by John Kingston | Jul 5, 2014 | Interviews, Writers Advice
I was recently asked to participate in a Blog Tour Q&A with Kris Mehigan. You can visit her blog at:
http://krismehigan.tumblr.com/
Right now, I am working on:
…a couple of books, actually. The book I recently finished is titled, “The Portraits of Gods”. Here’s the jacket description:
At 49, Bryan Wakefield finds himself at a crossroads in his life. Approaching retirement, he considers what life will be like once he is forced to abandon the daily means of escape his job has provided from the tumult of his personal life. To complicate matters, Jack also possesses superior autobiographical memory; an extraordinary ability that allows him to recall specific events from any given date in his past with uncanny accuracy. It’s this very ability that causes him to dwell incorporeally in the doorway between past and present, comparing the dreams and reverie of youth to the disappointment of his adult life. One day, on his way to work, Bryan misses his exit. But instead of getting off at the next exit, he continues driving, setting into motion events that will force him to strip away his desensitization by pitting past against present and breathe new life into his search for validity and meaningfulness.
Blending beauty and symmetry of language, The Portraits of Gods tells the tale of lost love and one man’s struggle with the slow-acting poison of regret.
The work is currently being shopped around for publishers.
My work differs from others in the genre because of my…
…tendency to blend deep philosophy with events and situations we’ve all experienced. Living’s a hard thing, or at least it can be as long as you’re not blissfully ignorant.
I write what I do because…
That’s simple: Because I have to.
My writing process is…
I identify myself as a writer, though to help pay the bills, I “moonlight” as a police officer. In the pre-dawn hours, I like to park someplace scenic in my patrol car with a cup of coffee and my laptop and write while watching the sunrise…do it before all the calls for service start coming in. The morning seems to be the time of day when the ideas flow most smoothly for me. It’s also indescribably meditative. Otherwise, I don’t have a set method of writing. Although I keep notes of my work to keep me from running into plotline snags, I don’t do outlines and such. I tend to just write where the wind takes me. And then I’ll do as many revisions as possible until I’m satisfied with it.
Coming Monday: Redwoods Society Intern Cliff Gateflower visits the Mall of America to do some people-watching.
by John Kingston | Jun 10, 2014 | Interviews
Her books have rung the bells of the New York Times Best Seller list ever since her debut novel, The Informationist, first burst onto the literary scene to critical acclaim (the book is currently being adapted into film by director James Cameron).
Since then, author Taylor Stevens has assembled a global following of fans with her Vanessa Michael Munroe series; the main character of which has been described as a heroine with shades of Jason Bourne, Sherlock Holmes and Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander.
Born and raised into the apocalyptic, sex-and-Jesus hippie cult, the Children of God (the same cult that the family of River Phoenix once belonged to and which now goes by the name, Family International), Stevens was separated from her family at a young age and denied an education beyond sixth grade. Sent to CoG-operated communes throughout the globe, she lived a bleak adolescence that consisted of begging on city streets and caring for the commune’s younger children. It wasn’t until she was in her twenties that Stevens managed to break free from the cult.
The highly anticipated latest installment in her Vanessa Michael Munroe series, The Catch, is scheduled for release on July 15.
In an interview with the author, she discusses the long and meandering journey from cult kid to bestselling author.
(more…)
by John Kingston | May 15, 2014 | Musings, Uncategorized
I swoon for summer. I get hot for the heat. The waft of barbecue in the summer air is like an aphrodisiac. For my money, nothing beats a road trip with the windows down and a great music playlist. Yep, nothing gets my dopamine flowing better than a pleasant day. But that’s the problem. As a lifelong Michigander, I’ve come to learn that pleasant days aren’t exactly something you can plan a picnic around. (more…)
by John Kingston | May 12, 2014 | Memories
The following first appeared in Laura Hedgecock’s blog, www.treasurechestofmemories.com. With the trees budding and the bees buzzing, I thought it’d be a fitting post for a spring day.
There we stood, lined up along that faulted slab of asphalt outside the school gymnasium. Third grade. That time when it began to dawn on me that there might actually be something awkward in the way I looked—freckled with a wavy mop of hair; brown corduroy pants and red pull-ring zipper shirt that I’d come to know as my “Tuesday” ensemble. (more…)
by John Kingston | Apr 20, 2014 | Character Development, Memories, Writers Advice
The author as “Corey Brown”
Without even trying, I tend to be attracted to literary and film characters that, like me, share a nihilistic view of life and morality. Pretty ironic, given the fact that my day job requires me to uphold and enforce laws enacted from a bunch of handed-down, subjective truths. Perhaps it’s a bit of the Preacher’s Kid Syndrome in me, but there’s a part of me that envies those pesky trickster figures that get everyone all up in a twitter. You need ‘em to challenge the status quo; to point out the ideological hypocrisies of personal values. But above all, they’re just a heck of a lot more interesting to have around.
Back in my undercover days, I had one of the most succinct, albeit brief, conversations about this very topic with the unlikeliest of persons: a coke addict. For the past month, I’d been meeting “Ken” (not his real name) in his sad, flat apartment where, beneath the seizure-inducing flicker of a dying fluorescent light, I’d hand him $160 in exchange for an 8-ball of cocaine. Quick and simple. In-and-out. (more…)
by John Kingston | Mar 24, 2014 | Musings, The Writing Life, Writers Advice
While in the throes of my most recent bout of writer’s block, I made the following observations:
- Dee Wallace is disproportionately represented in the number of movies we keep on hand at our vacation cabin.
- I have a difficult time wrapping up conversations.
- Every time I go shopping in a department store I become irrationally paranoid that people think I’m there to shoplift.
On the surface these things may seem unrelated to the condition of writer’s block, but upon further scrutiny, it would appear as if, somewhere along the way, my psyche might have gotten short-changed on balls. (more…)
by John Kingston | Mar 3, 2014 | Musings, Writers Advice
Six years…and that’s not counting the revisions. Entire residential subdivisions have sprung up around you in less time. New sections of interstate have been constructed. National monuments refaced. Six years ago, you helped elect a new President and have since come to regret it. Six years ago you had no children. Now, you have two. In six years, the few wily strands of gray hair you once had have spread across your head like tundra. Dictators have been deposed. Big-name celebrities have died. And all along, you’ve sat right there at that chair, staring out past the blinking cursor of your computer screen through a window as the seasons have paraded past. (more…)
by John Kingston | Feb 19, 2014 | Memories, Travel
The man sitting across the aisle from me openly peruses a Penthouse, which, for some reason, no one seems to take note of but me. I’m cradling a coffee and watching the day gather in the east. The image of my face appears in the window, ghostlike against the blur of the rolling landscape. Every so often another train will pass in the opposite direction; the indistinct faces of other passengers flashing quickly before me like grainy celluloid images. People with identities and dreams and triumphs and losses and stories all their own who’ll appear before me in a flash then vanish forever, as I to them. (more…)
