slush piles

a storm of emotion

anticipation of victory

all the colors of all the territories

condensed into one

powerful narrative

delivered to all the major publishing 

houses only to face resolute

defeat

#katyamills

july 31, 2019

this morning i did my jumping jacks and boiled the coffee to mix with cream. this morning i called my dad, today is his birthday. my kittens are alarm clocks and get me early out of bed. i did the dishes and prepared a salad for later. i rang the tibetan bell and listened to my heartbeat. i called the love of my life for he is on the road again. i cannot count my blessings. i can sit here at my desk and beat up the old english language for a while. all what makes life at 46 worth living.

ATE227

Reading (ATE70)

Reading (ATE60)

Reading from my new novel, Ame and the Tangy Energetic, available now on Amazon.com

true 3

I like anyone am visited by self doubt when basic elements transition. In the past six months my treasured routines were threatened. I was displaced from both home and office. The faces around me were new. The structures and locations. The disorganization. I turned to prayer and my people for help. I asked questions. I felt at times I was doomed! Thankfully, fears and feelings are not facts. I made it! Now some spirit returns. My practices I have fought so hard to build and keep are ready and waiting to be employed. I have proven myself capable once again. I need only follow my heart back to the book.

closer to publication

the way i get closer to publication is by getting closer to my desk and the keys and the screen through my eyeglasses. by getting closer to the endless hours of playful work. mute the environment as much as i can. endless other hours of readying myself spiritually to be up to the process.

the preface

To my loyal readers. Happy Holidays! Here you can be the first to put eyes on the preface to my upcoming novel, Ame and The Tangy Energetic. I am open to any feedback you may have...

This is not a fantasy. This is a story about friendship. About how to move on when your trust has been decimated by the world around you. About a ragtag alliance of nomads and rebels, who show resilience in the face of marginalization and cultural dissociation. This is a story about recovery from addiction and trauma. About alchemy and the turning of fear into vitality. About being real no matter what, even when you look bad. About caring in a careless world and being loyal to the ones who care about you. This is a story about love, heartbreak and redemption. And faith. This story is an oddity, out of step from mainstream literature and made up with its own rules and rhythm, and it comes from the heart of a wounded healer. Someone of no great significance, who simply survived the streets and lives to tell. This is a story for you.   - Katya Mills

read.write.publish

this morning i woke up at dawn and followed the river for a while. the sun came up and the breath disappeared. dogs ran up and down the levee. i showered and dressed and took a spirited step out the door and drove down to a sacred place where i met with some friends to create a reading and writing group. though i have never brought folks together before formally for the purpose, my whole life i have preferred the society of artists and writers, rebels and dreamers. and mostly caring friends. so i am hoping this read.write.publish initiative will go off well for us, and come in with twenty eighteen.

GUEST BLOG

Here is the Guest Blog I did for Jen Winters 

Guest blogger: Katya Mills On Mood Manufacturing
by Jen Winters


I am a mood perfectionist, which has put me into business in mood manufacturing. Yes, it is a confession. I cannot often just sit down and write, and not worry about setting my mood just so. I grew up in the eighties, and my parents bought me an original Mac Plus for school. This computer was the coolest. I taught myself how to type. I realized I could open a Word document and stare at a white screen. The ‘tabula rasa’: Latin for ‘blank slate’. Which is what every artist faces, almost every day. I remember staring at the screen and feeling something in my heart which yearned to be expressed, but how to put that in words? The little cursor was blinking, just counting the seconds, endlessly waiting for me.

Self-publishing today is a luxury, just as computers were luxurious back then. My appreciation of both comes from having been born in a world without either. A world without the internet. Thank God for all the hackers in their garages who dreamed of this day, and worked toward their dreams! What a gift. In the eighties you could never reach a wide audience so quickly. Readers in China, Russia, Germany, Romania? Forget about it! I would be lucky to get my next door neighbor interested.

Today everything is in place for the indie authors of the world to succeed. Once you have your story the way you want it, complete and intact, you can follow in the footsteps of successful writers. Cookie-cutter. Only the creative process remains enigmatic. To me, the creative process must trump everything else. Which means I need to find the ideal conditions (for me) to write. A very personal process. It starts with noticing how I interact with my environment.

Now I have written in a boarding house full of noise, on a laptop so beat up I had to tie the screen back with zipties and twists, with a keyboard whose keys I had to superglue back on. I have written in a room with an (ex) boyfriend whose paranoia and jealousy could turn on me in a second. I have written despite real and imagined voices on the other sides of walls. I have written under threat of being momentarily evicted. I have written with the sun in my face and heavy metal in my ears, and no money in my pocket. I have written in a bar, in a car, in the cloud of someone’s cigar.

I came to realize how external conditions never defeated me. My problem was really internal! My moods are like weather patterns in the Jetstream. Unpredictable. So I developed my mood manufacturing industry. I thought I could figure out ways and means to boil my moods down into a mind-state conducive to writing the next bestseller.

I will spare you the details, except to say that this business failed! I struggled and struggled, trying to control my mind. A real turkey shoot! Many suns set without my having pulled the screen up, at all. Today, I am back to the basics. Focusing on the practice of writing. Get to writing, one word at a time.

What I realized in the end, was I gotta let go. Have some faith in the process. Stop trying to control things and manufacture the perfect mood. I gotta surrender. Trust. I have to sit myself down, every day, and do it. I have to be kind and encouraging to myself. I have to remember why I write, and the rewards of the creative life. The self-insight. Getting in touch with my feelings. Expressing myself deeply. Healing.

In the end, I write for my life.

NOVELLA (2014) COVER DESIGN

My plan is to release a Novella
to the world within weeks...
I designed the cover, ici.

The photograph is
courtesy of the Romanian
artist  Sandy Manase