Caroline Bock-BEFORE MY EYES
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Caroline Bock BEFORE MY EYES: Posted on Saturday, July 02, 2016 10:27 AM
It's a fast read, only about 750 words, about a woman of a certain age: Lydia. I love Lydia, and I think I will be coming back to her someday. Read on!!
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Caroline Bock author of LIE: Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2016 7:55 AM
What is this? A mini-sweepstakes for LIE, my critically-acclaimed (*starred* reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, School Library Journal and more)young adult novel.
Why now? Today, Thursday, April 14, Donald Trump, GOP candidate for President of the United States, is having a political rally in Patchogue, New York on Long Island. What happened there, in 2008, a horrendous hate crime, the murder of Marcelo Lucero inspired LIE.
I wrote LIE to understand why this could happen in a town so near where I lived at the time.
I write to understand. I write to build bridges, not walls.
Enter for a chance to win a copy of LIE. It's only two copies, LIE is widely available these days in public libraries, but if you haven't read or heard of my young adult novel (appropriate for ages 14 and above and adults), I thought it timely to do a FREE giveaway. The link is live only through April 16th:
Peace. |
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Posted on Tuesday, March 29, 2016 3:01 PM
I ’ve been reading a lot of work this past month by Elizabeth
Strout, known most famously for her novel-in-stories Olive Kitteridge. The three works
I’ve read seem to blend into one book. In the last that I read, My Name Is Lucy Barton, her new novel,
one of the characters, a writing teacher tells her, “We all only have one story
to tell,” and she goes on to say that we tell it, in many different, over and
over and that’s okay. I felt this way with her recent work. It was all one
story. I began this journey without a plan; picking up the O. Henry Prize Stories 2015 collection
and discovering her short story, “Snow Blind.”
A rural, small town. A tightly knit family, the Applebys, and a terrible family
secret. One of the children, Annie, ultimately does leave the small town,
almost miraculously, becomes a star of screen and stage, but even she cannot totally
leave behind her small town family and her history. I found a link to the story
here: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/stefg/article1509841.ece
I learned soon after reading this masterful short story that
her novel, The Burgess Boys, was
being made into a HBO mini-series, and realized I hadn’t read this book. It’s
the story of two brothers, both lawyers, one more successful than the other in
New York City. Along with their
sister, who never left their small town in Maine, they harbor a deeply-held
family secret. When the nephew does something stupid and terrible in the
hometown, all breaks loose between the siblings. However, ultimately, (no
spoilers here), the ties of the siblings to one another and to their history in
that Maine village bind them to one another more than to anyone or anything
else.
I then thought: I must read her new novel. In My Name Is Lucy Barton, the main
character, nicknamed ‘Wizzle’ by her mother is very ill. She’s in a New York
City Hospital (what I take to be Cornell Presbyterian, though it’s never named.
There is a view of the famously art deco Chrysler Building and having spent a
lot of time there in recent years, I can imagine the view of the building,
glistening, in my mind’s eye). Her mother on her first visit to New York City,
and the first visit between them in years. Staying at her sick bed for several
days, the mother tells story after story, of people from their Illinois farm town
and their impoverished life together. In many ways, My Name is Lucy Barton is a story about how stories heal us.
But at the end of my reading I thought: Can we never move
far away enough to leave our family, our hometown, our dark family secrets, no
matter how we try to re-make ourselves? The answer for the characters in these
Strout stories is: no. We are bound to our family, our siblings, our towns. This
is the essential story that gets told again and again in these works by Strout.
Have you ever spent time with an author and felt you knew
their story?
PS you can always spend time with my newest young adult novel: BEFORE MY EYES! |
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Posted on Friday, March 18, 2016 3:12 PM
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Caroline Bock: Posted on Wednesday, January 27, 2016 5:08 PM
I was going to write a long blog about the value of entering
contests, but what I really want you to do is read my short story,
"Gargoyles and Stars,"winner of the 2016 Writer Magazine short story
contest judged by Colum McCann. I rarely enter contests so I truly have
no wisdom to share except to enter them once in a while, if you admire
the work of the judge or the publication, if you feel lucky, if you
don't feel lucky and want to feel lucky for a moment. ——Caroline
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Posted on Wednesday, December 23, 2015 4:35 PM
News From... The Writer Magazine Imagine
Write
Publish
December 23, 2015 Twists, turns, double meanings and double lives. These are some of the
recurring themes for our Two Roads Diverge contest. Guest judge Colum
McCann chose the three winners and an honorable mention. We are happy to
announce them here.
Read the winning story in our March issue, on newsstands February 9, and read all three on writermag.com in January.
FIRST PLACE Caroline Bock and her submission "Gargoyles and Stars" introduces us to the cheerful and humorous Lydia, on the hunt in New York City for her parked car. Despite many vibrant memories, her loyalty to the past is trumped only by the fact that it doesn’t exist in the present except in her imagi nation.
Guest judge Colum McCann noted Bock's style, saying, "It’s a brave story with many different strands nicely helixed together."
A young adult novelist, Bock has published poetry and short stories with F(r)iction, Ploughshares and Prometheus. Her poetry has been nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize. She currently lives in Maryland, where she works as freelance bookseller.
The Best Holiday Present ever! Here's to a 2016 filled with inspiration and creativity for us all!
Caroline
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Posted on Wednesday, October 28, 2015 9:36 AM
 Write 5,000 words today and you can binge-watch the rest of the first season of
Mr. Robot.
Write 4,000 words today and you can go to Starbucks for a
chai tea latte, grande, and re-read what you wrote. Live the writer’s life.
Write 3,000 words today—write hard and fast and then off to
the yoga relaxation class where you will ultimately lie on a mat and do nothing.
Write 2,000 words today and turn off the computer, leave it
off for the rest of the day, free yourself from the shackles of social media
and typing like one possessed. Write 2,000 words and go get your nails done by the
girl from Vietnam who scowls at your hands, looking at them intensely,
wondering what she should do with them. The nails are bitten down to the skin, bleeding
at her touch. All you really want is for her to hold your hands in the folds of
her own cool bones.
Write 1,000 words today and you can read the rest of
Franzen’s PURITY. You don’t know if this is a reward or not, you think not.
Write 1,000 words and you can go back to library and find new books, ones that
you will enjoy reading.
Open your novel and write 500 words this morning, you can do
this. You will know you made an effort. You will be giving the world what?
Ideas? Words. More words. Maybe some will make sense, maybe none will. You
don’t know what else means anything to you anymore. So, you write. Make a deal
with yourself: 5,000. You can do it. 5,000 words.
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Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2015 1:20 PM
Columbine April 20, 1999 Tucson
January 8, 2011 Aurora
July 20, 2012 Newtown December 12,
2012 Santa Barbara May 23, 2014 Charleston June 17, 2015 Roseburg, Oregon
October 1, 2015 Dear Politician,
The answer is not more guns. As a mother, a voter, and
writer, I strongly believe this. We need to do more now:
Ban assault style weapons for general sale.
Require Background checks and more...waiting periods...license... insurance. It shouldn’t be easier to buy and own a gun than it is to operate a
car. Fund research on guns and their usages, including gun violence in America through the ATF and other federal agencies.
Create a national minimum age for purchasing a gun—I would strongly
suggest: 25 years of age. Make logical exceptions for police and the armed
forces, or even hunters to age 21.
Change key mental health laws. If your son or daughter is
having mental health issues, the last solution is a gun. Change mental health
laws to make it easier for parents or loved ones to help stop access to guns.
Raise awareness. Fund, on a public-private basis, a massive
public awareness campaign akin to the Mothers Against Drunk Driving efforts. I
am a member of Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense a national grassroots effort, but my interest goes one step further, I have
published a young adult novel, BEFORE MY EYES (St. Martin’s Press, 2014) about
gun violence. Call out the facts: more people want MORE DONE NOW on gun laws than
ever before.
Am I against all guns? No. I respect that we have a history
of gun ownership in this country. For responsible gun owners: If you are a
hunter or a hobbyist, enjoy your gun responsibly. However, the time is now to do
all we can to “insure domestic Tranquility” (the first line of our U.S. Constitution).
It is time for all of us, but particularly our politicians, to stand up for sensible gun law legislation and do more.
Sincerely,
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Caroline Bock: Posted on Thursday, October 01, 2015 8:53 AM
HOW NOT TO WRITE...
-Listen to that voice that pounds the back of your skull
with,“Not today. I can’t do it. I’ll start on Monday morning at 6 a.m., no, at
5 a.m.”
-Oversleep on Monday morning until 7 a.m. and decide it’s
way too late to start.
-Talk about what you are going to write. Tell it to your writer friends, your book club, to the guy in accounting, who admits that the last novel he read was in
freshman English.
-Decide what you need is another outline. Exhaust yourself scribing
on a long yellow legal pad every plot point you can imagine (Zombies! Ebola
pandemics! Martians!) into your historical novel set in mid-20
century Europe.Add this yellow legal pad to the pile beside your desk.
-Confirm to yourself that what you truly need is more
research. This gets you going. The World Wide Web—hours wrap like rubber
bands into a ball— and reams of notes printed out. But it’s not enough. You can
justify a trip. You are writing about Italy, you must seek out the wonders of
Rome, or at least visit a nearby pizza joint, or partake of a shot of espresso at
the coffee shop. All this inspires you to do more research.
-Focus on your computer or your printer or desk. The printer
is hacking out pages like an old man with phlegm. Shouldn’t you upgrade? Isn’t
your monitor too small? Isn’t it time to back up? Clean up history? Shouldn’t
you be working at one of those standing desks—wouldn’t jogging on a treadmill
attached to your desk improve your writing? A trip to the office supply store is
what’s required, and you set out, determined to conquer technology and write
more, better, faster— and get in shape.
-Do anything but write one sentence and then another until a
page is done, a scene or chapter is drafted. How to write that first sentence?
That’s another blog.
----------------------------------------------------------- Much response to this post, so I've added this addendum:
"Graham Greene realized early in his writing career that if he wrote just
500 words a day, he would have written several million words in just a
few decades. So he developed a routine of writing for exactly two hours
every day, and he was so strict about stopping after exactly two hours
that he often stopped writing in the middle of a sentence...." (from the Writer's Almanac). Great advice, and now, I have to stop writing... (only kidding, I am just getting started!) Caroline
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Caroline
Bock is the author of two critically acclaimed young adult novels: LIE
(St. Martin’s Press, 2011) and BEFORE MY EYES (St. Martin’s Press,
2014). Her short stories and poetry have been published or are forthcoming in Akashic Press, Gargoyle Magazine and its
Defying Gravity Anthology, Fiction Southeast, 100 Word Story, Ploughshares,Prometheus,Vestal Review, and Zero
Dark-Thirty. She is also a contributor to The Washington Independent Review of Books. She writes every day, or
at least attempts to write. More at wwww.carolinebock.com
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Caroline Bock : Posted on Tuesday, September 01, 2015 5:32 PM
 Labor Day. Unofficial End to Summer. But summer of 2015 had
a few unexpected delights…
Books… Re-read Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret. How ahead
of the time was Judy Blume? unexpectedly fresh and relevant, especially since I have a ten-year-old daughter!
Television series… Humans on AMC… Synths, a.k.a. synthetic robots, more humane than humans—and complete with
British accents. This BBC drama is a futuristic take on the
‘Upstairs/Downstairs’ life with lots of plot turns and heart. Plus, I've read that it's already renewed for a second season.
The Strain on FX… The second season of New York City under
siege from pulp fiction-inspired, Nazi-backing, vampire-infected creatures took the idea
that NYC could be a dangerous place to bring up kids to new levels. A fabulous multi-racial
cast, inspired by novels of the same name, make this well-written series worth watching. Plus, I've heard: expect more of THE STRAIN next summer!
Movies… Jurassic World…Saw this with my kids and found, unexpectedly, it was lot
of fun for me too Made me think again: how cool would a real Jurassic Park be?
Mr. Holmes…I went for the cast—Ian McKellen as the aging Sherlock Holmes, and one of my all-time favorite actresses, Laura Linney as his housekeeper.
What I didn’t expect is how much this would be a movie about the process of writing. If you are a
writer, go immediately to see.
I Believe in Unicorns…I streamed this absolute delight of
an indie film about first love on Amazon…and now I believe in
unicorns. If you liked "Fault in Our Stars," I suggest you watch I BELIEVE IN UNICORNS. It's now streaming to a television or computer near you!
So here we are at another Labor Day, which has a special
meaning to me. The setting of my new young adult novel, BEFORE MY EYES,is Labor Day weekend on Long Island,
New York. If you haven’t read BEFORE MY EYES yet, I urge you to do so this
Labor Day. I find there’s something unexpectedly metaphysically rewarding about
reading books at the moment, or in the place, that they are set.
Onward to autumn!
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