quint.essence

the quintessence
of the initial draft
a chaos of emotions
boiled down over a thousand
cups of blue bottle coffee
matched by morning
suns

#katyamills

beyond the wildest dreams

following your convictions and craft to they desperate ends will appear to others like superstitions and even a great waste of talent and time. you will be labeled if not belittled in this world where one is supposed to abandon one's dreams and visions and face reality. though devoted and even spiritually fulfilled, you will feel like you got crossed. you will be lonely and almost bitter by common society's rejection of you. you will be aching sore and if you are anything like me, stubborn. swore and demanded more and doubled down. they will tell you your stuff is no good, for if it were everyone would be reading you. this is a lie. you will be tempted to lie to yourself, too. do not. go all in and why? because devotion is uncommon and rare. keep at it, with self abandon, and, i promise you, the kind of wealth beyond the wildest dreams   #katyamills

writing tip

emotional coloring

extractions from the past 

by intention

can transform the ache of remembrance
and bring your history

back to life

#katyamills

notes on writing

i no longer wait to be inspired to write. one need not wait for rain, to irrigate the land. i block off time every morning to string the words together in a way that captures how i feel. might be 5 words. might be 500. keep digging, you will ultimately find water.

then i turn to some larger body of work - #wip - occupying my every day mind and heart. focus on the immediate work in progress brings me back in alignment with the gods.

broke the dial on the contrast

i once got more into socializing than books
the writing and reading
when you go blind like that there’s no sure thing
you gonna come back


i spun around that way for years
comparison shopping
broke the dial on the contrast


now i got my vision back you
can be damn sure i’m deep
into paper


you need no contrast to believe
in yourself

iiii iiii ii

i cannot imagine life without
first a commitment to be helpful

i left all the jobs i ever had that did not feel so
clerk, salesperson, broker, messenger, banker, waitress
i found a way to make a living by helping

writing

this is my practice
this is my devotion

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.

the 14 twenty

your fingertips might really start pressing
playing the keys and then you know you’re telling the truth
don’t stop. let it all out. don’t answer your phone

for god’s sake don’t go near social media! keep typing
don’t censor your thoughts no matter how awful they may seem to you
they are only thoughts

the magic dust is the truth you are telling
people will be outraged. people will love you and hate you for it.

don’t stop! keep on. your truth 

is more valuable than 

anything 

else

book.in.progress

i printed and read the latest draft of my book. the story holds together well. all is grammatically sound. i have spot checked for repetitions. what i studied this time around is how my story changes my mood from page to page. there's quite a bit of desperation in the lives of my characters. inevitably they find one another and find their way. well, not everybody. some of the mood flows alongside an adrenaline rush. some of the feelings get flooded. i wanna let the sun into some of the darker places. this is my hope as i continue on with my work. it's exciting. i think about the book all the time now.

wip. thursday

this morning i walked out on the porch and watched the sky turn a lighter blue. i hope these morning skies in america never become full with drones. i hope to hold this book that has been in my head and on my screen for so long, in my hands. i have momentum and a routine. i am seeing an organic whole. my challenge right now is how to properly end this. remember. the guiding principle in the universe, god or what you believe, is a clashing and mixture of forces; tragedies and wonders exist simultaneously. a book is a life, created by a life, reflective of a life, and may be loved or hated when read. the poorest anyone could be on the final page, is when they got no feelings at all.

wip. monday

i love my characters. the only one i hate is the Malafide. maybe because he stands for an abusive perpetrator and sociopath. for a while the only way i allowed myself to write about him, was in the spirit of all my characters i love working towards destroying him. it took me over a year to realize i was doing this. i had to delete several redundant scenes of destruction. i was getting off on killing the antagonist! and sacrificing the story. as a novelist, you need to be flexible and willing to change direction, in service to the story. it may also be a good idea, when writing fiction, not to create antagonists who are too close to home.

wip. saturday

i took some time off last week and made great headway with my novel. word count now exceeds 60,000. most of what got worked out was a scene where Kell is employed by a laundress in a laudromat in Oakland. the boss is feisty and demanding. a real irritant. but she's the only ordinary human to give Kell a chance. she sleeps on a mat on the floor behind the counter. and copes by smoking menthols.

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.

type.writer -xv

one morning you sit down
to your work with your coffee
beside you and

the tides have been broken 
they have turned on the ocean!
this is what you came for
so suddenly
emergent

disciple to words
the reading
the writing

the sea and the healing
fresh atmosphere replaces
the ceiling! an absence of the world
you recollect so unfeeling

your voice is upon you
you've found yourself! finally
the struggle is gone
you no longer push into page

strangely awakened
enveloped by an undercurrent
you sing the song you were born to sing
you come thrashing to surface!

like faith
you cannot see it
you only feel it
you know

these are the moments a writer lives by!
when time loses interest
appetite gone silent
and the sentences form on their own

full of spirit!
making meaning
full of feeling!
with rhythm and rolling

you collide with the page
like a strike
when you're bowling

thank the stars
thank the gods
you got lucky
kid

type.writer -xiv

My younger self reminds me not to forget my shadow, not to leave it out of the story, for without a shadow what are we? Nothing of substance, for anything of substance casts a shadow. The world needs a recluse, the world wants a freakshow, some deep failure, fatal flaw. So they can see themselves through it, otherwise they cannot often look. And when they see character lost in its shadow, well, contempt may turn to stone and break, and inside the contempt may we find our humanity in another's vulnerability. And find our compassion again. Toward others and toward ourselves! In a book, on the silver screen, in a play, in the news, at an opera, on the streets. We all are born into lives with our limits. We come abbreviated! Short-changed from the start. Getting alienated and thrown out of the womb, severed, the umbilical cord. What awaits us are further separations: from family, friends, community, self. From shadow. We need guidance to negotiate our way back into relationship! May books be always our guides. To the one who you know who knows you, too, I tell myself, may you steer your pen and the keys, to help and relate, not to please.

type.writer -xii

The traveled stares of tired faces
hung out off wood chairs
watching the story
unravel

they wondered where
had i been was
i there?

far from auspicious
my roughshod room
papers struck through with words
scraped up wood floors
the devotion of the place
toward suspicion toward
life

being seen could be tiresome
something bland and
undisciplined

being unseen held a promise
i thought
like a single candle
its trembling on the faces
of the walls

i tended to let the world inhabit me
so i might inhabit the world

type.writer -ix

i carried paper with me
everywhere

in a knapsack
or an overcoat pocket in the winters
of west side chicago

alleyways
my back against bricks
i held them under weak hanging
lights threading open mics

the Appalachian trail
did not stop me

the subway trains
the bars
the libraries (of course)
into parks where the sky
opened up all my thoughts

often i lay them out
beside my jack
 rocks

i felt the social
vacuum
around me

dead air

i didn't
care
so alive
was i

type.writer -viii

a time before cursors. a
land before chrome
paper journals blue and black
our future unknown

i am walking the beach
early morning barefoot
unblinking at dawn
not far
             from

home
loopy cords
fall off an old
phone

cloth covers
worn off
spines broken
soft
        and

        no space
is safe in these books
in these thoughts
between oceans
and lines

type.writer -vii

the irons
the letters
rise up slicing
the gunmetal
sky

striking definitively
marking indelible
paper thins
wet with ink

forming words
forming sentences
paragraphs

pages replete
with ink dry now

gather up your work
in a bundle

tie with twine

wet
with
meaning

type.writer -vi

the voice of the machine
unmistakable. a whole room listens as
the natgeo journalist in the forest of my mind
takes a tentative step forward

that night
the ritual

a quiet preparation of the scene
the placing of a sheet
rolling it into view

the smell of oiled letter arms
placement of the fingers
for some thought momentum

the ringing of a bell
the end of every line

i slap the arm to sweep the barrel
down the rail again
hit the block and then recoil

writer's block...
deus ex machina

carry on