Another One Bites the Dust....

Another Year....that is. It's gone. It packed up and is on its way out. The taxi is waiting. The plane ticket is in its greedy little hand. What a year.

It has been EPIC. Crazy. Insane, fucked up and immeasurable. I have no idea how I survived. Seriously. I spent almost a week in the hospital. I am lucky to be alive. Life is a crazy twisted mess of more fucking crazy.

I thought I was going to die.

The pressure in my veins. The fear in my heart. The pain. The dizziness. I thought I was going to die.

I didn't. FYI, no shit. I wouldn't be typing this otherwise. I'm alive. I never thought I'd have this little lesson so early in my life. I am thirty two years old. I am not old enough to die, though people have gone before me, younger, brighter, more full of the stuff that makes us burn out fast and in a blaze of glory.

I am alive.

I haven't written a word in months. I've been focusing on my health. Eating better, working out at least four days a week. Changing my life. De-stressing. Living in the moment. Thanking God and the powers that be that I'm still here in this moment. I've had some scary scrapes. Preeclampsia with my first son. Blood Pressure so high it's amazing I didn't have a stroke. I didn't think it would affect me long-term.

I didn't think.

I hate going to the doctor. Not only does it take time, and I hold time like a bandit with just hours to live...it takes money. Something of which I am even more obsessed and careful with. You have to be when you are living on scraps from writing and your wonderful husbands income. I have long thought of returning to the world of Health Insurance, but just the thought breaks me out in hives. I will make something of my writing or go back to school, I will not sludge through the horrible Insurance world ever again. Never.

So I don't go to the Doctor on what you might call a regular basis. Every two years maybe. Less often probably. If I'm dying well then don't call the ambulance drive like the devil because if I live through this shit, I will not pay thousands for a car ride. I am stubborn to say the least. A towering wall of immovability if you ask my husband. I don't budge.

I had a toothache. A bad, horrible, killing my face toothache. It had moved up my face and into my ear. I went to the Dentist, kicking and screaming, paid my copay begrudgingly. Waited...waited...and waited in the waiting room where every second made me twitchier and more annoyed. Fifty bucks to sit FOREVER...I hated every moment. By the time they called me back I was practically vibrating with anger. I didn't want to be there. I wanted to go home to die in agony in a place I loved.

She took my blood pressure.

Silence.

You could have a heart attack!

What?

You could also have a stroke.

What the fuck?

I in an already frightened pain ridden state panicked. I might have jumped from the seat and needed to be peeled from the ceiling.

It didn't make sense. My blood pressure was insanely high. Stroke possible high. So high that when in labor and pre-eclampsic I had an EMERGENCY C-section.

Of course this high-blood pressure business meant my root-canal would be postponed, because the Dentist was uncomfortable working on someone with so high of blood pressure.

I left in a cloud of denial...and pain...and extreme fear buried somewhere deep.

I didn't tell my husband everything of course because it frightened me. The next day...I dragged myself to the Doctor, who suggested I go to the emergency room.

Now I will say that when going to the ER, it is convenient, (terrifying), to have extremely high blood pressure. All these fancy machines start flashing and making noise and you are whisked away to a private room and covered with goopy sticky monitors that make sure you aren't having a heart attack. They draw your blood and bam you've been in the waiting room long enough to sit in a chair. It's fantastic, (albeit terrifying), service.

Later they ask a thousand questions, and poke you everywhere. Have you take chest x-rays and start taking Nitro Glycerin. Until a doctor comes by to explain that you are not in fact having a heart attack or stroke but you have scary blood pressure and you should see your doctor tomorrow.

Upon seeing said doctor, blood pressure is still scary high, and you go into the ER again later that night to do it all over again except this time you had a bad reaction to the diuretics and anti anxiety meds which surprisingly make you more fucking anxious so you spend five fucking days getting poked, prodded, stress tested, Cat Scanned, Angiogramed, and every other horrible damn test you can think of and go home so damn happy to be alive that working, writing, is the last freaking thing on your mind.

So yeah....that happened. And I'm taking a sabbatical so to speak to concentrate on said health and blood pressure until I'm sure I'm going to be ok.

I feel better just typing that all out. I still can't believe it.

The Ultimate BLOCK

I've hit a wall.

It's been there for a while. Constructing slowly. Block after heavy block. It rises and I fall. Further from the dream...from the place where I want to be. I can't complain really. I have written and published five novels. I have ideas for countless more. But somewhere along the way I lost my passion. It grew dimmer slowly. Like all things time was the bandit. It crept by slowly. Whittling away. Tick tock. Second by Second.

There was a time when I promised myself I'd be published by thirty. Here I am thirty two years old, and I am published, but selfly. It isn't the same for some reason. I tell my children I'm an author but I rarely feel it in the words as they spill from my lips. I feel like a liar as I say them. Yes I'm a writer, but I've yet to meet my success. I spent thousands on advertising. Even more on needless things. Bookmarks, swag packs, wasted money. Wasted opportunity. I'm not sure where I lost my way. Back in the beginning. After the numbers didn't rise.

I've given away hundreds of books, a lot of which I paid for. Where has it gotten me? Do I have more reviews on Amazon? After a while I stopped caring. I bled myself dry and threw my work out into the huge space of the internet. Where it was lost. Where no one cared...and slowly that wall started growing. Where do I go from here?

Do I give up...continue to tell the lie that I'm a writer. Many before me who were far more talented toiled without recognition. Plenty were unknown until they were gone. As any artist goes I may never be a great one. But in the beginning that isn't why I wrote down my stories. I wrote because my dreams and nightmares spilled across the pages. I couldn't stop typing. I was alive in my world of self constructed towers of words. I loved it. I loved every moment of creating my multi-faceted complicated heroin's. I loved the way words could build new worlds. Painting pictures with each push of the keyboard.

Creating something from nothing. I lost that drive in the race for recognition and glory. And somehow from the ups and downs I've found my way back. It was in the writing of another author that I woke up and remembered why I'd started this all to begin with. It wasn't fame and fortune. I wrote because I could, because above anything else it was what I wanted to do. My dream job.

I took it for granted...but I'm back bitches!!!

I feel it coiling up inside me like a tidal wave long forgotten. It builds and boils up in frothy waves. I want to create, I want to bleed out upon the pages. I want to rip my heart to shreds and weave it into first sentences my fingers aren't fast enough to type. I want to weep my soul into my words until I'm left empty and spent, like a lover after a long marathon of crazy fucking sex. I want that wonderful release I can only get from writing.

I was dead for a while. Stuck in the crypt I built for myself. It isn't about fame and glory. It's about the words. The world, the wonderful fucked up awesomeness that is writing.

Being a grown up...

We all want something...love, a home, a family and friends, a good job. The list goes on and on.

I want my innocence back. I want that moment where I realized how fucked up the world is switched off like a light so I can go to sleep at night without thinking about the women in other countries who are being raped and murdered simply because they are female and weak. I want to enjoy this short time on Earth without seeing what everyone else pretends doesn't exist. I want to drive away from my kids school and not see some guy walking his dog and ultimately think...predator. I want to see the good again.

I want back my rose colored glasses.

All of us suffer from some pain at the loss of our innocence. Divorce, death, bullying, lost love, and the unrequited. We all have that moment where we realize our last shred of innocence has died.

I remember mine. I was twenty one. In love with the man that eventually became my first husband. Not long into our relationship something significant happened...we moved in together...got engaged...ended up pregnant. Before my twenty second birthday I was married and a mother for the first time. I was a baby still. So foolish...so prideful. I didn't think anything bad could ever happen to me.

While I was pregnant and he worked late...I didn't ultimately think he was screwing his co-worker in the break room. I didn't think those late night inventories were code for booty calls. I was a child having a child. I was inexperienced. A small town girl living in a much larger city. I was naïve...still so innocent.

Later I found out the truth. Not only was he a cheater during my pregnancy...but it was worse. A family secret...inched it's way out sometime during the whirl wind of our relationship. That reason he had to go to the Police Department and register...wasn't for assault and running away. No one get's a felony for pushing down his sister.

I was naïve.

I should have known better. I can hit myself all day with the things I didn't see. I wish I were smarter....more world wise. Less ridiculous. I believed him when he told me why he had to register. I believed him when he told me he had to work late. I believed those lies because I wanted to see the best in him....the way I wanted to see the world through that beautiful pink colored hue.

It was an accident that I found out the truth. I wasn't smart enough to dig for it on my own. I was not who I am now. It was fate really...or God trying to give me a heads up. If I'd only listened...

It was not assault in the way I thought...but it was assault...he didn't lie completely. It was his mother who erroneously told me what was really happening. She asked me if I knew about why he had to register in California. I told her that yes he had told me the truth. She tried to lighten the blow by saying that she thinks it started as a misunderstanding...that his sister had lied about it being unconsensual...it was that word that made me realize that something wasn't right. I wish I could slap the girl of then with the reality of her situation.

His mother thought it was initially consensual. A massage that got out of hand. Two horny teenagers who didn't quite realize what they were doing. Self-exploration. Whatever. All I could do was run the word assault around in my mind. Redefine it. I thought assault meant injury. A punch, a push, a broken nose. Violence of the angry kind. Not sex. Not Incest. Never in my mind had the thought of him fucking his sister entered into my idea of what assault meant.

I didn't see the ugly in the explanation. I saw what I wanted to see...him loving me. Him being beautiful...him being good. Him being honest. Him being a person who wouldn't lie, wouldn't cheat and certainly wouldn't rape his own biological sister.

I didn't see it.

Even after...I didn't want to. I lived in a bubble of numbness well into my third trimester. After my sons birth. It all aligned in an insane way. The world burst open. I was no longer walking in a black and white world. There was color everywhere. Green for envy...red for lust....black for sorrow...and an ugly grey yellow was the color of his lies...and they covered everything.

His explanation for his past...his reason for registering in the state of California. The late night inventory. The lies...the deceit. The truth covered everything in a puke tinged brown. My life fell off it's axis. The world was changed. I couldn't raise a child with a man I didn't know. He was a figment of my imagination. A phantom.

We divorced.

It was ugly. I caught him fucking his now wife while I was at work. I came home early you see. To a house with a whore in it's bedroom. Now I have to smile while she hugs my son. I have to pretend like it's okay for his benefit...not hers. I want to scream at every teacher meeting where his lies and fake personality win over every red blooded female that he's a sick sack of shit who raped his sister. I want to spew the ugly hatred from my body. I want to tell my son where his fathers money was going when I was raising him without financial support from his father and barely making ends meet while his dad paid for hotel rooms so he could screw his mistress. I want to tell him that she his step mother doesn't respect me because she knows that I know the deep ugly heart that beats inside her fucking chest.

But I say nothing.

Because it will only hurt him. But someday. Someday I'll be so knocked down by fake smiles and laughter at my back and teaching my son to disrespect me that I'll spew the brown vomitus truth all over their ugly yellow lies and the world will see what they really are.

Mourning...a voice

I am in a constant state of mourning. Waiting for that last shoe to drop. In seven years I've lost two crucial people in my life. Two beautiful souls called home. They were both over eighty, had lived long lives, and made a better world for their children as they left it. Though I miss them and mourn them, it is not their loss that cuts me at this point in time.

My father is dying.

Physically he is healthy. His heart is strong and his body able. It is his mind that suffers and decays. At first a few small pieces shriveled and died. The disease mutilating what once may not have been a perfect man but a good one. He is no longer recognizable. Every day, week, month he slips further and further away. How can a man, a law abiding man, one with principals and a pure belief in God suffer so at the end of his life. How can God allow him to become this shell...this aggressive angry stranger I no longer know.

He has been kicked from the home that my brother so painstakingly chose, to a drab, sterile, institutionalized hell. It isn't right. It isn't humble. Do not go quietly into that night...there is no quiet...there is no struggle...there is only suffering. Night...would be a mercy. We don't know how long we'll have to watch him suffer. Losing him while we wait for him to die. It's macabre and morbid. I don't usually wish for someones death...but my father if he knew himself...would hate this.

He punched a women in the face. A women! The man that raised me...though stubborn...though the fool when it came to women....never hit them. Never. He wouldn't. He saved my mother from a violent relationship. He didn't believe in violence. Though he would rise if called, it was never his solution to problems. He was more prone to yell than hit. I hate watching this. I hate feeling this anger towards my God.

I believe in things happening for a reason...What is this reason? Pain. Suffering. Am I to be made stronger...does my father really deserve this? I quiet my mind and wait for clarity. I am in a constant state of mourning...though he isn't dead...though I sometimes wish it. Death will claim all of us. I know this. I fight the fear and the reality everyday. I know my time is coming. It comes for us all. I concentrate on the living. I want to see my sons grow, marry, have children.

My father no longer recognizes his children. I am someone he knows. Someone he sees as family.

I am nameless.

God, what I would give to hear him call my name. I replay my grandmothers voice as she calls for me. Remember her smell. I no longer remember my father's voice as he called my name. He hasn't said it...in over a year.

The things we miss without realizing they are gone. A burst of smoke that evaporates too quickly. We can't hold onto it. One moment it is there...and in another...it's gone. Only the memory remains...or the emptiness of a memory. I wish I'd played his voice saying my name in my mind. I wish I could find it there hidden in the depths.

Fear follows. Will I succumb to the same disease that's claimed him? Will my children also miss the sound of my voice as I say their names...and worse of all...will this horrible moment happen....while I'm still alive?

Feeling Bitchy?

Writing is hard.

Harder than anything I've ever done...including birth. Now, I may have been the lucky recipient of two C-sections, so my view is a little skewed. There were no long hours of labor or pushing out watermelons. I had nice drugs and little pain, even with the emergency C-section. It was...not terrible.

Writing is hard.

For reasons I can't even list sometimes. Self-publishing...is even harder. Not only do you have to write the book, characters, story, create a world, edit, re-edit, and hope to God your thoughts and voice comes across the page in some semblance of understandable, you have to do everything else as well.

Advertising...

Holy shit is there not a more annoying word in the dictionary. I am not good at advertising. In fact, even when I have paid for it, I still manage to suck at it.

Book Covers...

Not nearly as terrifying...but ultimately time consuming. Hours...days have gone by to needless flicks of the mouse in Photoshop. I could write novels in the time I've spent doing the self-publishing side of writing. The hours of tweaking my blog, or formatting for Kindle.

I hate self-publishing. It is the most thankless job I've ever done. Worse than cleaning bathrooms with three boys in the house. Worse than the vomit, diarrhea and spit up involved with infants. My God do I hate it...but I also love the control. There are no deadlines (this is both good/bad really) I am my own worst enemy. I procrastinate...waste time. Stare at Facebook, Goodreads, blogger...etc.

I have no Boss. I am the Boss. I should fire myself. I am not good a self promotion. I hate talking about my writing. Not because I think it's bad, but because it's awkward. I don't want to stroke my own back, or toot my own horn. I know what I am. Flawed...human...a perfectionist.

I am good at details. At painting with words...sometimes too much. Sometimes not enough. I, like Hemingway, read a book that is popular and set out to do it better. I never thought I'd be competitive. I'm not popular enough to even try. But I can finish a book and say...hmm that's pretty good. Better in my opinion. Shit probably in someone else's.

I publish and hope that somehow a reader stumbles across my book. But I don't harp in chat rooms, or post everywhere. I feel a little dirty when I self-promote. Whiny. It's not good. So where do I go from here? Do I take that giant leap towards tradition. Find a publisher. Hand over my control for a little less time-consuming processes that aren't writing. Trade in my creative freedom for some monetary relief.

I don't know what to do...and that's the rub...the problem. I don't know what's more important anymore. I hate self-publishing, but I don't. I hate doing it all myself, but like the control. I hate being so fucking indecisive...and yet my choice has not become any easier while whining in written form. Sometimes I wish life had a magic 8-ball. Shake, ask your question...reply.

A solid answer...yes or no.

Seven Deadly Kings

I came up with the idea for this book not long after I started The Wild Hunt. Chronologically I can't really start it until after Released Lilith:Part 2, and Soul Eater are written. It's been waiting to be tinkered with for years.

Like anything else, I never intended to get as side tracked as I have by other projects. By this time I was supposed to have written three more Wild Hunt Novella's, finished Released and started...you guessed it...this son of a bitch.

I know that someday I'll get to it. Just as I want to write a book about Wanton (demon name for Las Vegas), I also want to write about these demon kings. They like the other monsters in my books interest me. Just as Lilith does. I wish I had some clue why Released is being such a little bitch to write. I got side-tracked by Mean Bitch, and now another idea has come to fruition.

I won't go too far into details only to say it is a YA with new monsters. I wish I had more hours in the freaking day. At the rate I'm going the ideas will be many and the books few. Let's hold out hope that my fingers don't fall off and I never go blind.

Anywho....this is the new evolving cover for the first book in The Seven Deadly Kings series. The name is workable, but I actually really enjoy the Charlie with sugar skull picture. I think I'll have a Halloween party or something involved.

Dreams

It's no secret that I use my dreams for inspiration. Sometimes it's scary dreams that garner my attention. The terrifying revolving faces of demons that taunt and chase me. Sometimes its the sweet ache of a new or unrequited love. Dreams are full of inspiration.

Lately I've been having this reoccurring dream that slips away not long after I wake up. I'm left only with the distant impression that I have dreamed it before and that I am somehow connected to these creatures that are stalking me.

The point of this post is that dreams are full of crafty little bits of ideas but if you don't write them down then they aren't worth anything.

When I was in College I took this English course called Dreams and Interpretations. It was an excellent class. I absolutely loved it. One of the lessons, was especially exciting to me. It was a lesson written by or guest written by Stephen King. In the book Mr. King used examples from his novels about parts of them that were actually from his own dreams. Salem's Lot for instance was full of ripe terrifying descriptions straight from his subconscious imagination. He tweaked them of course but he said that to him the best writing happened when you were in a state of between. That cusp in-between awake and slumber, where dreams reside. It is in this foggy state that you can find or tap into a fountain of inspiration.

I think the best writing comes from this place. So many people ask me where my idea's come and most of the time I can't answer. Other books sometimes inspire, movies, music, real life horrors, trends, tweets, the truth is the idea comes from somewhere unknown. An unfathomable bottomless pit that is dark and murky and nameless.

Keep a dream journal. Keep it near you so you can write everything you remember down before it is gone. This morning I had a wonderful dream that I didn't write down. It's just wispy smoke now. The faint glimmer of shapes and feelings.

Write it down! The moment it hits you, the moment the synapses snap and meet and that fathomless pit spits up something substantial.

Calling all Fellow Bitches!!!

It's that wonderful time...that natural high from an almost finished manuscript.

Mean Bitch is coming!! (ignore the pun)

I have some treats...first some words from our badass bitch herself...Cassandra.

 

 

"I am bound and kneeling before him...twisted nylon cord wrapped neatly around my wrists and torso. Usually, I enjoy the process. It's like letting go. Each knot is a decision I no longer have to make."

 

 

 

 

 

And the biggest present (again ignore the pun) The Book Trailer!!

 

 

 

Mean Bitch Book Trailer