Things from Three Graces

This is a mess of links of things Heather and I have from Three Graces, they brighten up our lives, because that's what art should do.

I love this AManda Atkins piece. It is a funny take on Nancy Drew and that ilk
http://amandaatkins.blogspot.com/2010/09/and-roses-ran-rampant.html

This was purchased the first time we went into the store. This is on a wall with a bunch of other monster drawings and paintings
http://nicolemaloof.com/artwork/786361.html

These next two are by a soft scuplture artist Abby Glassenberg whose owls make Heather swoon. We don't have owls, but we have these two birds and two others
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25512190@N00/4857064345/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25512190@N00/2805949332/in/set-72157619007769910

This is the latest thing we got from Kim at Three Graces. Heather adores it. It is on he wall right under a really awesome Syd Hoff drawing we have. The two work great together
http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1024&bih=491&tbm=isch&tbnid=pfD3JtZr941yMM:&imgrefurl=http://www.threegracesgallery.com/shop_deniseduong.html&docid=Ig-5oEddcPCtAM&imgurl=http://www.threegracesgallery.com/Denise_Duong/ITsAlwaysfunwhen.jpg&w=650&h=650&ei=-jqTUPGkIYns0QH684Bo&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=96&vpy=137&dur=7004&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=127&ty=187&sig=107206406750834753625&page=1&tbnh=140&tbnw=137&start=0&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,i:72

On our walls at home is a lot of art, but five of them all come from one gallery. It is a gallery in portsmouth NH that is going to be closing of nine years.http://www.threegracesgallery.com/ I love their art and Heather and I have gone crazy for much of their work. Kim, the owner, wrote that she is ready to focus on her own art and who can blame her. Still. One less place where beauty might be allowed to happen.

another story

Might as well link another story I got published online this month. I don't have much to say about this. I think I was trying to come up with a story for an anthology looking for b-movie like tales. I came up witha mole rat story, sort of, and then I was almost instantly bored with the idea and instead I remembered a story this guy told me - that he lived in the desert in 60s and how he and his buddies were indian extras for a few awful Westerns. I put the two ideas together and this came out. This is very much in my wheel house, how someone older finds hope in a past that might not be real. I might have to stop writing that story, but hell, it works for me for now.

http://www.fiction365.com/2012/10/i-was-a-teenage-mole-rat/

Story of Love

So here is a story I wrote a month back and was published by Daily Love. I took the title and the landmarks from my morning commute through Worcester. I saw the homeless person holding the sign mentioned in the story and I went from there. Because I was driving through Kelly Square at the time I gave my self permission to use the real place and the real traffic, it makes it easier when you write to not always create things from whole cloth. Lazy lazy lazy writer, no comma soup for you!!!!

http://www.dailylove.net/search?q=kelly+square

Be Kind to Your Audience

I listen to a lot of books on tape (CD) due to driving too much for work. This week is a YA oriented anthology "Zombies v Unicorns" every other story is either a zombie story or one about unicorns. The stories  are okay I guess, but one thing annoyed me.

So for the Zombie story, Children of the Revolution, the protagonist is a college student in England who is being 800 pounds to watch the five adopted children of a famous actress (sorta Angelie Jolie) for one night. The kids are in a closed space and the girl is not allowed to have face to face with them. This "mystery" goes on for 80 percent of the story. The girl does not know what is wrong with these kids. So over an overwrought section, she frees them and they bite her.

The part that annoys me is that this is set up as a surprise, as a long reveal, but we know the reveal. They are zombies. How do we know the children are zombies before the writer reveals it? Because we are reading a zombie story is a zombie anthology. Did the author not know where this story was?

Where is the fun reading a twist y ending tale when you know all the twists before you crack open the book? This is lazy writing. Find a way to write it where it is still interesting and surprising, even though we know what the creature is. We are readers who read zombie stories, we have read a lot of them, please be kind to us and not expect us just falling off the turnip truck.

...wait for it....

For years, one of the ways I use poetry open mikes is to hear the current work of writing in front of an audience, it is part of the editing process. So last night I tried a piece with a good punch line and one I thought funny. It went really well, but here's the thing, the audience was laughing to themselves when I got to the set up for the punchline, they laughed at the punchline too, but they got the joke before I laid it on them.

The question I have for myself is should I fix it or is it fine as it is, a laugh is a laugh whether it is where I want it or not? Should I allow the audience to be smarter than me or should I find a way to surprise them. I think I am leading to the former because the audience is smarter than I am.

Inspiration thou name is icky cookie concept

I realized I have not written any of the series I have been doing such as the Grand Fiend or the Short Order Mad Man and I had no ideas so I wasn't thinking of it or worried. Now I read this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/07/candy-corn-oreos_n_1865397.html

How can I not write a short order mad man story about this? Just need to make it weirder, though I don't know if  I have that power. Candy Corn Oreos seem like a torture implement from some lost civilization, lost because they made Candy Corn Oreos.

I will be in a slam tomorrow so I have to work on prepping for that but I hope to write this Oreo monsterpiece today.