To encourage my neighbor writers in the creation of art.
To attend local literary events, because gathering to discuss ideas and encourage creativity is an essential and radical act in these times.
To support my independent bookstore or, if I don’t have one, order direct from the publisher.
To foster a healthy small press and literary magazine climate by reading new work and submitting my own.
To introduce new friends to my core community, allowing us to grow louder and stronger together.
To credit writers and presses publicly for their ideas, photos, and efforts, and to be genuine with praise.
To celebrate every success in my community as a shared success. This is Main Street. Parades welcome.
And, to address the import of the first image up there, it shows two of my author friends (Ali Noel Vyain and Jane Watson) in the virtual world, The State of Writing, on the virtual grid Kitely.
We recently, thanks to the owner, author, Jane Watson, began to discuss Main Street Writers as it relates to her Worlds.
Even though the Movement stresses local engagement, my first awareness of it was from an author in London—it seems to be going global while it establishes itself in localities…
And, as far as the virtual worlds I visit, there are writers from Ohio, Indiana, Maryland, California, Germany, Australia, and the Country of Georgia (among other locations on the Earth)…
In Jane’s worlds, whether we’re sitting in a cafe, climbing a mountain, taking a boat ride, hang-gliding, or walking under water, we constantly come back to talking about reading, writing, editing, publishing, and other writerly topics…
So, you can join Main Street Writers as a person “…who wishes more people were reading and talking about literature.“
And, you can come join us writers and artists in Jane Watson’s virtual worlds.
Here are a few guidelines for entering Kitely and finding Jane’s worlds:
Kitely works best with the Firestorm virtual world viewer—you definitely want the one that says “Opensim” in the description…
Most viewers have the Kitely grid predefined, so you can select it from a menu. For example, in Firestorm the Menu is labeled “Grid” and is located under where you enter your username and password.
When you first enter Kitely you will find yourself at the Welcome area, where can choose your first avatar.
Then, go to the Explore World Pages on the Kitely webpage and enter State of Writing in the Search Bar.
Though, you might want to visit another world of Jane’s called Avatari—you can find a bunch of different avatars there, grab as many as you want…
When you’ve logged in, find the avatar, Arton Tripsa, in search. To facilitate contact you may offer her Friendship and she’ll invite you to the Writers Island Group and, if necessary, send you some LandMarks to help you get around…
If you’re baffled by these instructions, send me an email, amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com, and I’ll have Jane contact you directly and help you enter her virtual worlds :-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you don’t see a way to comment (or, “reply”) after this post, try up there at the top right… Read Some Strange Fantasies Grab A Free Novel…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Google Author Page For Private Comments or Questions, Email: amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com
Sometimes we talk in nice buildings, sometimes on boating trips, sometimes just sitting on the grass, or the top of a mountain…
And, I don’t pay anything but my basic Internet fee to do all this virtual socializing…
So, the other night, at The Muse (a cool space we visit a lot),I was chatting with my Best Friend (from Australia) and my Good Buddy (from Maryland {in the USA}) and someone new dropped by.
This new guy happened to live just a few miles from me in real life (Ohio—USA) but his ancestry was from a country in Asia that I’d spent time in when I was serving in the Navy…
Also, what he was talking about was nearly identical to a book I’d just read about how to get more done in less time…
I know, I promised faster reading—so, why am I going on about my virtual social life?
Basically because, when I’m doing my thing in a virtual world, I expect to be talking to folks who are many miles physically-distant and not having an ancestry that stretches back to the one place on the earth I had to travel farthest to reach while also sounding nearly exactly like the man speaking in the book I’d just finished !
The psychologist, Carl Jung, would have called so many “coincidences” a case of “Synchronicity“.
And, when this kind of thing happens, I take the time and what’s talked about Very Seriously…
One of the very serious things I followed up on was his recommendation of a particular web site and new “Reading Technology” called Spritz.
My new synchronistic-friend in Kitely had shared that he’d only read 4 books in his life due to a particular mental-syndrome he has—he just couldn’t pay attention long enough to finish more than a few dozen pages…
After he’d played with Spritz for awhile, he found himself reading so quickly and retaining so much that, in a relatively short time, he’d finished about 70 books…
Spritz lets you adjust your reading speed from 40 WordsPerMinute to 1,000 WPM!
So, because of my publishing experiment on Wattpad (which involves one heck of a lot of reading), I’m going to be experimenting with Spritz…
“Removing the eye movements associated with traditional reading methods not only reduces the number of times your eyes move when reading, but also decreases the number of times your eyes must pass over a word for your brain to understand it. This makes spritzing extremely efficient, precise, convenient and comfortable.”
And, on the page where you find all the places you can use Spritz, you learn that it can be used on the Web, with 6 different Apps on iOS, 3 different Apps on Android, the Windows Phone, the Samsung Galaxy S5, the Samsung Gear2, and 3 websites that have integrated Spritz Technology…
Plus, I want to share two very important points from their FAQ page:
Does it require special training?
Unlike other reading techniques, you don’t have to receive special training to read with Spritz. And… the more you practice, the faster you will go, the smoother the reading will seem and the higher your retention will be. What you need to learn: relax! Don’t try to scan the words from left to right. Simply look at the red character and trust that your brain retains the whole word. When you relax, you will concentrate more on the content – see next question.
Will I even remember anything I read?
Of course… Our testing shows that the retention levels when spritzing are at least as good as with traditional reading and that, with just a little bit of experience, you will retain even more than you did before. How long can I spritz in one session? Internally, we’ve tested to about 2 hours straight with no breaks. Then our tester had to pee. If you have a large bladder and would like to take a shot at the record, by all means, go for it and let us know the results.
I’ll be experimenting with Spritz on Wattpad and I’ll share my results—(soon ?)—but, if you try it, do, please give us a report in the Comments :-)
Oh! Here’s a nifty short video about Spritz:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Read Some Strange Fantasies Grab A Free Novel…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To Leave A Comment, Use The Link At The Top-Right of The Post :-) For Private Comments or Questions, Email: amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com
As usual, I’ll excerpt (with comments) and encourage you to go read the full article…
Early in the article, Lucia says:
“In 1975, I accepted a job in Anne Arundel County’s exceptionally fine public library system.”
You’d think someone who’d spent so much time around books would be able to imagine writing one; yet, after an editor told her she should do just that, she said:
“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t know how to write plots or character development or snappy dialogue.”
Luckily, the editor replied:
“Just shut up and do it.”
After much prodding, she began her attempt to write a novel, finished a six-chapter draft, sent it to the editor who’d gotten her into this, and had him give her the name of another editor to submit to—result (in Lucia’s own words):
“A week later Pam called the library and offered me a contract to finish what turned out to be a 562-page historical novel, Ride the Wind.”
Lucia went on to write nine more novels…
And, apart from asking you, again, to go read the full article, the best ending to this post is this excerpt:
“My tenth and latest work of fiction, Devilish, is set in the present in Anne Arundel County. But no matter when or where a novel takes place, the writer and the reader make an unspoken pact. The astute reader says, ‘I know you’re lying to me, but I’ll suspend disbelief on the chance that, together, we’ll come to some greater truth.’
“That’s how I’ve made peace with being a professional liar.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Read Some Strange Fantasies Grab A Free Novel…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To Leave A Comment, Use The Link At The Top-Right of The Post :-) For Private Comments or Questions, Email: amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com
We really got into it—why I wrote the book, how it relates to current world conditions, how I promoted it in Second Life, the two books I’m working on to follow the novel, how Second Life is more than a virtual “game”—how it can be used as therapy for disabled folk, used to do research for writing, used to relax from the stresses of the “real” world…
We also got into some of my thoughts about what’s wrong in our world and what’s needed to heal it.
That’s something I’ll never stop talking about…
There are lots of people who rant about what’s wrong and jump on various bandwagons of activism, too often proposing “fixes” that are only band-aids to cover a few wounds and not the strong medicine that’s necessary to enable humanity to reach the healthy state of peace and tranquility…
In spite of the serious nature of those topics, Angela and I also had lots of fun in our conversation :-)
Some folks claim that friendships in virtual worlds aren’t real…
I would say two things:
They didn’t use the right virtual world.
or
They’ve never been in a virtual world.
Perhaps a quote from that guest post is in order:
“If you’ve never experienced virtual reality, the first, obvious yet often-overlooked, fact is that there is a real person behind every virtual person. You may be sitting in a fake coffee house, ‘drinking’ fake coffee with a 3-D representation of another person, but that other person is ‘there’, responding to you…”
I have a friend on Book Island named Donjuan Writer.
He’s ultra-intelligent, from the UK, living in Sweden, writes awesome poetry, and is looking into making films in Second Life.
I’ve had many amazing conversations with him.
Recently, he told me he’d had a “breakout” event—performed some of his poetry in public.
There’s a video down there with him performing the poem and I’m going to put the words here, too.
First though, I want to give the definitions for a word used in the poem—bollocks:
1 – the testicles.
2 – [treated as singular] nonsense; rubbish (used to express contempt or disagreement, or as an exclamation of annoyance).
War On Bo**ocks
Ladies and gentlemen, Brothers and sisters Children and animals Flora and fauna, rent boys and feminists, movement-makers and cynical bastards, people of the world, I declare a war, on Bollocks.
Let us not be mistaken this is not a war on dog’s bollocks. “Dog’s bollocks” is our unifying cry. No it is bollocks and bollocks alone that calls us to action.
For too long, bollocks has paraded itself as reality. Broadcasted bollocks has been viewed by our children. Bollocks has been exposed to the peoples of other cultures, even the very notion of culture, has become bollocks.
We have no idea to what degree bollocks may have infiltrated our borders. We can never document how much bollocks has gone unchecked. And while the bollocks that springs to mind hang before our opened eyes, the untold bollocks beyond our peripheries, aside from our focus, underlying the fabric of our cares, hanging there in the gob-smacked vacuum of the truth-filled cosmos, continue to taunt and dare us.
There is so much bollocks in our midst that it is fair to conclude that the world rests on the top of almighty bollocks.
To the bollocks, I say “bollocks” and take back what’s rightfully mine; my bollocks my business and the bollocks of men, women and children are their own bollocks.
The bollocks we rise against are the bollocks that would destroy us. the bollocks that would enslave us, the bollocks that would have us teetering on the edge as we slave away in a rut that has us pummeled and bombarded by bollocks day in day out, the bollocks belligerently bashes, beats and bastardises our rights to just hang about and talk bollocks.
Our rights will be etched loud and proud on our collective, human constitution, the right to bare bollocks in the name of world peace space travel, clean energy, healthy food affordable medical care access to education and the longevity of life; the ability to travel the globe with a smile on our faces and to smile without fear in the face of a new endeavor an endevour into the future the future that is free from this bollocks. Brothers, sisters, hermaphrodites, hear my plea, Bollocks to bollocks it’s dog’s bollocks time!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Our Comment Link Is At The Top of The Post :-) For Private Comments, Email: amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com * Google Author Page
We recently, thanks to the owner, 
World News
Notes from An Alien 