Blogger Richard Gibney's A to Z challenge on K

Just some of the Ks that you will find on this blog




Kari Rosvall: I highly recommend the book Kari wrote about her childhood as an adopted war baby and her life thereafter - she discovers dark secrets related to her origins, and details of a nefarious Third Reich breeding programme. Nowhere's Child is a terrific read. Kari struggles with identity not just of herself but the less introspective, political and national markers to which most people can subscribe. Nowhere's Child's got human rights, social justice, rootlessness, family, the meaning of home and - in fear of sounding glib - it's like the origin story for a superhero. In fairness, Kari Rosvall is a superhero! Read the book! Her co-writer, the unassuming and awesome Naomi Linehan, is on Twitter.

Kevin Bacon, ehh? Need I say more? Yes! Yes I must. Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon can be found here.

Katya Mills: This wonderful scribe writes straight outta left-field in the tradition of Dickinson, Ginsberg and other American greats. But she's also a terrific, erudite and insightful interviewee. Her book series featuring Ame involves a subculture of somewhat vampiric creatures who prey not on human plasma, but on human fear. Katya's inimitable phrasing in her long fiction and poetry often shames me into wanting to write a bit more better. Check out her blogand blog.


Kit Kats: Bite off the ends of a Kit Kat finger, and dip one end into your beverage. Whaddaya got? A delicious filter-straw type dealio!



SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: The ends of your KitKat are called #ObesityTips - and a pinch on the lips is an inch on the hips!

That's enough from me anyway!

interview

Misha Gericke:  I want to welcome Katya Mills to my blog for an interview.

Hi Katya! Welcome to The Five Year Project! Tell us a bit about yourself.

Hi and thanks for having me, greetings from Northern California! My name is Katya and I am an American with German, English and French heritage. I am a social worker and self-published author of one novel, two novellas and a short story. I was born in Connecticut in February, 1973 and raised in New England. I first left home for school in Chicago, where I majored in English Literature at Northwestern University. I fell in love with books at an early age. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens was the first epic story I read all the way through. I was about ten years old. That’s about when I decided I wanted to write books. I am an Aquarius and my favorite color is royal blue. I support LGBT and human rights. I work at a non-profit with a team of compassionate caregivers providing support to homeless people suffering from mental illness. I work the nightshift now, which seems to coincide nicely with my writing life. 

Very cool. Tell us a bit more about your books. What are they about?

Girl Without Borders is a novel I wrote while living in Chicago. I consider it my tribute to this great city. The protagonist, a rather aimless young man, becomes the center of an unrequited love triangle. The story follows the guy as he basically gets blindsided by love, and caught in a deadly situation. These are young adults in their twenties, freewheeling with counter-culture attitudes, coming of age on the west side of town.

Grand Theft Life is the first book in my Daughter of Darknessseries. This is written in the voice of a strong lead (first person) heroine named Ame. The story takes place in Oakland, where I lived for many years. I like to set my books in cities I know inside and out. Ame is one of a divergent strain of humans, known as Delux. She doesn’t realize she is extraordinary until she is fully grown and her people abduct her and take her to Oakland, where she learns how to channel human fear, for survival. She discovers she can read minds and such. She falls in with an interesting group of characters, including Freddy, the man who abducted her. There is an anti-hero vibe about these ones, and Ame is trying to sort it all out.

Maze is the second book of the series. The title refers to Ame’s boyfriend, a punk skateboarder with an ice cream sandwich habit. He has mixed blood (hybrid human) but it doesn’t deter him from a merciless way he hunts humans for their fear. Ame hunts with him, but she is conflicted by the violence. She was raised by humans, actually, so she has a soft heart for them. There is a way to extract human fear without killing, however, and the results are unpredictable. Ame’s best friend Bless is crushing on her, and tries to pull her away from Maze. This book introduces Kell, the little sister, who is struggling with an addiction to Oxycontin. And an orphan boy with a gap in his teeth who likes to follow Ame around.

Everlee and Lee is a horror story I wrote about a couple of kids who are living in a spooky old Victorian house with their nefarious Aunt Rose. They are visited by the ghost of their mother, who provides clues toward unraveling a dark and disturbing history. The kids learn to communicate telepathically so to hide their thoughts from Aunt Rose, as they figure a way out. This story is published alongside my books on Amazon.com.


Ame and the Tangy Energetic is the third book in my series, and my WIP. I hope to publish it in late Spring or Summer 2016.

Your stories sound interesting. What comes to you first? The plot or the characters?

Thank you. Characters come first! I typically work without an outline, a very open-ended plot and a situation / circumstance / tension that needs to be worked out.

Sounds a lot like my process. How do you approach editing? 

I try and get the first draft all out without looking back, but sometimes I can't resist a little peek. Then I move the doc to Scrivener and read it through, make some notes and begin editing. I imagine a puzzle and usually find myself relocating paragraphs and passages several times to form any chapter. It can get pretty chaotic! But somehow my mind knows where to put stuff. Cutting is hard so I typically take my cuts and place them at the end of each chapter so I can reconsider later. This makes cutting easier. I try and keep a flexible attitude and playful. And say to myself 'simple story simple story' over and over again. Betas will be involved after the second draft. But there may be several drafts within the draft... I usually know when a chapter feels like it expresses the story the way I like. I also like to read my work aloud to hear how it sounds word for word.

What is the best piece of advice you can give new writers?

Writing a book can be thrilling and a whole lotta fun. Sometimes it's hard to get to that place. The page is always blank for you. It's the only way. If the mind comes in preoccupied, you may not get the immersion. I believe in mindfulness to bring a quiet mind to the process. Slow it down to one word at a time, one sentence, one paragraph, one passage... give it room to breathe and make sense of itself.

Good advice. Where can people find you and your books?

Here are the links. I have author profiles on Goodreads andAmazon.

My website is Katya Mills and I frequent the GPLUS community.

Thanks for stopping by, Katya! 

Anyone else use Scrivener to edit? What is your favorite program to use when editing? See you all on Monday! (Although I might try and sneak in a few visits before then.) 

LINK 2 MISHA'S SITE:

http://sylmion.blogspot.co.za/2016/03/interview-with-katya-mills.html

Author Festival - Sacramento

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

Review: Interview with the Vampire

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The reason I give this book 5 stars is related to the quality and style of the writing. Anne Rice is a writer's writer. I also felt like she understood her subject matter-- 'Vampires' thoroughly. She did her homework and she filled the characters out around the edges within which vampires must be contained.

Aside: [I will never understand how so many writers and filmmakers can decide to take license with vampires, and endow them with qualities vampires do not have! I know its the 21st century and everybody loves a vampire. But this does not give people license to turn vampires into vampires plus, or just give them horrible makeovers].

Anne Rice fortunately, is not among those who have been taking the species to the sewer in their awfully careless treatments all across the media landscape. (The 'Underworld' films are also an excellent example of vampires done right). Maybe I am a bitter goth from way back. Anyway, thank you Anne Rice for doing right by vampires. The others should go and make their own terrible monsters, and not be so lazy to call them vampires, or so greedy to capitalize on the trend!

The characters are interesting. The sense of humor is dark, sardonic caustic. The plots are thick. I did put the book down, for weeks at a time, but I read it twice and caught things the second time I missed the first time around. Anne Rice has sold so many books during her lifetime because her writing is bold, flashy, fun, and colorful. If you haven't tried her and you like vampires, check it out.

View all my reviews

the creature. single feature

I am the creature hanging from your ceiling.

I live off of Mars bars and yogurt-dipped fingers. I have a companion who plucks my eyebrows and I am not affected by gravity, as you see, my hair does not follow nor yield to such force. Do not be alarmed for you have no defense against me, nor will I harm you. So you may as well be relaxed and enjoy our time together. I would ask only for the porcelain-inflected buttons on your vest (every other one from the top down), 3 good-natured parakeets, the sparkly eye shadow your dead wife left behind  (god rest her soul) and two pots of freshly ground Chilean coffee you may retrieve from the man in the backyard who is watching you. Please be kind to him and assist him in cracking his back, as he has only arrived a fortnight ago after a long and arduous descent from his home in the Andes Mountains. 

We will share the coffee together, you and me, black through the depths of this dreary, dark night. My wings have quite a span so I will politely refrain from flapping in your domicile. There is a key which is lashed to my waist, which unlocks my heart for you. Just be sure to turn exactly 90 degrees counter clockwise, than a full 360 degrees clockwise then 2 degrees at a time counter, every 7 minutes for 4 hours, and rather than rounding you may complete the last click on the 4th strike of the final hour, upon the bell, as heard through the window you will leave open which looks out open the church several meters away in whose rafters I was conceived. Do not forget the coffee, upon your life, do not forget. 

the secret life

There is a life inside each of us, call it what you will. You can access this life, this world, by dreaming, lucid dreaming, various forms of meditation, various forms of process. You can access through silence. You can access it through music. You can access it through ritual. Some of us will explore it by conducting our own far-reaching experiments in our own spaces, laboratories, dance floors. Some of us may create worlds to share with others, through businesses, churches, schools, non-profits. Some will find the secret life by the body, pushing limits of endurance. Some will get there in relationships, loving, an affect or emotional access point. Others can tap in with pens and papers, blueprints, brushes and tools. Some will find catharsis in shared meaning, collective experiments, cooperatives. Others will find renewal hanging off the edges of mountains, alone. Teaching makes a microcosm out of a classroom. People reflect off of one another, and understand themselves better. Mind-body-spirit philosophies. Chanting, mantras, yoga, mindfulness, drumming, devotional practices all throughout the world. Reading and writing and speaking out. Time spent alone, in nature, pilgrimages. There is a secret life inside of us, and what's really wonderful is when you can access it and, catharsis or not, it makes you more alive, with wonder, and gives you a reason to smile and smile towards someone, too. Shining like you do.    - KatYa