What a delicious treat it is to get a book about the craft of writing from Francesca Lia Block! I’ve been a fan of hers since Weetzie Bat & I was so excited to hear about her thoughts on healing and writing, on art and life. Kudos to her for invoking the spirit of Frida Kahlo vis a vis the name of her book.

Writing is about more than words on a page and the story they tell. Lia Block goes to the next level and translates her pain, suffering, joy, and elation through beautifully crafted prose.
Writing is a way to heal, a way to process, and a way to explore.
Having an expert in the field take you through her experience is like being a fly, not on the wall, but inside her emotions.
This book is so much more than a memoir. Beautifully done.

The Thorn Necklace Healing Through Writing and the Creative Process

by Francesca Lia Block
Perseus Books, Da Capo Press

Seal Press

Biographies & Memoirs ,
Self-Help
Pub Date 01 May 2018


I am reviewing a copy of The Thorn Necklace by Perseus Books, Da Cala Press and Netgalley in exchange for my honest review!
If you are a fan of Bird by Bird or the Artist's way and looking to grow as a writer or author then Francesca Lia Block's The Thorn Necklace is a book you will want to add to your library.

Francesca Lia Block reminds us that artists bleed their work. We are reminded too that the people we love are not perfect and the same is true for our mentors! We are reminded to that our characters need both strength and flaws! We are reminded too that like our characters it is our strengths as well as our weaknesses that make us unique.

We are reminded too that when we write from our deepest longings, our writing has a broader appeal.


As writers it is important we ask ourselves what our characters want, and what they need. We are reminded that all writers and artists Chanel there pain into art, but sadly not all survive that pain. The author points out too that creating powerful sensory descriptions can have a healing effect on the writer. We are encouraged to read widely and write consistently in order to develop our own unique voice as a writer.

I give The Thorn Necklace five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

"My true muse has always been the protagonist of my first book, a bleach-blond fairy named from the license plate I’d seen on a Bazookabubblegum-pink Pinto on the 405 when I was sixteen, that girl in rhinestone-studded rose-colored Harlequin sunglasses and a pair of roller skates, that girl who would grow up, find true love and family, find herself. In other words, my muse was my alter ego, a distinct, if internalized, part of me."

I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Perseus Books and Da Capo Press. I fell in love with Francesca Lia Block’s Dangerous Angels books in college, and they’re still among my favorites. I seem to have more writers all the time whose books I’ll read no matter the subject, but Block has long been one of them. She’s such a beautiful, atmospheric writer with a head full fairies and mythology. Trigger warnings: death, severe illness, cancer, eating disorders, anorexia.

The Thorn Necklace is part memoir and part writing guide. From growing up in Los Angeles and going to punk rock shows to battling anorexia and surviving her father’s death with cancer, Block records her life in a series of seductive muses and glam outfits. Through it all, she turned to writing to make it through, and now she’s sharing her writing advice and strategies with her readers.

There’s something of a split in this book’s agenda between stories about Block’s life and sets of writing exercises and examples, and I’m not sure they ever fully come together. On the one hand, I can see the connection because writing has been a constant throughout her life, and it makes sense to frame the story around something that is always there for her. On the other, the actual writing advice seems at odds with the rest of her storytelling. It’s a series of concepts applied to a handful of titles in popular fiction, such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Lolita. I haven’t read a lot of writing guides, but the advice seemed fairly standard to me, and I was tempted to skim those sections. If there’s an overall message though, it’s not to give up on yourself and your story. Even if it’s never published or popular or bestselling, there’s value in telling it. Again, I don’t know how that compares to other writing guides, but Block’s faith in her readers is reassuring.

The stories of her life were easily my favorite parts. I don’t read a lot of memoirs written by famous people, first because they’re usually not very well-written, and second because they tend not to do the important social/cultural work that really good memoirs do. It’s not enough to write about your life; you have to make it mean something. Block has already proven herself a wonderful and prolific writer though, and her descriptions of life in glamorous and grungy Los Angeles seem straight out of one of her novels. It was fascinating to see how much overlap there is between her life and her stories. She says that Weetzie has always been her true muse, and I have no difficulty believing it. I think fans of her novels will appreciate it most. There are maybe a few too many descriptions of outfits (some including long lists), but again, I can kind of see why. We see our lives through different filters, mine through books and music, and Block’s through writing and clothing. I’m not sure we could tell our stories without them.

From her poetry collection, How to (Un)Cage a Girl, I knew Block hadn’t had the easiest life, and she handles a number of serious issues with grace in her memoir. I cried a few times over her father’s death and Block’s mourning process, which in some ways is never really over. The real tragedy of the story is her self-destructive search for a fulfilling relationship though. This has always been a difficult concept for me to understand because I’ve never minded being alone. (Then again, I have a full support system in my family/friends.) But Block is unflinching in her descriptions of her experiences, and she never fails to take full responsibility for her mistakes, which ultimately makes her a very sympathetic character in her own story. I’m so happy that she’s managed to find love and stability in My (Her) Secret Agent Lover Man, just like Weetzie. While this doesn’t have the magic of her novels for me, I’m happy to feel like I know her a little better.

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.

“Frida Kahlo had polio as a child,” said Francesca Lia Block in her book The Thorn Necklace, referring to the painter, “survived a horrific accident at eighteen that shattered her body and pierced her pelvis with an iron hand rail, and suffered through a number of resulting miscarriages. To add insult to injury, her husband…had an affair with her younger sister. But Frida produced hundreds of works of art…that elevate unbearable grief to shocking beauty. Some artists survive their pain, some do not. But all channel it into art.”

It is that channeling that Block refers to as the thorn necklace for which she names her book. Kahlo herself said: “my painting carries with it the message of pain,” and that pain is definitely evident in her painting Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, which you can see here. To be an artist, to a certain extent, is to take the pain that life gives you and channel it into something beautiful, to show that something good can come from something bad. I believe it’s also to don a painful mantle as well. In the painting, Kahlo wears a necklace made of thorns. It pricks her skin and makes her bleed. To produce true beauty–no matter the artistic form–one has to undergo a certain amount of “pain” at worst, or challenge at least. To create whole worlds from nothing, in the case of science fiction and fantasy literature, and structure them into cohesive and compelling plots populated with characters that feel real is no small task.

Block’s book is a memoir of sorts, describing the challenging life path she’s traversed and couching that in her thoughts on writing. “A way to help a reader to identify with a protagonist,” she says, “(and thereby gain more life-enhancing insight from the story) is to the show that character’s…flaws. Flaws…get a character into trouble, which satisfies the reader’s need for story.” She provides this before describing the flaws of some well-known book characters as well as some of her own flaws and those of her parents. That reminiscing passage, as well as many others woven throughout the book, is somewhat rambling. She calls it “excess exposition in memoir” which “comes from being engulfed in a tidal wave of vague memories that haven’t solidified into scenes yet, and, in turn, [results in] a passive character…who feels and thinks but doesn’t do much.” She sums up her book quite succinctly.

But there are undeniable nuggets of wisdom interspersed among the rambling, excessive parts, nuggets that could be very useful for a writer, such as:

When you claim your creativity, when you say, “I am a writer,” it becomes a vital part of your identity. You’re not only braver on the page, you’re also braver in the rest of your life because you’re a change agent, a builder of new worlds.
When we write from our deepest longings, our stories have broader appeal.
In order to get in touch with your obsessions [and thus flavor your character’s], try making a list of anything that fascinates you. Be as specific and detailed as possible.
One of the biggest mistakes writers make is not having a clear story problem from the beginning (or sometimes at all).
[The antagonist] must be complex and dimensional, not a mustache-twirling caricature.
Setting should reflect character.
[Voice]…is one of the most difficult aspects of writing for many people and can take years of hard work to hone. But don’t give up! Once you have your voice, the rest is much easier. To develop your voice, read widely, write consistently, and live fully. A strong writing voice can connect us to others, and more deeply to ourselves.
Some of these nuggets I’ve heard before in other writing books and at writing conferences, so they weren’t necessarily unique, but the way they were phrased helped me see better how I could apply them in my writing life.

So, The Thorn Necklace, while rambling and repetitive, was also helpful and encouraging. I would recommend it to my writer friends.