Lavinia Thompson's Blog: Seeking reviewers! , page 16

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

October is an important month. Put aside all the Thanksgiving dinners and Halloween candy. It is Domestic Violence Awareness month. For myself, every month is another month in which I try to create domestic violence awareness, but it is in October when organizations, survivors and victims, band together to really ensure their voices get heard, and that is so vital to stopping abuse for good.

Understand that domestic violence and child abuse are community issues. It is in a neighbour’s home. It is in a friend’s bedroom. It is doused in silence but it screams so loudly, though many choose not to listen. Most people have experienced or know someone who has experienced domestic violence…don’t let it remain in the silent dark. Speak up. Talk about it. Bring it out into the open…fearlessly. Because when we are all fearless about it, there is no abuser left to fear, for fear is what fuels their control over victims.

I am making “She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle” free on Smashwords (find your ebook copy at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/92467) for the month as part of my own speaking out efforts. I will also be blogging about it, posting poems and other related stuff to raise some more awareness. I welcome anyone else to do the same, for it is when voices speak out that the abusers who control silence, get silenced themselves.

Just another self-publishing experiment… KDP Select

I’ve jumped in. In my latest self-publishing adventure, I have decided to try KDP Select. Everyone has been talking about the program from Amazon. Amazon describes KDP Select this way:

“KDP Select is a new option that features a $6 million annual fund dedicated to independent authors and publishers. If you choose to make a book exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days, the book is eligible to be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and you can earn a share of the fund based on how frequently the book is borrowed (click to see how payments are calculated). In addition, by choosing KDP Select, you will have access to a new set of promotional tools, starting with the option to offer enrolled books free to readers for up to 5 days every 90 days. Authors and publishers can enroll a single title, their whole catalog or anything in between within KDP Select.” – Amazon.com

I have heard writers talking about how much extra money it has made them, how it paid their rent for a month and so forth. As an author and a self-publisher, I do not believe in exclusivity. I do not think an author should limit their book’s audience to just one website where the ebook format is exclusive to one ereader. That being said, people argue that it’s “only for three months.” Then they tell me you can’t knock it until you try it.

So I’m trying it for myself. And my latest poetry book is the guinea pig. “Wildflowers Scattered, Estranged” has been enrolled. I used the book that has the least sales right now so I can compare the difference KDP might make.

I have my five free days already set up. They are:

-       October 5

-       October 19

-       November 2

-       November 16

-       December 7

So we will see how this goes. I don’t have my hopes too terribly high but the program just might surprise me. I’ll let everyone know how it progresses!

“Wildflowers Scattered, Estranged” is 99 cents on Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0088XJB56 and $10 in paperback on Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/3961384

Word on the Street festival (and some living room hockey)

I spent yesterday sitting behind a table in a white, flapping tent, watching the changing leaves as they swept into the streets of the Word on the Street festival. I had my table all set up, looking good, and had another box of books underneath it. I was ready.

It was six hours- the equivalent of a work day, essentially, and brought in $116 when all was said and done. I had about half a box of Legend of Kawilara copies and was left with only five copies of She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle.

Best of all, it was fun. It was a great opportunity to get out into the eyes of publicity and network with other writers. What surprised me was how many people actually stopped to look at my books, with their message and meaning, those who really took the time to take in just what I was doing there. They were people from all walks of life who may have encountered domestic violence in their lives. If they didn’t, then they were taking in a very important message.

A lot has been going on in the past month or so which has meant my writing got neglected. I wanted to have the Kawilara sequel out by now, but it didn’t happen. But the festival reminded me that I am passionate about what I do, what my writing means and the message it sends. It also reminded me that I need to get back to writing. I want the sequel out by the end of the year, and then I can move on to writing Edge of Glory.

So somewhere between renovations, four animals and two jobs, I have to fit that book in. I had a bit of faith in humanity restored yesterday. People do listen. But it is true- there are many cynical and negative people on the internet. It is easier to say what’s on your mind when you are hiding behind a screen. But sometimes you just have to go to festivals or conventions and find the people who care. They’re out there- just not necessarily always on the internet.

Having said that, I must go get ready for work…but not before playing living room hockey with an eight month old black lab to shake off some NHL lockout blues.

An update

New home, new cat, training an eight month old black lab, renovating, and two jobs…that is why I have not been around for almost a month. Tomorrow is one of my favourite days of the year: International Talk Like a Pirate Day! I work at both jobs tomorrow, so I won’t be doing much in the way of book marketing, but I might post an excerpt or something.

Kawilara 2 is not done due to all of this was taking place as well. I will be getting back to that with the intention of getting it out for the end of the year.

The local Word on the Street festival is this coming weekend as well and I am very excited! I got my books all in the mail and can’t wait to show them off on Sunday.

That’s all for now. Just wanted to send out a quick update. Stay tuned for more from Kawilara 2!

#SampleSunday Legend of #Kawilara 2 excerpt chapter 14

Indigo smeared a star-streaked sky way above Tia Justace and the shoreline upon which it sat. It was a sobering contrast, the silence, compared to the noisy tavern. There on a single dark road making up the village in its entirety stood Billy with yet another face he hadn’t seen since before his mother died.

“Man, I wish we would have known, Bill…wish we could have done something, you know?” Mike’s brooding brown eyes glanced over to Billy.

“There was really nothing anyone could have done, mate, as much as I wished then…even now…” Billy replied, his hands in his deep jacket pockets and eyes contemplative, like destruction’s fires still lingered in soft embers after so much time, not bright enough for everyone to see, but burning just orange enough that the boy who lost everything could still feel the subtle burns.

In many ways, Billy envied his best friend. Mike came from a good family, complete with a mother and a father who loved her. He was second eldest of four kids. He had two brothers and a sister, who was the youngest. They were a close family. The Greitzers lived a few doors down from Olivia, almost across from where Billy and his mother used to live. Billy remembered always being slightly envious of Mike and his family, though he could never be bitter. The family had always been good to him and his mother.

“Well, it’s really good to see you,” Mike told him sincerely. “I’m glad you’re alright. We were all really worried about you. They kept saying your mother’s…well….that it was a suicide, aye? My parents never believed it. Looking back, neither do I. We all know what was happening.”

“Your family and Olivia were about the only ones who cared,” Billy remarked quietly, gazing down the shadowy street as he and Mike sauntered.

“We still do,” Mike replied, glancing up at Billy seriously. “Don’t ever think you don’t have a family here. You’ve got Olivia and you’ve got us, if you ever need anything. It looks like you’re doing alright for yourself. I just want to make sure you know you’re not alone…”

Billy gave a small smile. “Olivia says the same thing. It means a lot, it really does. If I don’t take advantage of the offer it doesn’t mean I’m ungrateful, mate. I’m just trying to figure things out for myself. This town is not a place I want to be.”

Mike shrugged. “And who can blame you? Damn, Billy, I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. Part of me doesn’t want to know…”

“Keep it that way, trust me,” Billy remarked with half-hearted sarcasm.

Mike’s small bark of a laugh echoed through the night. “I’ve heard stories. That’s quite enough. Olivia mentioned what you told her a few years ago when you passed through…just the thought is nauseating.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Mike. I was lucky to get out. Took a long time to plan my escape and then doing it was another…” Billy stopped short at just what he had to go through to get out. The girl he helped that day still crossed his mind every so often, leaving him wondering if she managed to get home or maybe start over elsewhere. He hoped she never ended up back in that dreadful place. He could still remember the fear in her wild eyes. Some things he would never forget.

Mike didn’t say anything for a few moments, perhaps deciding how to arrange his words, what to say to such a statement. He put his hand on Billy’s shoulder, keeping his words as simple as the gesture. “I gather you really don’t want to get into talking about that…I’m always around if you do though, seriously. I might not understand, but I can listen.”

“Means a lot, Mike. Don’t worry, this probably won’t be the last time I pass through here. It’s the only port between Kawilara and Adara unless we make a turn and go west towards McGough,” Billy told him.

“Good to know,” Mike replied, stopping as they reached Witch Elm Village, where a few little houses let their lights spill gracefully onto the dirt road outside, only the stars and moon above watching over the rest as they slept. Billy and Mike glanced down the road. Billy knew their minds were thinking different things. He couldn’t say what was on Mike’s mind, though Billy stared in the direction where his old home had been. The graveyard was beyond Witch Elm, he remembered.

He walked with Mike until they reached his house. With a wave, Mike wandered inside to the warmth of his family, the comfort of home and things Billy hadn’t known in what seemed like forever. Billy was left out in the dead heat of a summer night. Alone.

To be released in fall 2012.

Legend of Kawilara 1 is available free on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006HJ6XT0 and Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/110429. Also available on Createspace in paperback for $15: https://www.createspace.com/3929637

Imagine: a Tribute to John Lennon

Reblogged from Lavinia Thompson:

Happy birthday, John Lennon. The former Beatle would have been 71 years old today. The world lost a great man, visionary, humanitarian, hero and musician Dec. 8, 1980.

I discovered John Lennon when I was 17, at a time when I was lost for faith both in religion and the world in general. It was only a few years after the dark era in which my mother’s ex ruled, so I was still soul searching and wondering what to do with myself in the big old world.

Read more… 1,250 more words

John Lennon's killer was denied parole for the seventh time today. Lennon is one of my biggest inspirations, although he died nine years before I was born. This is an essay I wrote a few years ago about John Lennon, posted on my blog last year. Wanted to share it tonight.

~ Just an Update ~

Sigh…so not a lot of writing has been done here. In the last week and a bit, my beloved van died, as some of you know…today I heard back from the shop and it will cost about $3,000 in repairs because some idiot put motor oil in my transmission. Are people really that stupid? I’m pretty sure it was from when I took it in last year.  Tomorrow morning I call a tow truck and dear Vanny gets towed to a junk yard…my heart breaks. But I think there might be a short story at least in there. This was my first vehicle, so it has thrown me into a bit of disarray. Is there always something about losing your first vehicle that just tears you up a little?

The good news is that for the THIRD consecutive month, “She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle” has sold 100 copies! And I am slowly making progress on Kawilara 2…I am setting my release date for September 19, which is also International Talk Like a Pirate day. Befitting, I figure, seems as the main character is a pirate. It is also a few days before the Word on the Street festival Sept. 23, where I will be selling paperbacks of my books.

That’s really all there is to update right now…stay tuned!

#SampleSunday Kawilara, Part 1: Chapter 23

I am posting this week’s Sample Sunday tonight, as I work all day tomorrow. This week, I’m posting an excerpt from Kawilara  1…personally, one of my favourite moments from the book…  

“Your Majesty, I know little of these Black Guards…but I have seen what they do. That’s why I’m here. It is too terrible to allow them to continue…” Mauriat said, staring off distantly.

Jaffee nodded. “I agree. Sydow, what are your thoughts?”

“These…Black Guards, who are they? I have no such thing in my country…are they rebels perhaps?” Sydow answered in contemplation.

Jaffee shook her head. “No, Sydow, these men are much more terrible, the vilest scum. They’re witch hunters. More than that, they are misogynists of the worst kind. They would gladly lay hands on your queen, torture her, rape her and burn her alive just because they enjoy the thrill. And if you tried to stop them, they’d kill you too, just as they did with King Terence and Queen Alanis long ago.” She paused a moment and glanced at Noah before she continued. “I’m sorry Noah, he needs to know how severe this is, I wish I knew how to explain it in a way that makes some sense, but there is no explaining what they do or why…”

“It’s about control, power,” Janey said without thinking. “They make a woman confess to the most outrageous things and blow it completely out of proportion, twisting into accusations of using witchcraft for murder, infanticide, or they simply pick up on petty little. They torture it out of her, and if she doesn’t confess…the torture gets worse.”

Silence descended on them before Janey realized what had escaped her mouth. Even Sydow seemed slightly taken aback, though whether it was at her words or her bluntness, she wasn’t sure.

Mauriat shuddered in horror. “And after the torture…”

“They burn her alive. She never has control from the start, they take it away completely. She’s doomed the moment she enters that prison unless she’s damn lucky like I was. But I lost everything so I sometimes wonder just how lucky I really am,” Janey said.

“You’re…positive? I mean, really, it can’t be that bad that witches just can’t live with it,” Sydow said arrogantly, waving it away as if it mattered none to him.

Without a word, Rhiannon stood and harshly slapped the back of Sydow’s head, knocking the beautiful crown from atop his perfect head. The pirate queen’s eyes may as well have been afire when she stared him down with the ferociousness of lightning in a storm. Janey was caught between shocked at Sydow’s ignorant words and Rhiannon’s sudden outburst.

“Live with it, Sydow?  Really?” Rhiannon scolded angrily. “You and your pompous little self, dare to enter this conference knowing the delicate nature of what we are discussing, and you give us that rich boy fickle attitude? Your display of disrespect is sickening. There are real survivors of this ordeal in this room, including myself. Watch your bloody mouth or I swear I will obliterate every single ship of yours that dares sail into my waters.”

The silence that followed would have been awkward, but Jaffee wasted no time in diffusing the dispute. “Rhiannon, please, calm yourself. I cannot have that behaviour in my country. Sydow, as my sister said, do watch your tongue here. As I said, I will have no disrespect here.”

Sydow picked up his crown, glancing it over for any damage. “I thought we were here to discuss anti-violence,” he said almost mockingly.

Janey watched it all quietly, until Sydow said that. Something inside of her snapped with his ridiculing attitude.

“Are you serious, Sydow? Live with it?” she asked, anger on the edge of her voice.

Legend of Kawilara 1 is currently available free on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/110429 and on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006HJ6XT0

Paperback copies can be ordered from Amazon for $15:  http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Kawilara-Part-Fire-Volume/dp/1478195142

Legend of Kawilara, Part 2: Swords is to be released in fall 2012.

#SampleSunday Kawilara 2, chapter 14 excerpt

Keeping the excerpt short this week as I didn’t get a lot of writing done…but here it is!

 

He didn’t think he would remember where his mother’s grave was, but just like so many other things, he did. A piece of wood still sat on it, though it was different.

Milene Eagle, tragically murdered and justice never served. Devoted mother to Billy…may he find peace after tragedy.

It took no time for tears to fill his gloomy eyes, clouds of memories and gruesome sights he only yearned to erase from his memory that alcohol never could. Time and time again, he wished it were some awful nightmare he would awake from any time. Reality always knocked him down from that delusion. There was no way out of his solitary life, no escape from the daily agony and no real way of forgetting anything. It was simply there, like the ocean turned bloody and the sky collapsed to some oblivion he would never get out of.

“I miss you, Mom…” he said out loud to the grave, though he knew no one would hear him. He thought it silently to himself every day, knew it deep down in his shredded heart, but saying it out loud brought on a whole new set of tears that streamed down his face. As stone cold as he seemed to the rest of the world, his heart was anything but stone within. It was a ship sailing in the morose fog, with no light from any ports ahead, not even a clear moon to tell him there was a light at the end of wherever he was. He was just sinking beneath murky waves, no hand reaching out, no warm touch, no words to make it all better. Nothing would ever make it better. He was at the cruel world’s mercy, where anything could have happened to him.

Sitting in the long summer grass, he could almost feel her touch on his shoulder again, yearned so badly to hear her words, whispering things would be alright again. There was just the whimpering wind in the trees, the stark silence more haunting than any ghost could have been.

“Come back to me…” were the only words in the graveyard, ones of a son long alone and kneeling in turmoil that kept him near the bottom of the ocean he was drowning in every day.

Billy didn’t know how long he sat there for, just staring into words on his mother’s 11 year old grave, finding it hard to believe it had been over a decade since Gary had torn his young life apart for good. Anger surfaced beneath grief, like storming waves beneath the deathly calm. He knew killing Gary wouldn’t bring his mother back, but Billy didn’t want Gary to do to anyone else what he had done to Billy and his mother. He never wanted another little boy to feel the way he did.

Contemplatively, Billy pulled out one of his pistols and let it sit in his hands. His finger caressed the trigger, looking from his mother’s silent grave and back to the gun in his trembling hands, his face soaked in tears. Billy wondered if living was even worth it, or if the bullet in his pistol was better off in his own head than his mother’s murderer.

Poem ~ Last of the Vagabonds

Late night coffee,

smell permeates the little house.

2 a.m., wide awake

Lover sleeps beside me,

so simply beautiful

and my beloved dog is on the floor.

Dead heat, summer nights

dreaming of the west coast

and things I’ve never seen,

maybe a hippie van

painted with flowers and peace symbols

to take me everywhere…

Silly teenage dream

still sounds good to me.

Guess I never did grow up.

They say dreams die in this town

but I think they died when I left

and came back, everyone I know

moved away and I remain

standing by the four ways past midnight.

Another karaoke night through,

smoking in the parking lot,

contemplating.

A friend said don’t settle for just mediocre;

there’s so much more out there.

He sold a house on Vancouver Island

to be with his kids in Alberta.

With a cold autumn wind starting to sneak in

he says in a year or two he’ll return

to the west coast, nothing here

ever worked out.

I keep saying the same thing.

The stories are all the same,

just molded to a different face.

They come to find something better

and they find maybe dreams

really do die here.

I just don’t know anymore.

Winter approaches,

can’t make up my mind whether to

flee or remain

just like butterflies…

fly away from me…

It’s family, I told him,

keeping me here

when he asked

‘What are you still doing here?’

Words that still echo in my head.

Been asking myself that for years,

if I’m just staying where it’s comfortable.

Can’t seem to face the world out there,

always changing,

rearranging

like wildflowers every spring;

they’re always different

when they return.

Another friend says

he might be gone east this fall

if things don’t work out anymore,

a decade old friendship gone to Hell.

Hugged him, told him to do what he felt best,

standing outside the little pub

smoking, like I’ve done so many nights.

As the last of the vagabonds like me leave

it’s making me think

really think..

What am I still doing here?

And somewhere on the wind

beneath the bright lit city

something whispers

You keep coming back

to things you cannot change…

they’re all ghosts long by now…

 

Photo by Lavinia Thompson