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
Tag Archives: narrative
tailor. precinct 11
far and wide
the old man was called upon
his number had come up!
he arrived carrying the suit he wore
on his wedding day 1975
knocked on the thick oak door
the office of aptitude 4
deconstructing and reauthoring identities
tailored to your desired
specifications
#katyamills
the dominant cultural narrative
likes us silent
likes us dead
efface the place
Such a prodigious commentary rolled out of a disconnected narrative. All the ghosts of old mama Bell had to glom together as operators, pulling and pushing their wires into that old electronic wall. All the calls incoming got patched through, and where hello meets goodbye, a patch could efface the English language, in any such redirection, the power of the women at the wall, operators, any which way. And blue came across the neurons and fired them off like static and clung to the statement preceding. Contradictions were contradicted and life would go on this way through the world wars, and endless series of splicing and bringing people together through a wire. Afflicted with afflictions, some operators were, and found peace only after the in betweens of their shifts and smoke long breaks twirled away. Nobody always knew nothing could turn into something when a push met a pull and were patched away from blue to gray. There were often a few kids meanwhile caught like in spiderwebs, tied up in an apron by a hem.
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| ‘operators at the hem’ by K |
writing tips
the scrivener corkboard (writing tools)
I have the outline to my book now available to me at the touch of a key, on Scrivener’s corkboard feature. The screen background looks like a corkboard, and there are index cards created for each chapter, which have the chapter heading and space for you to write summaries or whatever you feel you need for a quick visual outline of the larger narrative. I only seem to require the corkboard when my story expands. In this case, I’m playing with about 100,000 words, or about 50 chapters averaging 2,000 words. When I’m working out of the body of the narrative, on Scrivener, I have the chapters descending down a left column, and clicking on any chapter will take me directly to it. When the cursor is brought to the super heading ‘Book#3’ under which lies the cabinet of sub-chapters, the entire narrative will appear and you can scroll through it as a streaming passage. Often I find myself cutting and pasting and creating new chapters and recreating old chapters. And all you do is drag and drop a chapter in the cabinet to place it in a completely different location in the narrative, so I love the facility the ease of relocation, it almost inspires creativity or open-endedness in the editing process. Yesterday I filled in the corkboard summaries that were missing (new and recreated chapters), and found myself adding notes to the simple plot outlines, including notes about the feel of the narrative from one chapter to the next (ie humor, dark, heavy on action, descriptive, light-hearted) so that I can keep tabs on ups and downs and graduate the voice of the story into a consistent diversity of mood or feelingstates. I also embellished the summaries with theme-related developments and character quirks or relationships I am hoping to keep tabs on. I hope this helps give you an idea of what Scrivener offers you to enhance the writing and editing process. Thanks.
journal
life i love you. good friday
“Quiet life on softened streets, all the bad news backed away. You lucky kid. I washed my hair with 100,000 molecules. Each one like the full moon tonight, lighting up life in all the right ways. I made it to the site. I could peacefully fold my legs up under me on the couch facing the east, the house where nobody’s home, facing, pinching my slip as I picked it up and let it go hang around freely, pinching myself. You lucky kid you. All the pages were viewed, in a free sweep of eyes (not mine). To be sure they really existed, outside of myself. Not so easily destroyed by water, heat, air, time. Thumbs rubbing the ink to a fade I can no longer describe. Each curve of every letter like the full moon tonight, lighting up life in all the spectacular finishes. Flourishes. You lucky kid. Thinking of a friend, one I haven’t even heard of in years, a keystroke away, a daydream, attacking a search engine with a heart on a saturday in America, one truffle at a time, pulling lightly on the ends of twisted plastic until the whole thing rolls over and out, examining the condition of my condition, remembering the ionic bond even if it hurts. Life I love you.” – KatYa, 2016. excerpt fromAme and the Tangy Energetic
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| k by k on a sunny day 2016 |
lucky
Thinking back on my life… there is no wonder i am changed and yet remain quite the same at the core, rock steady somehow, trying to be an innovator, trying to express myself in meaningful waves, and hopefully many more years even twice as many years in store, which i could not even say three years ago today, when was my time of dying. Some like myself cannot stand (for our health) lashing out upon the world when we feel we have been forsaken. Instead we go inward and hurt ourselves, which is no less terrible perhaps – but I would rather swallow the poison than poison you, if between the two was my only choice. That’s just me. http://www.katyamills.com/2015/08/lucky.html
solar storm strike
Soon it will be as though I never existed. I did the dishes and swept the floors and vacuumed the carpets and dusted the shelves and made the bed and paid the bills and put out the trash and wiped the counters and bleached the tub and sink and soon it will be as though I never was here. Inside the pillow the down is on the rebound, for I have left for work. The kittens are chasing shadows, inattentive to the faraway sound of classical music in the faraway light from the closet. A guitar neck edges up from a dark corner. Silent. The glass is cooling off fingerprints. Spiders are waiting for someone to open the door, will someone ever come open the door? Our houses and possessions, what will they do without us? How will the things inside continue to live? Someone will come. And then the gods of destitution, financial and economic futility. I find myself back in that different life, like a dream now – was it real – helpless and hustling … mixed in with the street level decay, perhaps unappealing to the eye, a vibrant if desperate life demanding all of one’s innate qualities be brought to forefront without notice! The very same things gone dormant for hours upon hours behind locked doors at home, behind books, behind screens, behind bars. Comfort was comfortable for a moment before it murdered you in a stifling blanket party. I urge myself out of bed, off the couch, urgently I urge away from the television, the movie, the dinner table, the concert, the opportunities to hide and plant myself and vegetate. The clinging vine of pharmaceutical quality anything, uncut mental and emotional, physical and psychic vacation, the headphones, the lottery, eye candy, ear candy, the hailstones get bigger and pummel us down and pound us into the ground, fragments of brain lying in shards of glass and ice. The trees weep for us. I urge myself away, back into the self-generating energies, and always what I left behind me comes back again like a solar storm strike. My glasses have been shattered. I grope across the keyboard how to say it. My heart is frozen in my chest, and I nudge it toward a thaw, urgent for a season, decidedly optimistic in the atheistic static. All the gods slap my face with all their many hands, and I wake up out of blue and into time to thank you. I make myself a solar-powered sail, a foil, a blackness to absorb, a whiteness to reflect, I reshape my fucking attitude into a redemptive puffy cloud heaving water, then I rise above it all floating, singing the screams, vomiting terror, rubbing confusion into my eyes, then looking blind into space. Thank you. I hate you life full of suffering. I love you life come and go. I will not forget or regret you made the most of me. Use me. Abuse me. Love me like you do. For I am you.
This piece was first published on my website…
friday morning. recalled
A flash of prose I wrote about yesterday morning with a friend… http://www.katyamills.com/2015/08/friday-morning-recalled.html
bowling at the Inferno
The geometry of the room calmed me until i saw the centrifuge which caused me to eat the entire seedless watermelon. The bitter rind, typically dyssed, soothed my soul. My body double, once released, was able to free itself and form its own identity. Which pleased me, her initiative. The brazenness. No one has a body double quite like mine. The trick she used was separating sandwiches we made for the party, from their crusts. Tomorrow arrived with a name sewn to a shirt pocket, in North Dakota, and my old friend (now) Dante, was entrusted to play under the hoods of late model cars. I saw myself in her, by the choice of her name. It was our birthday today. We went bowling in the Inferno. In separate states. They made it easy into a chain. All the balls were round.
K IS SILENT 