New ways to publish

In keeping with the twitter fiction theme and new forms of publishing stories, I have found one of the most interesting ways so far. Author Shelley Jackson has published her new book 'skin' on the epidermis of willing volunteers.
I have to say I love the idea of this, I would definitely willingly volunteer for her project. I think just knowing you are part of something world wide (and volunteers do come from all over the world) that will last forever is a very special feeling.
I also love how daring this project is, the entire story is not published anywhere and the only people who get to read the whole book are the people who volunteer to get inked.
There is something so special and deeply connecting about this project idea. These people that will never meet each other are still somehow connected by the fact that they share pieces that fit together in a big puzzle of words.
To find out more there is a link to an article and Shelley's website bellow:
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20040606&slug=tattoobook06
http://ineradicablestain.com/stain.html

And the picture is from pintrest, which is where I first heard of this incredible idea

twitter fiction

1         He was young, strong and brave, the virus could care less.

·2        One summer she was happy and healthy. Something was said. The next summer she was skinny and sad.

3       He builds her up, strong and proud. Only to break her down, weak and small.

4        They said you could do anything but shot down your wildest dreams, now get back to the office

5        Is the love gone? The bullet left the barrel, no time for second guessing.

6        Who doesn’t want to get lost? That’s what I was thinking when I left, now I’m not so sure.

7        Everything is spotless, scrubbed clean. The only evidence was a small drop of blood left on the floor.

8        “Come on” he said “what could go wrong?” he never could have predicted the destruction of everything he loved.

9        Her eyes lit up with joy. He never saw his best friend come in the door behind him.

10        She was nervous because being lonely was all she knew how to do. He was going to change that

11      The light danced on the water almost like the fight never happened but it did and now you will never see him again

12      “Adventure is waiting” she whispered taking your hand and leading you into the forest, “we just need to find it.”

13       Think about the way it felt holding her, the way she fit right in the bend of your elbow, while she is in front of you requesting the keys.

14         It’s hard watching, possibly your only friend in the world go from a healthy human being to nothing at all.

15         Each bead was a person, each color, a method, each string, a country. a cold blooded way to keep track of the dead

16         You forgot your ring when you left; I wear it close to my heart. A hidden love just like me.

17         I’m watching the country pass in a blur wondering why you said no.

18         The strong soldier stood, one tear falling from his left eye.

19         “I promised I’d do anything for you, I’m just following through” he whispered to himself

20         BANG the sound was deafening but with that his tears fell to the ground with the rest of his limp body.

21         When his wife came to see the last place he stood she was awestruck

22         Amidst the muddy plane there grew one single rose

23         It was the most beautiful rose, fresh with dew mimicking the tears of a soldier.

24           When she  smelled the rose it was sweet, with a musk much like that of the soldier

25         Ironic since, it was the soldiers tears that allowed it to grow.

26         Ten years later the plane was turned into the most beautiful garden, but the rose bush in the middle was the most magnificent plant in the garden.

27         He was on a crazy break away, everyone was cheering when someone hit him from behind. The hit that changed his life.

28         He woke up in a hospital bed unable to move his feet and in incredible pain.  The taste of blood in his mouth

29         It felt like his life was over, no more hockey and no high school diploma left him with a bleak future and a severe case of depression

30         Someone suggested coaching and he realized life wasn’t over; he could coach others to greatness.

31        Ten years later he went back to find the guy that hit him, to thank him for the opportunity to coach all the way to the Stanley Cup.

http://goo.gl/5ebxB

This is an amazing movie and i would love to read the book that the movie is based on. I think that usually the book is better than the movie and the movie was amazing. The acting was flawless and the story line was amazing and dynamic. I think that this movie was probably the best performance Zack Galifinakis has ever done. I could watch this movie a million times and it would probably never get old. Go watch it!!

I found the best bed spread ever made.
source: alixmc

Good dreams are on their way.....

This is incredible....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOLOLrUBRBY

Dream Vacation

I cannot think of anything I would rather do than hit up an amazing music festival with my friends, an added bonus if that festival is in the desert near California. If I had a million dollars (musical pun) I would take all of my friends to the Coachella music festival. It's a full weekend of concerts that range in genre from rap to pop to alternative. It's gotten press recently for it's hologram performance by Tupac, however other music greats perform there regularly. Although the list isn't out yet some people that have performed in the past are: Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Mumford and Sons, Arcade Fire, Andrew Bird, Bon Iver, Black Keys, Swedish House Mafia, Frank Ocean, Arctic Monkeys, I could go on. I can't imagine how fun it would be to camp out in the desert for three night watching all these amazing bands and having the opportunity to meet some famous people (even they are enticed by the festival)!

Music Must (idea snagged from sarah's blog)

The Shout Out Louds.

The Shout Out Louds are one of my favorite bands. They put me into a great mood if I'm feeling low and keep me in a great mood if I'm not. It was a toss up as to whether I should post this or not as they are one of the best kept secrets in music I think, but it would be selfish of me not to share them. They are from Stockholm Sweden and have some of the best Indie Pop out there. I love the variety in the music on their album Our Ill Wills and would love to see them in concert one day!!

 

Armin Blasbichler created this beautiful door. I would love something like this for my room.

Writing reflection #9

I have completed about seventeen tweets out of 30. I have chosen to write the short short stories and not the extended twitter fiction. I selected this style of writing because I feel it is more complete. I am not a huge fan of things that don’t flow and to me the extended twitter fiction does not flow right. It’s choppy and inconsistent. I am finding it very hard to create a good story using only 140 characters or less, it’s hard for me to even think of one story not to mention 30 little ones. I am thinking of doing some extended tweets only consisting of three tweets, one for introduction, one for climax, and one for resolve. I am considering this because it is hard to create a complete story that I am sure that everyone will comprehend. What I mean by that is, I am trying to use creative and clever ways to create a complete story but I am not sure if other people will read them and understand all of the words that were left unsaid. So far in my list of to-do’s I have over half of the required tweets, I have included all of the dialogue needed and I have some pretty good ideas of what I want for visuals. I think I need to work on the V/A/S/K part of the to-do list. I am having lots of trouble with the character development also. I can’t figure out how to develop a character in 140 characters. It doesn’t seem possible to do it in the style of twitter fiction I chose to do. It’s a toss-up, do I focus on the story development or the character development. This will have to be an area I focus on if I do a three tweet series. I feel this project is more catered to the longer series of tweets than to individual tweets. 

reading reflection 9

Mercy

Jodi Picoult

Read pages 207-380

The book is really picking up now.

            So much has happened since the last time I checked in and I just want to sit down and finish it.

            As a usual Jodi Picoult book does the book has switched focus from before. As I predicted, Allie found out about Mia. I loved her reaction (selling all of his clothes) because I think it represents a huge change in her character. Before Allie was small and meek and shy and she would do whatever Cam asked her to do. Now however, she holds the cards because she was the one who was hurt. I was surprised however that she chose to cheat on Cam as well but realized it was not going to become a trend when she started to cry. I predict that her doing that will come back and bite her at the end now that things are resolving between the two of them.

            When Allie was in her shop burning the flowers and they mentioned that one of the flowers that accidentally caught on fire signified the death of someone close. I thought for sure that it was going to be Cam or Mia. It turned out to be Angus but I’m not so sure he was the one that the flower was hinting at.

            As for the trial, things are going excellent in my opinion. If I were a jury member I would say that the defendant should go free, no charges. Graham is doing a wonderful job defending Jamie and I still predict that He will walk free.

            I realized that the whole time I was reading I was making text-to-text connections. As I’ve said before this book is extremely similar to other Jodi Picoult books! Especially the trial scenes, she always uses a court in her books.

Writing reflection #4

Better late than never right?

            So for this writing reflection we are supposed to reflect on our six word memoirs. I took a look back on how things went with my memoirs and what I would have done differently and I came up with a few things.

            First off I thought that if I were to re-do the project I would probably have used pictures that I took myself after the initial writing process because I found that I changed my memoirs to go with the pictures instead of the other way around (the way it probably should be). If a picture did not match up with the memoir I changed the memoir, once or twice completely, so that it would go with the picture I had chosen. I feel it would have been more meaningful to create or take images of things that went with the actual memoir.

            The second thing I would have change is switched up the editing on some of the pictures. I find looking back that they all look the same in that they are all faded and saturated. I think that if I changed the editing I would make the editing correspond with the theme of the memoir more. For example if it was a sad memoir I would have brought out the blues and dulled the saturation. If it were a happy themed memoir I would have brightened it, and a nostalgic memoir I would have used about the same editing technique that I used for most of them.

Seasons

http://goo.gl/O6KaZ

For me the seasons influence how creative I can be. For example at the beginning of school (Fall) I feel like I want to be creative but have a hard time thinking of something creative to do. I work better under guidelines or with an idea already planted. I wish I could teach myself to drop everything and just create. Winter is a difficult time for me to be creative. The lack of sunshine and how little time I spend outdoors definitely influence this drop in creative juices. Everything blends into one grey blob, just like it is outside. I think this probably has a lot to do with the fact that I am right in the middle of the school year and am surrounded by structure and homework. Also, not getting out to the lake very often doesn't help either because; I am probably most creative at my cabin. When spring finally comes around I feel lighter and less grey, creativeness is brought out once again with the warm weather. However I am still in school so creativeness is not at its full as of yet. And then comes summer, the most creative season of all for me. I am at my cabin, there is no school and I can do whatever I want whenever I want. It is the best season of all for creative projects, for example me and my dad made my bed one summer and this last summer I painted my room. 

Writing Reflection

                This post we are looking at the Newspaper blackout poetry, I can honestly say that this was one of my favorite assignments so far. I love being creative but I work best with a bit of a guideline, I loved the poems because they exude so much emotion. It is so spur of the moment to just sit down and find words that speak to you. I think this would make an excellent coping exercise because it is coming straight from the heart.  I liked this project a lot because even though there were guidelines, they weren’t exactly set in stone. We could decide for ourselves whether or not we wanted to black out pictures or how long we wanted our poems to be. I loved that this project was also very aesthetically pleasing along with being creative. I think that comparing it to other types of writing this would have to be one of my favorites. I am not really a huge fan of long forms of writing (stories, essays etc…) so this short form really spoke to me. I think that it would work well for a future art project or something along those lines because it is so creative but still nice to look at. I guess I mostly learned that I do really prefer shorter forms of writing to longer ones while doing this project. I learned that, for me, it is easier to borrow words than write new ones. In conclusion, I really like this project!

reading reflection #8

Book: Mercy

Author: Jodi Picoult

Pages read: 59-207

                As I said before I am not usually a fan of Jodi Picoults writing style because I find it repetitive so as expected my predictions came true. Mia and Cam did start an affair and I really just had to roll my eyes. However, I am intrigued on the possible back story between Cam and Mia. I was wondering if it would end at simply Cam had seen her from a distance on a vacation, I really hope that it doesn’t. I was thinking about what Mia represents to Cam, I think she represents the freedom that he will probably never have. He is anchored to his town while she has no anchor to keep her anywhere. I predict that by the end of the book Allie will find out and probably react in an extreme way maybe by killing Mia or herself. That is my prediction for the end of the book.

                As far as the trial goes I am predicting that Jamie will go free. I think that everyone can sympathize with him, what he did was out of love. I don’t understand Cam’s frigidity towards Jamie, I think Cam might be jealous of the love that Jamie had for his wife because he does not love Allie enough to kill her. I was wondering while I was reading about the defense that Graham was going to use why there are so many holes in the assisted suicide case. I think that if they used all the neighbors and even the confession they could for sure get assisted suicide to pass. I’m hoping that Jamie gets what he wants; he has been through so much already I think that if the trial continues for much longer he will not be able to handle it.

                As far as text connections go, most are obvious text to world connections for example the trial, the cheating and the 60:40 ratio in the relationship. It is hard for me to connect with this book because It is about older issues, teenagers don’t generally deal with cancer, cheating or murder trials.