2.27.2011

I tried a little first person today

I tried to write in first person today. Perhaps, I didn't find the right persona. Perhaps, I'm too into reading a novel right now to write. Whatever the reason, I didn't get very far into a story or a character. Here is what I came up with:
The money is good, but I hate working with Wizard Ink. It isn’t as if the customers who request the stuff are looking for high end work either. If I had to rate Wizard Ink customers, I’d put them beneath the virgin flesh that picks something off the flash wall or out of Tattoo Magazine. Sure. Some the art found in magazines is truly worthy of skin. However, most of it was just hack flash. Real artists didn’t need to advertize to get work, word just got around. Ink collectors would find the truly talented ink slingers wherever they set up shop. The same was true about tattooists who could sling Wizard Ink. 
Wizard Ink is a thick rubbery substance that comes in only four unmixable colors: Brown – Earth, Green – Wind, Blue – Water, and Red – Fire. If there is any redeeming quality to working with Wizard Ink, it’s that I only had to work with one color at a time. No shading with black or whites, designs are solidly myopic. Most customers opt for sold bands circling wrists, arms, or legs, and mostly of only one of the four colors. Wizard Ink wasn’t to enhance beauty. Customers sought the function of the ink.
I've been somewhat successful writing in first person. I don't know why I avoid the first person like a pockmarked plague victim. I think that I'm going to chalk today up to reading. I'm overly enjoying Moon Called by Patrica Briggs. However, if you want to read a first person story by me that I felt went well, you can download, free, vol. 7 of eFiction Magazine - download - and read my story "Alhazred's Walls." Strangely, "Alhazred's Walls" is also about tattooing.

2.24.2011

OMG! It's a Doughnut Tour!



DINING & WINE
A New York City Doughnut TourPublished: February 23, 2011
A look at three of the city’s doughnut greats: Dough, Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop and the Doughnut Plant.

There is nothing more enjoyable than a fresh doughnut. I know that they are not health and that I can't eat them all the time, but I crave them non-stop. Yes. I'm addicted to doughnuts. My fate in hell will likely be the same as Homers'. If I ever get to see New York, I'm so going to take tour of all the pastry shops - doughnuts aren't just fro breakfast you know.

2.23.2011

Advance Praise for "The Many Lives of Inez Wick" @DougLance editor of eFiction Magazine


More advance praise for The Many Lives of Inez Wick. This time from a long time suporter and advocate of my work, Doug Lance, the editor of eFiction Magazine: The Primer Internet Fiction Magazine:
"Wilson's new collection will keep you guessing until the very last sentence, and he has a special talent of making you look at everyday people in new and awe inspiring ways. The Many Lives of Inez Wick stole me in the night and wouldn't let go until the final page."
Not only did he provide these kind words to help promote my collection of linked stories, he is going to provide ad space in the March 2011 issue of eFiction Magazine for it, and (on top all he's already done) he is going to publish my short story "The Return of Melanoplus spretus (The Rocky Mountain Locust): Extinct 1902" in the March 2011 issue.

Doug, you're the best!

Oh! Don't forget to either comment on the blog post Join The Party or attend The Facebook Virtual Party for a chance to win a copy of The Many Lives of Inez Wick.

2.20.2011

The Many Lives of Inez Wick is Done! Join the Party!


Facebook Virtual Release Party
Woot! I'm done editing the proof. The new release date is March 1, 2011, a few days from now. I'll post an announcement will a link to where the book can be purchased on March 1st.

Here are some editing highlights:

  • Table of Contents page numbers were all off by 10 pages
  • Using italic for internal monologue in "The Bike Mechanic"
  • Clarity - using nouns instead of pronouns (something that I teach my English students)
  • Consistency - if I write eight-ball then all ___-balls should be hyphenated
  • Making sure that all names from previous story editions were changed to "Inez Wick"
  • If errors had winners, here it is: "kitten/dinning room" should be "kitchen/dining room"
Taking the time for the final edit was well worth it. Readers will now have a better book and a much clearer read! 

Make sure that you join the Facebook Virtual Party to win one of two copies, or you can comment on the this post for a chance to win one copy. (But not both - does that make sense?) 

Hope to see you - virtually - on March 1st. 

2.11.2011

No Romance Poetry Reading @9to5poet - 2/13/2011

Original Blog Post

Facebook Event

Sunday, February 13, 2011 at 5:00 PM 
Bean Good Cafe
5101 Minnetonka BoulevardSt. Louis Park, MN 55416
Celebrate the love of poetry and music with:
Award winning poet Elizabeth Burns - Poet Jessica Fox-Wilson, author of Blameless Mouth (Everything Feeds Process Press) - and featuring the music of guitarist Molly Burns-Hansen
Jessica will have copies of Blameless Mouth for sale at the reading. I hope to see you at Bean Good Cafe around 5! 

2.10.2011

Desert Island Books

My Desert Island Collection would include:

  • The Complete Sophocles
  • The Iliad
  • The Odyssey
  • The Complete Divine Comedy
  • The Complete Sherlock Homes
  • The Complete Shakespeare
  • The Complete William Blake 
  • The Canterbury Tales
  • The Complete Edgar Allen Poe
  • Snakes and Earrings by Hitomi Kanehara
My one cultural choice would include:
  • 1776 by David G. McCullough
My one religious choice would include:
  • The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

Rules for your desert island list via Reading in Reykjavík:

There can be more than one book in a volume, but I can only choose10 volumes plus a book of national importance to my culture and one religious book. Since there is no electricity on my fictional desert island and I can only take a limited number of batteries with me – all of which I will need to power my flashlight and an emergency radio – I can not take an e-book reader.

2.06.2011

FOG ISLAND FLOWERS by Tonya R. Moore


Fog Island Flowers by Tonya R. Moore
Re-released in web serialized
Starting February 2011

Jonathan Baron's music has left him and so has the love of his life, a woman he's no longer certain even really exists. Convinced that his buried childhood memories are the key to determining whether or not she was merely a figment of his imagination, he seeks out his family's ancestral home.

From the moment he sets foot unto Fogg Island, things just don't seem quite right. Anna, Eloise and Sorcha claim to be his last living relatives but it's glaringly obvious that none of them are actually related to him by blood. By the time he crosses paths with the ghostly and subtly terrifying Cassandra, Jonathan will already be entangled in an eons old saga of murder, madness, and macabre alien science.

2.05.2011

Alfred Hitchcock's "39 Steps" - Painted by Daniela Weiser


A good college friend was interviewed, Daniela Weiser.  Good luck getting the show done and ready this weekend! I love the brick wall.


Blurb from YouTube: 
"Scenic charge artist Daniela Weiser takes you behind the scenes of the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina's latest production, "Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps." The comedic muder-mystery runs Feb. 8-27. See what goes on behind the curtain at this performing arts center on Hilton Head Island, S.C."