Guest Visit: Marvin Wilson of The Old Silly

Today's guest is Marvin D. Wilson, aka The Old Silly, who joins us to chat about his latest novel Owen Fiddler. Marvin is also the author of I Romanced the Stone (Memoirs of a Recovering Hippie), and Between the Storm and the Rainbow. Marvin describes Owen Fiddler as: "no role model for you or your kids, but reading his story will learn ya a thing or two, and that's a fact. This is an entertaining, thought-provoking, humorous and spiritually insightful book which will surely have you thinking about your own life.Owen talks to me about his work:

Tell me how you came to write Owen Fiddler.

Owen Fiddler is a modern day parable, a sort of fairy tale, set in a world of reality like yours and mine, with a moral to it. It started out as a Christmas short story that I posted on my blog and emailed to some family and friends. The feedback was so positive, and so many people encouraged me to expand on it, that I decided to write it out into a full length novel.

What is the key theme of the book?

Karma, the Law of Attraction, and the Golden Rule play heavily in it. I am a spiritualist, a follower of the Way of Christ, so there are Christian themes in the book, but religious sticklers for rigid interpretations of Biblical theology would have some issues with it as I take quite a few liberties in that regard. In one scene, for instance, I have Kris (short for Krishna), the savoir character in the book, French kissing Frenda Fiddler (Owen Fiddler’s daughter and the secondary main character) in the never-world. Some Christians who read that scene were offended. But that’s me—I like to stir up controversy and healthy dialog and debate.

What was the hardest aspect of writing Owen Fiddler?

The first draft was unbelievably easy. I was in a “writer’s zone” where for several weeks a rarely slept or ate or did anything but write. The ideas were flowing out faster than I could key them in. Characters would wake me from my sleep and demand I get up and write something they needed to say and/or do. Incredible—I’d never experienced anything like that before. The rewrites and revisions took like, gosh, three months at least, because I have a real taskmaster editor who demanded the very best from me. She would not let one scene go until she felt it was crafted to perfection.

Tell me what's on the cards for you - what are you working on now, and what kinds of projects are you hoping to work on in the future.

I have three WIP’s in the works. One is a sequel to Owen Fiddler, it’s a comedic cop story, a whodunit with some spiritual themes underlying the plot, titled, “Detective Snoop”. The second one is a romance, with a female main character who is a best selling author who loves to climb mountains and is married to an unfaithful rock star—that one is titled, “Heaven’s Slope Ascended”. And the last one, the least developed so far, but my favorite and one I simply must get finished or I won’t be able to rest, is titled “Beware the Devil’s Hug”. The best way to describe it is to give you the adblurb I wrote for it for querying:
What if a homeless, smelly, ugly unkempt old man had a hug so powerful it could cure cancer? Cause a prostitute to stop hooking and seek true love? Shake the demons of addiction free from a junkie? Make a Christian want to hug and love a Muslim and visa versa? But rare is the beneficiary of his divine hug—nobody wants to come near him out of fear.

Owen Fiddler Book Trailer

Tour with VBT-Writers on the Move through March. New and famous authors, plus useful information.