storytelling

 let the story tell you

thoughts post publication

i got some distance and six months later went back to reread the latest book i wrote. TROUBLE’99. i read the first half on friday and the second half on sunday. i don’t think i would have changed much. i was really happy about the first half. the character development and the plot and the struggle and the setting were all crystal clear. dialogue was good. no typos or obvious grammatical issues. in the second half you saw an intensification of the problems my characters faced, both internal and external pressures mounting: socioeconomic hardships leading to sacrifice of values, addiction, conflict, suffering. a reader hoping for them to see a way out of their dilemma will be disappointed. they struggled to make enough money busking and selling weed to get off the streets. for them this was a great success. Kay freed herself from an unhealthy relationship with Aden. the hardships they all faced together clearly strengthened their friendships. 

yes i allowed for a little light to enter the story, but mostly they marinate in their problems. i admit as a stand alone TROUBLE’99 fails. this book is intended to be the first in a series, so there will be a sequel.

my point in writing these somewhat dark tales of hard reality these past several years is to highlight very real social injustices. to give names and faces and make these people real. it’s so easy to walk down any city street in America and ignore a large segment of our population. to recoil and turn away from those faced with addiction and homelessness and great depths of mental illness and trauma. i know many readers read books to escape reality and go somewhere that fills the heart with joy. my books may not always offer that kind of escape. they may take you somewhere you never wanted to go. but if you are looking for an adventure of a different kind, if you are hoping to have your heart stirred with understanding if not compassion for the downtrodden and alienated among us, my work may interest you after all. #katyamills

12

they was loving life they was up
at dawn and ya they got knocked down they
got up quick they came back fighting
and
after they been through it they
sat back drank a
cool glass of water up
at dawn and


such was life

#katyamills

put me away. they

all the pain in my body i was

talking to myself they won’t put me

away i seem to be okay i

gotta full time job the only chemical

in my system is caffeine

they won’t put me away

i gotta therapist i

got a yoga class a bunch of misfit friends

and family though they live so far

away they won’t put me

away

i got an imagination that’s my favorite part my

greatest strength my best asset my one

talent i think i’ll write it

down and make it

real

prose version: all the pain in my body could not stop me. i was talking to myself and giving myself encouragement. hopefully they won't put me away. i seem to be okay. i gotta full time job and the only chemical in my system is caffeine. i gotta chiropractor and a therapist. i got a yoga class and a bunch of friends. i gotta family though they live so far away. i got an imagination and that's my favorite part. i think i'll write it down and make it real.

Trouble'99 (excerpt wip)

Everyone but Aden thought little about the future and investing in it, and even he was beginning to get derailed. I was protective and discouraged him from going out with us, stay and do your studies. Sometimes I stayed back with him and we went to the library or a coffeehouse to work. These were special moments for us. Fetching machine made coffee late into the night, talking about medicine and the life of a surgeon, cutting people up, dreaming about our great future. When he got into a zone, I dismissed myself and took a detour over to the fiction section to find something by Burgess or Borges or Burrows or Bukowski. I thought, if god or the head librarian told me the funding was cut off for fiction and made me choose one letter of the alphabet which we could keep, sorted by authors last names, I would likely select B. Then I would jump off the Navy Pier wishing I might drown.