Francesca Lia Block
Francesca Lia Block
Francesca Lia Blockis an American writer of adult and young-adult literature: fiction, short stories, screenplays and poetry. She is known best for the Weetzie Bat series — named after its first installment and her first novel, which she wrote while a UC Berkeley student, Weetzie Bat. She is known for her use of imagery, especially in describing the city of Los Angeles. One New York Times Book Review critic said, "Block writes about the real Los Angeles better than anyone...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth3 December 1962
CountryUnited States of America
That was when I cut my arms with a razor blade as a means of creative expression. I only did it lightly, just grazing the skin, to see the way the blood would bleed out, to make myself look tougher. Not like some of those kids who keep going deeper and deeper, wondering what they look like down to the bone, because it's a world that's so close and yet so far and so dangerous and so much their own. The only world that is their own.
It was always a relief when she came home to him. Like water or food. Like music or that moment when you cut yourself with a knife and squeeze the skin and no blood oozes out.
Love is the worst earthquake there is. Can crush you to the thickness of your bones. Love can be like cancer sometimes. Terminal. It can make you vomit. It can make you want to cut it out. It can take you over against your will.
Write with abandon and no constraints for first draft. Cut brutally and save in separate files on second draft. Add conflict; don't be afraid to make your characters suffer. Read what you love. Write what you love. Love.
I'd sit around dreaming that the boys I saw at shows or at work - the boys with silver earrings and big boots - would tell me I was beautiful, take me home and feed me Thai food or omelets and undress me and make love to me all night with the palm trees whispering windsongs about a tortured gleaming city and the moonlight like flame melting our candle bodies.
Under the pink Harlequin sunglasses strawberry dangling charms, and sugar-frosted eyeshadow she was really almost beautiful.
I love Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. I also love more cerebral poets like H.D. and Emily Dickinson. My parents subscribed to a monthly poetry periodical, and as a teenager I was introduced to Denise Levertov, who was an influence.
Metaphors are an interesting example of creating magic in prose.
You are in my blood. I cant help it. We can't be anywhere except together
Just like any woman,...we weave our stories out of our bodies. Some of us through our children, or our art; some do it just by living. It's all the same.
Everything was chocolate ice cream and kisses and wind.
I dont know about happily ever after… but I know about happily, Weetzie Bat thought..
Everything is an illusion; that is the whole thing about it - illusion, immitation, a mirage. It makes me too sad. Its having like a good dream, you know you are going to wake up.
Sometimes I wanted to peel away all of my skin and find a different me underneath.