EXCERPT. BOOK#3

"Yes, I have been troubled and I bring my troubles with me wherever I go cause home is wherever I am at any moment. I gotta be dim to think home is static, no, life proves me wrong all the time, stretches and yawns over the blue marble upon which we roll and slip, in our blue dreams it surfaces and dips, rounding us, our edges, in our black and blue jeans, replete with street and graffiti on the walls. A little cream, a little sugar in the coffee and stir. I cannot stop looking at you in my windowpaned heart. Maze. I keep losing and losing you, the rains came and washed you away, the sheets were in the streets and offline, the beats pushing the feet as we walked, the rhythms searching and climbing into the greater sound; the image of what we once were working toward dematerialized again, and just like watching television on the radio it was painful good. And here you are and the whistle has blown, kicking your board up to your hand for the catch, wheels spinning and I’m worried but what the fuck. I got nothing to lose cause with all this time talkin about my faith and talkin and talkin not daring to confront you. Had I already lost you? No, no. Truth, will you lunge at me like this? Boy oh boy. Can I stand there and stand this? Do I have a choice? And yet the big sky is bigger, and I cannot look up and not be amazed by the beauty in a puffed up cloud floating off to nowhere like a poached egg white after the gas is turned off and the waters navy blue… the smiling buddha of spaces, the proclaimer of all things inverted. Girl oh girl. In discordance sliding off a continuum because they forgot to put an end to it. Directly, mathematically correlated to my ability to see what was really going on here in my life, all alone. Yeah, there’s a freedom there. A painful kinda freedom because I will find you if I look hard enough. Painful good. I will get you back, I swear!"

-Ame, Book#3

Grand Theft Life 1.19.4

GRAND THEFT LIFE 1.18.1

GRAND THEFT LIFE 1.15

page 100 and the twisted sister

Here is page 100 of Maze, I just got a lovely scanning application on my phone so I scanned my actual award-winning book for your reading pleasure, page 100. Meanwhile I wanted you to know I am locked in with the twisted sister, the next book which I hope will blow everyone away with its extravagance and dark beauty. Haha. I have relocated Kell several times in the narrative, she keeps ending up in strange places and I finally got her out in the fresh air, and she is hitting the streets of Oakland hard and finding her fresh psychic powers. 

Here's the link to the book if you like what you read and want to read some more. Thank you for supporting indie authors! MAZE THE BOOK

stigmata. a tease

"There’s no time to brood and worry, what a waste worry would be, like playing your xbox until you’re utterly xuded and eyes tend to bleed, walk outside and get mobbed by the faithful seeking miracles and stigmata. I believe in Kell, and she believes in me, or at least I wanna believe she believes in me cuz I believe in her. We lost our connection, so what? Lines get cut every day. May we be among the faithful, abiding miracles."   --  from Ame and The Tangy Energetic (Book #3)

cover book #2 by katya

GRAND THEFT LIFE 1.3

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!

passage from Ame and the Tangy Energetic

"and together they brought the vines smashing across the windows and tearing apart the floorboards, and breaking apart the furniture, the shark fins cutting into Black’s skin and the vines wrapping around him like a snake, yes, she saw a snake in her mind, a silver snake, and the snake was like a secret gift from a friend an ally, like a ring on a finger, she thought, and god am I losing my fukkin marbles but it’s beautiful! and there was the light in Ame’s eyes, the savage blue like the deep waters through which the great white hunted the Atlantic, but the brutality that had so torn her up back then, the very night she met Ame’s boyfriend finally, Maze, and they had taken the subway under the earth and across the San Francisco Bay, for she remembered asking Maze for the window seat and steaming the window like she always did, and wiping it with her arm, and the funny look Maze gave her when she leaned her face up against the glass so she could watch the tracks with one eye and watch the passengers with the other, the look he gave her like why the hell are you doing that? and she didn’t care cause she was able to lean into a nod and look less foolish this way than that, and then Ame turned around from the seat in front, to face them, and was just the nice girl who befriended her back when she was living in that decrepit former nunnery on Lake Merritt and nowhere to go, but afterward, after that really cool show in the Mission, the coming back with a rumbling and rush of air and sound as the train picked up speed in the tunnel heading home to Oakland, this time she sat up and next to Ame who was going on about having been a rockstar for a minute when she got to draw a soup spoon like a bow across some DIY instrument was supposed to pass for a violin, and they were laughing and then when they stopped and the train came up for air, there was a strange tension reminiscent of some intangible tucked far away in her past, a bad energy; and her high was wearing thin but whatever it was was picking up the slack and she saw both Maze and Ame fixed upon someone in the train, and then she was hustled off the train by them at the Broadway station, wondering why the hell they didn’t go on to MacArthur seeing as she was hoping to hit the Imperial where she was staying with Bless and Freddy, and where her secret stash of Somas and Percs were gonna help her to sleep, but she followed them out and up into the street and the Paramount Marquee was all lit up towering over the orange of a Broadway night, and sure enough they were following somebody, and she got a real uncomfortable feeling like she was about to be an accessory to a crime, and sure enough she was"  

- drafted from 'Ame and the Tangy Energetic' (Daughter of Darkness #3) .voice of Kell. coming this summer to an ebook store near you

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

TEASER

From Ame and the Tangy Energetic (Darkness, #3)  --  "We sought our pleasure in the world, thinking this would bring a measure of happiness. Maybe did for a moment; up all night laughing, walking the streets at 3am, ghost trains passing by. We readied ourselves and jumped. The world went from absolute stillness to perpetual motion, we outlined the Pacific Ocean, the sea salt filled our lungs, we sought our shadows on a train and now comes the rain, I see you pacing the room up there with your paranoia and bad thoughts about me, your negative energy sticks to the walls and peels the paint and no mirror can survive your self-loathing, not even me, and it hurts when you break me down like you think you can, when all I am is over here loving you, your ferocity, your anti, your sweetness protected but starved inside you, the most delicate beauty I have ever held and why do you think I would hurt you, how come you don’t invite me to see and cherish you, desperate you, and all your hard life you’ve been through? Fighting shadows and running away from yourself, your mom and your past, all those demons locked inside, criss-crossing, and what of it? For you were with me."  --   KatYa

Maze 2:13:2 Storytelling

Book Two

Daughter of Darkness Series

Chapter 13:2

In the last episode 2:13:1 everybody in DogTown bordering Ghost Town is zombified out, trying to trade CDs, iphones, loaves of bread, duracells, and their own bodies out for some spare change. While Freddy's workin on cars, Ame and Bless decide to push the humans into his van and take drags off of the tangy energetic to recharge, in between drags off of menthols. 

Maze 2:11:4 Storytelling

Book Two of the Daughter of Darkness series

Chapter 11

Part 4

In the last episode 2:11:3 Ame is challenged by a petty security detail but nothing will stop her from seeing her love. I mean, Maze.

killing off central characters -- but what if they die first?

My stories always go in directions i did not expect or plan sometimes, and i get to decide if that's where they were supposed to go or not. This is the excitement and burden of writing off a minimal outline. I have a friend who is a writer who was saying that his friend who is also a writer had a central character who stepped out of car in the middle of the book and got run over on the freeway. His character just offed himself without his permission! The author apparently was really upset he lost his protagonist, but he went on with the story because he believed that's what had to happen. Now isn't that bizarre? It floored me! I mean, I don't see how i could have Ame (my star in 'Grand Theft Life' and 'Maze') just fall in a hole one day, against my wishes, and force me to write the story around her? that seems ludicrous! but its funny to think about anyway.  -K

Maze 2:6:1 -- storytelling

Book Two

Chapter 6

Part 1

In the last episode 2:5:3 Ame talks about Maze and his demons, his psychology, what motivates him. 

If you are interested in buying this book, Maze, it is currently available on Amazon.com in both ebook and paperback forms. Just click on the cover image to the right of this post or the 'Publications' link at the top where all of my books are listed. 

Maze 2:5:2 -- storytelling

Book Two

Chapter 5

Part 2

In the last episode 2:5:1 Maze's history is explored. 

wattpad story - part 1

I just opened a Wattpad account for fun, and started an experimental story.
This is how it goes...

antipathy-and-the-six-million-villains

My name is Antipathy, and I could care less. I live in a world of six million villains because they do not give me a choice, so I have to put up with all of them and probably you. My tongue is purple because I drank too much Kool Aid in the nineteen eighties and it never washed out and I'm glad. Yes, I have tattoos and my body is pierced wherever I decided because I am free in the mad, crazy world where we live. I thought about traveling in time but I would rather stay right here in the moment and deal. I had a boyfriend but he dumped me. I have a girlfriend, too, but that's a secret between her and me, and the tree. 

I could care less, only because I care so damn much.

GRAND THEFT LIFE

GRAND THEFT LIFE is a novella and literary fiction. It is the first book in my Daughter of Darkness series. The most accurate subgenre designation is low fantasy, which is defined on wikipedia: "low fantasy places relatively less emphasis on typical elements associated with fantasy, setting a narrative in real-world environments with elements of the fantastical. Sometimes there are just enough fantastical elements to make ambiguous the boundary between what is real and what is purely psychological or supernatural. The word 'low' refers to the prominence of traditional fantasy elements within the work, and is not any sort of remark on the work's quality." The story is about a kidnapping which turns into a strange and shocking homecoming for the protagonist. It is told from the point of view of our young heroine, Ame. I tend to write from the inside out (internal thoughts and feelings), so the story is character-driven with a coming-of-age theme. Though the setting is contemporary and real, the plot has fantasy elements. Some of the characters possess preternatural abilities, divergent from humankind. Including our heroine. This is not my first foray into fantasy. But it is my first published longform in this arena. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share this world with you! Book Two is coming soon.

losing you. pellagra. disintrigue

losing you is like walking the streets in boots without laces
 head down. i am a
system of a down.

Storm clouds gather and bless my sorry hot head
with cool cool rain. toxic locket
in my hand. i
broke off from my neck.

My feet sink into earth turned to mud and bury me
where I walk. they got me outlined
in chalk.

Losing you is a crying
frame around my every. waking. moment.
blurred absurdity of timeless
melting reflections of

me
what with
you. by my side. like a vegetable. lima beans.
without you
im deficient. lacking. snacking on Cheetos.
doritos. taco bell hell.

smoldering processes of perseverated
thought. forgot all i was
taught. sold everything i ever
bought.

my purpose has gone under
submerged by your wonder
full drowned metal jacket
iron lung. out to dry.
giraffe neck stalks
hung
over rail ties
steely eyes. buzzards. flies

without you by my side
i keel over, Korean. the kids
all falling out
of me.

the youth in my step
got folded. lost my rep

forgetfulness comes on for self-defense
photos put away in shoeboxes in basements.
I approach the world with shock
with disdain

Memories of you 
leap like jack
 rabbits beside the
path

I feel like Sylvia Plath
bell jar banality
calloused heart played out
on a Spanish
guitar

te amo
who am I?
te amo
without you...
i die

Living rooms become lifeless
the empty tie-dying of memories
run clear through my
conscience

i am nonsense
all the colors of my world bleed out around the edges.
the silver
all tarnished
the tea kettle screams
the whippoorwill
night jar
black tar
heroine

she comes like a fury
then leaves you
again

I hold my head.
wishful
prayers at the bottom of the stairs
soaked in pine knot
pellagra.

Trapped in a faulty defect toy
anhedonic
without joy

disintrigue. shit. it makes up
its own
words

a rubix cube recall
cannot solve this pain
               resolve this mainline of loss

fuck it. i guess ill go
shopping