98

like a bullet with a tracer

ink shoots off your 

arm

a bitterness

on the tongue 

at work

like a dance the tears

play up the eyes

level the bottle 

nudge of the wrist

cold heart heats 

up then 

rest

you wake to the sun

where you lay

breath and thoughts

in motion push 

against

 volumes of 

memory

#katyamills

remix

notes on a (writing) process

i do not wait to be inspired to write. i block off time every morning to work on something original, often flash fiction, prose, poetry... you know, just words strung together in a way that makes sense to me. might be 5 might be 100. i do not wait though yes, i can feel uninspired. if so, i let go and step away for some time, breathe, drink some water, walk around, talk to the cats, do the dishes, stretch, whatever. just changing channels can do wonders. then i may work on #wip edits as i always have a single wip occupying my every day mind and heart.  focus on the immediate work in progress will bring me back in alignment with the gods. or if it's a really bad morning or im exhausted past the point of coffee making a difference, i may read a few pages of Nabokov, some classic or even a contemporary, or some flashes on wordpress and find my way back to inspired. i like to listen to a little jazz or classical in the background, soft, helps me get there. going out for a walk. prayer. if my wip really is taking off and im getting excited towards finishing, i may devote entire nights or weekends to the work. i have been known to take a week's vacation from my day job and devote the entire time to writing. for me it's mostly practice, the writing process, practice and devotion. i will be reading my work at the Sacramento Poetry Center via Jennifer Pickering this afternoon, and she asked me to talk about writing process for a little bit so im cutting it up here first.

oath of allegiance ina bath of silence

maybe i read too much shakespeare in high school. maybe i drank too much coke. i kept to myself with a few close friends. i made a pilgrimage to faulkner. i kept writing and writing though it seemed pointless at times, as there was no internet to share. i read my work in bars and cafes, in chicago and tampa in the late nineties, behind a highball whisky. maybe i smoked too much pot. i carried a leatherbound journal wherever i went. now i have a cell phone and press words in there. life is the same, although it changes. i may be getting older but i'm still young. maybe i watched too much tv. i will always love to ride trains, even subways. i take a bath of silence every morning. and an oath of allegiance to my creative process. i am very well, the way i live. but i went about things so poorly for so long, it still hurts. i blame myself for the blunders i made. i am also unwell. mostly for having hurt you. i hurt myself badly, too.

books

i was invited to Folsom this week by a book club to showcase my work and meet some who read my first serial fiction. i had a blast and got to share my process, and listen to some fine critiques of my work. now i know i cannot fool anyone and why would i? good books can sell and weak books sell, too. i am determined to publish only books that brought out the best in me writing them. blood, sweat, tears, and coffee. it's no use to be loved or hated if you cannot take pride and stand behind your little offspring-creations.

plotting (how to find a pulse)

Journal entry. may 18th. this morning i return to the manuscript, i return to my desk where i belong, to have another go at the trilogy, the daughter of darkness, a five year endeavor coinciding with a sea change in my life and lifestyle. i don't know how this will work out, but hopefully by the end of the summer all these mornings strung together will produce a fresh and final paperback copy of the third book for you to sink your eyes in.

many of you have been on this adventure with me, and i thank you. i am hopeful and invigorated now, getting back to Ame and Bless and Freddy and Maze and Kell. part fiction, part story of my life, it's really a tracking back into my spirit and heart.  some people like to ask where do fact and fantasy diverge? my curiosity lies elsewhere. i wanna live and play in the place where fact and fiction converge, and make a home for us there, you and me. the interplay of what i have experienced, with my imagination.

waking up fresh from dreams to a blue white morning light - rinsing my face with cool water - setting a prayer and intention - placing my fingertips on these keys - feeling the weight of the desk in my wrists - the earth in the soles of my feet... i am finding my pulse.

digital ink child

maybe the sweetest moment of writing a book
 comes when      the intangibles
                            the tangibles

coalesce into a unified

tale
whole fiction
       re.creation
    en.vision


abstracted (out) then dropped back (in) to the world

the conveyance
your child of
digital ink

 surrounds

like an atmosphere
like an aura
like a concert
like a principle
like a faith

maybe even warms a heart
or two

finally makes sense
and not only
to you

two clicks and a book

I do not write mysteries. Writing is the mystery and a book, a puzzle piece, a small part of being solved. I am wondering if I have what I need to do what I wish to now do? The magic number, I make it fourteen. Two weeks, to get back to you. To immerse myself in the colorful cove of creative process, and finish what I started a little over a year ago. There is a battle on our screens, online, for our eyes, our attention, our desires. When we are tired, they win. I go to do something creative and if I make one mistake, chasing down an email or a tweet - any packet of information - I may be sucked to the bottom of a sloping hill of mud, two clicks away, marching my way up and back to reclaim my sacred land... but always two clicks away. I wonder if I have what it takes to stand my ground? I have all my rations, all my munitions, and all my comrades around me. I have my health and my family, and my faith. I can easily recall when the world came over me, a long shadow before a setting sun. I plodded my way through the deepest night. Lost, I surrendered; and they had mercy on me. I don't know how or why. I was a pitiful starved creature, lunatic raving and howling, chained to an iron post on a cracked island of asphalt. I was the one who broke dumb from the pack. Now they saw I was no threat and marched me through a wasted land of drought. I focused on the stars of windless night until I was one, too, the smallest and farthest away. And brighter grew. I stretched for the sun out of a cold, dark place only I inhabited. Not at first, but soon I was touched. I found something there I cannot describe. In the poverty of speech one may call it 'god' - if only to relate. The thing which keeps me bright. This thing which can keep me up all night. That which helps me shine through darkness. Immerses me in sacred process, helps me hold my ground. In fourteen days or not, two clicks away and shot, from the bottoms ever climbing... I wonder will I find my way, and back to you? Otherwise, this book may live a lonely life in my heart.

creative confidence

can be elusive. good thing is you (the artist) will know when you have it. all the rules they ever taught you, muted. taking risks does not feel so scary. nobody knows what you are doing more than you.    the work is mutable not sacred. you can see the whole thing moving through the smallest fragment. it is alive and tugs at all your pulses.

Journal # 11.19.16 'the surest of sure things'

the nights are cold now in northern california and i love it. the trees all showing their true colors. i think i am falling in love with him, who else do you call when you have nothing particular to say? tonight the rains will come for us. i will be with you tomorrow and what will we do? it doesn't matter, just to be with you, to be with you. i have a cold and, for one week now, my great plans to end the year strong have been held up and what can i do? i just wanna be faithful and devoted to these causes, and come back to them when i can, when i feel better. i don't do well when sick. the marathon is in two weeks and sadly is now up in the air, i just lost a critical week of training and maybe more. my novel is waiting on me to come finish her, and this will be the peak experience to cap off a great year, i am sure. my friends, may you find your 'cause' and devote yourself to it! with whatever free time you may find for yourself! your industriousness there in that spot -- no matter the whirlwind of your life around it -- circle it with water and fire, protect it, hold it close to your heart, my dear, get close and open your veins to the earth there, give yourself all! and you may find it sustains you, blossoms and enfolds you, and will carry you through the darkest of days, the bleakest of nights! i promise you. it is the surest of sure things!  - KatYa

a night like tonight (tales of a custodial engineer)

I have some math in my head, jamaican jerk chicken in my belly and some love in my heart tonight, still the goddam technology is orbiting around the head tryin to draw the attention. I am fighting the urge to escape to that flashy instant fix place where even death is kept alive. Hashtag rest in peace. The hemp coconut milk I drown my shredded wheats in tastes like some exotic curry on ice, but I drink it all down so I can have the energy to make it through my custodial engineering position several miles from home and half of them highway. The interns are turning over this month and the place is repositioned to provide for non-matching contributions. The fireworks are over but the fire's still burning inside. My self-discipline is plus or minus 300 milligrams of neurontin and several helpings of frozen vegetables. I am gonna write this damn book, okay, just give me a minute. There's nothing else I can fall in love with on a night like tonight.

restructuring your conditions

I made some changes in my conditions to try and maximize the possibility for continuing to write books. Don't get me wrong, I love my life and my routine. But something was off, and consequentially I've seen a frightening drop in sustained creative output the last couple of months. I can flash here and flash there, keeping up my daily blogging and youtubing, but there is a price to pay for this kinda work. You get used to bouncing around the internet! Which I find not so conducive to the long form, or the conditions necessary for writing books. Many will say (and I have told myself) it's as easy as clicking on the 'do not disturb' protocol (on your devices) and making personal space for yourself. And maybe it is. But bloggers have a responsibility to their audience that the Ralph Waldo Emersons and Henry David Thoreaus of the world have not! Anyway, I decided to make some changes. I stepped away from the internet for several days and stepped outdoors. I drove out of town and did some things differently than usual. This coincides with a vacation from my nine to fiver. I eased up on the coffee. I caught up on my sleep (a real deficit I was running) and reconnected with some people and creatures (mostly cats) I care about, on a deeper level. I stopped reading and listening to the news. I need to make a conscious push towards the lighter things of life, laughter and learning and shared, hopeful perspectives. I tend to let myself go toward darkness, I realize, it's easier to be jaded. Now I am rediscovering how it feels to wake up in the morning, make some coffee, and sit down at my desk in silence and write my book. It was only a few months back when I was doing this, but it coulda been forever ago.

restructuring your work

A couple of days ago, I found a way back into my book, maybe the new moon on the 4th of June gave me an opening. I took it. I'm still not out of the woods, but I have a lead. I never give up hope; with writing, you can always find a way. The book is written in first person, with tense varying from past to present. I have been dreaming about switching up narrators, alternating chapter to chapter, yet I really love coming from the voice and perspective of my female lead, my heroine, and a change would be risky. This is serial fiction, after all, and one should expect consistency across books. Still, a slight departure from the first two books - in voice or person - could be pulled off, I thought, so long as the plot and characters held together. I've been dreaming about this for months (and not on purpose), and I found a compromise. I started interspersing the main narrative - chapters rounding out at 2,000 words each - with slices of 3rd person narrative about 500 words each. The body is therefore still under the auspice of Ame, for protection of what I have established (in the first two books), and guidance. Yet I am letting in light of special circumstances, subchapters pertaining to Kell, describing her experience simultaneous to and interwoven with the plot. I was thrilled to have envisioned this, and I believe it's rather unusual for an author to switch back and forth from first and third person. But it seems to be working so far and it's an intuitive hit. Let's see now if i can pull it off!

Journal # 05.15.16

i am quite certain these past 6 days my subconscious made possible. of mostly lying around sick with headaches and sore throats and cough and cold symptoms and fatigue and a little asthma. coming out of it now, slowly. i was full of worry and fear beforehand, an impoverished mentality to which i was bound,  i must confess, most of which has now fallen under and been buried by the malaise of the body. i believe that without the opportunity of ill health, i may have remained indefinitely in that inextricable place i had gotten myself into unwittingly through my routine. a non-creative place. a linear establishment. a far cry from freedom and flexibility. of course my WIP fell to the wayside. i still have not settled back into Book Three. but this time i am no longer so worried about it nor fearful. part of the trap i fell into was reading contemporaries in my genre and comparing myself against them. this is only a part of the story of my missteps of late. sacrificing momentarily the appeal of my style which not only draws me but has drawn me some onlookers from faraway places. my style which must be enough on its own. the fullness. the fulfillment. all of that is there, waiting for me still, calling me back like sirens, like songs, like dreams, like love.

go slow. go quietly in your creative process

Imagine if you slowed your process down and watched it, played it back for yourself like a film. Yes, you can drip all the butter you want on your popcorn. Just eat one popped kernel at a time. Taste it. Lick the butter off of your fingers very carefully, like you are giving head. You can put your legs up over the seat backs cause you are the only one in the theatre. Ladies cross your legs, just in case. Someone always prowling in the darkness, maybe come off the screen and wanna be with you. Hopefully its the hero or heroine, and don't you dare make love to yourself, it's a cardinal sin, if there was a hell you would go to it but mostly we agnostics know you would just feel bad about yourself and sick to your stomach. This is a work of fiction cast out from the booth in the back to enlighten the screen for your eyes, you who receive. Imagine the warm blue light triangulating out into the darkness and above your head. Closest to the projector you can even see the air we breathe is swimming with dust. Our lungs must be ingenious. Focus on your breath as the numbers count down from ten, with an old radar-like image and a line traveling clockwise around back to midnight and the numbers fall and the excitement of what's to come... What's to come out of process, is more process, the consequence of process, the marvel of creation, making our lives one brilliant second at a time as we go. Swimming through our lives and slow it down commensurate with a wave. We are fragile. We are breaking. We are falling in love again.  xxxxox  KatYa

code

No one can decodify your heart, but you. Not only have you great promise to communicate what otherwise remains unsaid, you are the only one who could give us what otherwise will be lost. Lost to us and remain in you. There is no one else can present and represent this, only you can unearth the thing we see behind your eyes when you speak to us, calm in your center, of your embattled soul. Only you. If I were you, I would capture an hour a day if you can, perhaps before normally waking, perhaps after you put your children to bed, perhaps when you toss and turn in the middle of the night you can throw your body into the chair behind the desk and unravel that enormity keeps your insomnia alive. Believe me, the beginning of which is a mess of creation. Think scattered lava thrown all around, a horrible abscess cut into and scream! What comes of this, comes natural, you, tumbling your spirit out onto the canvas, the page, the ambled screen, the paper, in ink, in oil, in variant font drippings... you can sort it out later, rest assured, but please for the living and the dying, decodify your heart and find you in the world.   - KatYa

Q&A -- Writing Process

Q  Can you describe your writing process?

A  Coffee. I like to get closer to a place where my mind is free-associating. Sometimes just after waking up. I usually write without much of an outline, but ideas which have some sorta emotional connect. My work is character-driven, meaning whatever happens is colored by the POV (point of view: thoughts, feelings, biases, dreams, wishes, desires, interest, sensations, internal experience, intuition) of the main character(s) in relation to their world. I use visual mapping applications and sometimes Scrivener to help see the various parts of the whole. I usually do a little freewriting before I know where I wanna locate myself in the narrative for the day. By freewriting, my heart is given a chance to tell me where in the story I can make the most impact. Because I come into the experience of writing with whatever thoughts and feelings the day has inspired, I hope to use the immediacy of my own life to come to bear on my story. Of course, the process does not always play out this way! That is a best case scenario. I try and stay as flexible as possible with scenes from a first draft, often cutting and pasting chapters relentlessly in my edits until the puzzle comes together the way that feels right. This keeps the editing process fun and sometimes, magical!    - KatYa

PIANO -- Journal # 06.16.15

When I type I sometimes imagine I am on the piano, in a romantic era, composing something magnificent. A lot of what we do, how we do it, depends upon approach. To me this is a creative process before a creative process, framing the mind for my work ahead. I might imagine that I am captain of a ship. I know that there at forces at work beyond my control, and I must surrender to the great sea. Yet one takes great pleasure in knowing that one has a responsibility of such magnitude, even that there may be lives at stake, and it affords little room for error. With this sort of attitude, a small room and a table by myself can became quite a large happenstance to which I am beholden, to which I will call upon all my whole storehouse of knowledge and experience to bring my wisdom to bear upon the page. Upon the paragraph. Upon the sentence. Upon the word. Upon letter by crisp, clean letter. Black keys situated between and above the off-white keys. Each key desires an expression, tripping a wire to evoke a sound. The memory I have to locate each letter. The response of each key to the pressure of my fingertips. The unseen residue of an oily fingeprint differentiated from all other fingerprints. What I leave on the table. The felt which silences the key so the string can sound alone. And what is this sound? A vibration! And what is this happenstance of incomparably quick composition at so many words per minute? Nothing if not a rhythm translated from the vibrations in my soul. And what are these spaces between, if not sacred?