YES#WIP

the story is taking shape finally after the last five months of writing and editing and struggling to understand which direction to go. trying to unravel and get some ground underneath this...i met a guy who is sitting on manuscripts he wrote years ago. i told him he might want to consider self-publishing. it can be a joyful experience.  #katyamills

plot twists

i scrapped a large wordcount toward the end of my novel-in-progress this morning. it was related to a fighting scene which turned out  interminable, and a bore. if i am bored by it, certainly you would be, too. one of the central characters whom was going to die has been saved, as i mentioned in previous posts, however it looks as if somebody will die, after all. arrangements will be made today, and the ceremony will be held inside my skull, first floor: suite # medulla oblongota.

character redemption

Rather than kill a corrupt or malevolent character off, why not go for redemption? Many heroic figures of storytelling legend were once poor, disabled, disfigured and underwent incredible transformations to become super and special, carriers of the light. It is much harder and more valuable and compelling to make treasure out of raw materials, or refurbish and recreate a tarnished old soul!

plot.development

four hours of highway driving into the Sierras and several more of pure dreamy silence led to a breakthrough. now I know how it has to happen, and who is to be redeemed.

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.

the plot. ecstatic

A while back i was wearin a floral print shirt i bought with a gift card leftover from the holidays, and found myself perspiring through another busy day, what with the excitement of life in this little city, and my sweat comingled with the pattern, the print from the inside out, and the material began to stick to my skin. i tried to tug it away from time to time, whilst talking to people about their problems, then had to take my coffee break early, smiling as i excused myself, when to my dismay i found the print had firmly rooted itself into me, and my upper body was one big floral tattoo, a colorful garden up and down my arms and fingers, across my shoulders and breasts, around to encompass my back replete! i quickly made my way, unacosted, out a side door to exit the building, and running home from there i had many uninvited acknowledgments and gang signs flashed my way by passerbys, all in the breathless spirit of the life of ink, and finally i got over myself by a chain link fence a few blocks from where i lived. as i caught my breath in a lean i saw the clouds open up to the sun, and closed my eyes to feel the sudden warmth spread over me and fill me with a feeling i have never before known, a sorta ecstatic love! last thing i remember i was leanin more deeply into the chain link, which was giving into the weight of me, the side of my face and body getting waffled, one eye fixed within a quadrant of link. i opened it to see within, a community garden with plots for anyone who cares. i always wanted a plot of my own, beside pumpkins, green pepper and garlic. now i kinda sorta do! i seem to reside there, and they tend to me, watering and cutting me back every so often. i don't mind my rectangular confines, so long as sun can reach me and provide the ecstatic love, here where the plot thickens, in the heart of midtown, i have lost interest in anything else.

read me from a safe distance

i was killing someone off in my book today. in the library sitting at a table reserved for teens and no teens around just books. it was awfully quiet. i like it that way, my killing floor. nobody would suspect anything. i have been meeting more people, and they aren't turnin me off lately. i almost wanna meet another one today. very unlike me. maybe it's the weather. maybe it's because i got my hair done, my eyesight fixed, and my teeth drilled. i am about to paint my nails for the author festival on sunday. i plan to meet a lot of other murderers, i mean authors. we usually look so sweet at face value. we can take your attributes and turn you into monsters. what would happen if your families fell apart slowly? don't worry. we will put them back together. you won't look the same but you will be made of many pieces and cool to look at like a glass mosaic. it's therapeutic. can i sign that for you? you see my blood red nail polish. go somewhere and read me from a safe distance

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 -- THE PLAYERS

Here are the main characters in my book -- Maze


Hendrix   An apparition who blurs around the edges. He dresses like Jimi which is how he got his nickname. Nobody knows much about him, but he shows up rather mysteriously anywhere in Oakland, and Ame (the protagonist) has discovered that if she follows him he will lead her to human fear, which is the element she thirsts for. He has a cheshire cat smile and likes to walk backward. He is transparent so he can be hard to follow.

Bless   She is Ame's best friend. They wear each other's clothes and do each other's hair. They hang around Freddy and he protects them on the streets. All three are not exactly human. She has a crush on Ame which becomes more pronounced when her boyfriend dies. She is not happy when Ame begins dating Maze. She is practiced in the dark ways and could not care less for human kind. She gave an amulet to Ame for protection, a scarab of nephrite, in Book One after her first kill.

Everett   Not a good man, Everett is Bless' boyfriend. He was killed in Book One by his friend Freddy because he was physically abusive toward Bless and Ame. He was a junkie and out of control. He does not appear in Book Two. Freddy's loyalty toward Ame and Bless was proven by doing away with his close friend.

Maze   The title character and Ame's love interest.. he appears briefly in Book One, in a fight which goes down at Uma's apartment when one of the escorts suggests he was inappropriate with her. Ame gets hurt pulling an escort off of him. Maze remembers this kindness when he sees Ame at a burrito truck on Broadway, and shares his burrito with her. They hit it off right away and soon fall in love. He's a punk and a skateboarder, and loves ice cream sandwiches. They share the dark gift and hunt together. She stays with him in a boarding house just off of Telegraph Avenue.

Uma   An escort. Queen of the escorts, really. She is close to Freddy and mostly concerned with the business of finding men for her women. She has an apartment in West Oakland where Freddy goes sometimes to get the word on the street.

Kell   A young woman whom Ame meets inadvertently while hunting fear near Lake Merritt. She is a junkie. She has the dark gift which is inaccessible due to her addiction. She shows up in Book Two and Ame immediately takes to her, wants to help her get out from under. Bless and Freddy are living at the Imperial on Telegraph Ave, and Ame convinces them to make room for Kell, who was living in squalor in a tenement building.

Black   A malafide who features prominently in Book Two. He lives next to the boarding house where Ame and Maze take up residence. He sells drugs to anybody and everybody, and this is his front. However, it soon becomes apparent that those who get too close to him, disappear.

Freddy  A complicated character, Freddy figures to be at times violent and protective. Ame was abducted by Freddy in Book One and taken from the Green Mountains where she was raised by humans, and brought to Oakland, California to be with her people, Delux. She soon learns that Freddy is not out to harm her, and she can trust him with her life. He is a mechanic and he thrives on the streets. He can communicate with Bless and Ame telepathically. He is calm amidst chaos, like the eye of a hurricane.

Ame   Our protagonist and first person narrator. She has come of age and been introduced to her kind and the dark arts they practice. She is independent and likes to hunt alone. But she also loves to be with her friend Bless and Freddy, who is like a father to her. She is conflicted about humans. On one hand, they raised her and sheltered her as a child. But it is in her nature to thirst for human fear. In Book Two she finds herself falling in love with Maze.

Delux   Humans once tried to destroy her kind, Delux, hundreds of years ago on the continent. Fear drove them to hunt down the divergent kind, anyone not like themselves. But the Delux adapted quickly and learned how to extract human fear in order to save themselves. Alchemy. The same fear that would have destroyed them all, soon became their sustenance. They followed the humans in the great migration to America, and now live side by side in the underbelly of any city, blending in.

writing process -- random thoughts

In this video I am talking to you about my writing process and what it feels like to 'hit the button' as a self-published independent author. Some other topics include 'setting a deadline for yourself' and what it feels like to have 'character-driven' creations in our modern literary age of 'plot fiends' and plot snobbery...

PUBLICATION 2015 UPDATE

Dear readers! I welcome your thoughts ...

Book One of my new project (WIP) Daughter of Darkness, is nearing completion. A literary fiction. I have been ironing the creases out. Here is a synopsis. My protagonist, Ame, is a young woman recently come of age, trying to find her way in an chaotic urban environment. Her father died in Vietnam. Her mother gave her up. She was raised in the mountains by her step parents. She hears voices in her head all her youth. But they are not hallucinations; the voices foretell her future.

One of her true kin, Freddy, finds her and abducts her to Oakland, California. Though at first resistant, Ame comes rather quickly into the fold. She learns about her people and her heritage. Freddy becomes like a father figure to her. She begins to believe. Her experience resonates with what the voices told her all along. She always felt different from the others.

She discovers her own latent preternatural capability, in this dark land. She makes friends with a girl whose experience parallels hers. Bless and Ame become sisters. She also finds a love interest in a young man of punk persuasion. An unusual spirit named Hendrix leads her to the dark art which is her birthright. She is conflicted, however, by the violence inherent in its practice. Bless and Freddy encourage her in becoming who she is naturally meant to be. Yet she cannot completely embrace her identity. What other choice does she have? If she hopes to survive this culture of fear.

- Katya

Author K by K 2015