unlike many female-driven adventures, there is not a set, obvious love interest, and that was a little more beautiful for me as well. It sweeps you off your feet and makes it all the more intense.

"There was a pause. Perhaps only I knew how he used it to marshal his thoughts, to force his breathing to be slow and steady, to draw deep on his will so his voice remained confident. For the others, it was still just a tale, like all the tales we told, night by night, tales comical and strange, tales heroic and awe-inspiring, the tales that formed the fabric of our spirits." {page 526}

This is, by far, on my list of favorite books in all of the books I've ever read. And next to Kushiel's Dart, it's the most amazing epic adventure I've fallen in love with.

Worth reading? Holy. Frack. Yes.

See Also: Beautiful Reading Label

World of Tastes {2} The Hanged Man

Worlds Of Taste

Food in the world of Francesca Lia Block

Part Two: The Hanged Man

(Francesca Lia Block, 1994)

I love The Hanged Man. It's one of my favorites. The descriptions are light and ethereal and beautiful. Harsh beauty full of pain and fear. There's a surprising amount of food mentioned, considering it's about a girl struggling with anorexia. But maybe that's the way it really is. Maybe when you deny yourself food, all that's left to do is think about it. To see it everywhere. Either way the images are strong and full, and the emotion connected to them deep and pure. 

I love this book. For this one I started coloring the food words with the colors I thought of when I heard them. Cake...pink or blue...Ginger...gold...wine...purple...red.

***

"...he says hello and his voice is the best thing-- it cracks like ice when you pour the liquor over." [4]

"Past the canyon market where I worked last summer, packing bags full of yogurts, avocados, peaches, and wine for the canyon people..." [7]

"...where Claudia and I drink coffee (mine black, hers sugary and milky brown)..." [7]

"I go into the kitchen and put some plums and a slice of buttered, home-baked bread onto a blue and white plate from Holland. I fill a glass with water and squeeze some lemon in. I put everything on a tray with the real butterflies pressed under glass." [9]

"My mother is cooking and cooking. She buys turkeys and reaches inside of them and takes out what is there and rubs the flesh all over with garlic and stuffs them with vegetables and bakes them in the oven....The kitchen smells of garlic and animal and yeast from the breads my mother bakes. My mother bakes breads and she makes them in the shapes of women with breasts, or mermaids with braids, of fat animals and moons with faces." [13]

"But I won't eat all that candy Hansel and Gretel ate. I will be thin and pure like a glass cup. Empty. Pure as light. Music." [14]

"Claudia buys a piece of pizza. The rich smell of scalding cheese. "You should eat," she says. But I don't take a bite." [18]

"The clown paints Claudia's dreams on her face. He paints crescent moons and pomegranates and crosses." [19]

"..."Houdini's cook has served some broiled rabbit, champagne, cake and ice cream. Pistachio. Served in top hats."..." [22]

"They are feasting on animals and wines and liqueurs and flaming cakes..." [28]

"The girl gave us ginger beers. Ginger beer burns your mouth and throat but it is dark and sweet." [36]

"After, we ate barbecued chicken and black beans and fried bananas ~plantain~ in a little shack at the base of the falls." [38]

"...I swayed on the balcony with the fireworks and the champagne in our heads exploding." [43]

"I imagine the pasta was made with basil and garlic and the courtyard was sunny and filled with flowers and herbs." [50]

"We buy watermelons, pineapples, cantaloupes, honeydew, strawberries and cut them up and put them on platters and my mother makes her punch. It is citrus-greenish-yellow color and it smokes." [58]

"He bought me pink spun-sugar candy and I wanted a dress like that." [72]

""...the colors, and stars like powdered sugar donuts and my head was a bubble of glass."" [75

"...leaving me hungry for chocolate ice cream. Everything was chocolate ice cream and kisses and wind." [78]

"and she is eating a piece of sweet potato pie that makes her voice sound thick and sweet." [84]

"My mother is cooking and cooking. She is scrubbing beets and peeling the beets and scrubbing them again....She peels the flesh off the chicken and rinses the naked breasts and legs and wings...and bakes them with pearly onions and lemons and herbs. She bakes cakes that overflow...nightmarish chocolate cakes, wicked with nuts and sugar and the chocolate that people say has the same chemical that your body releases when you are in love. She bakes these wicked love-cakes and the chocolate heats and drips and the smell fills the house." [94]

"She scrubs the vegetables; she keeps crystals in the kitchen. She chants sometimes." [95]

"When we sit he orders margaritas and tostadas. He says, "You should eat this," and he starts to put the tostada filling into the tortilla in his hand, piling on lettuce and cheese and guacamole. I watch him and drink some of my margarita. Icy and salty and sharp-sweet and making me feel that way you feel just as you're about to fall asleep... 

I realize how hungry I am, how my stomach feels like an empty hand making a fist... 

"You should eat," he says...

I take a slow bite looking down. The guacamole kisses my mouth. My throat feels tight but I swallow. Then I drink some more of the margarita." [99]

"...takes out a container of strawberry ice cream, a plastic spoon and a bottle of champagne. "Happy Birthday," he says." [100]

"He smells of the crushed mint from below my window." [123]

"The ground is littered with hot-dog wrappers, popcorn boxes, crepe paper." [128]

"My mother comes up to my room with a tray of strawberries and plain yogurt, a piece of fresh-baked bread spread with honey." [131]

"I imagine sitting in a plaza at twilight eating pasta and drinking wine, the marble statues gleaming,..." [132]

***

Also see :: Part One: Echo

Satana Beauty ((link))

Kicking Ass & Taking Names

A survivor to be inspired by.