Lavinia Thompson's Blog: Seeking reviewers! , page 17

~ Poem ~ Sleepy Eyes, Gypsy Nights ~

Sleepy eyes

beneath a summer moon,

dead heat,

little sleep,

sweat under lace,

something about love

never makes sense

but here we are.

Hollow hearts;

words don’t mean a thing

through souls fragile.

Strength and weakness,

standing or collapsed,

weeping or speechless,

don’t know what it means

but gypsy summer nights

were meant for running.

When dead heat

engulfs this town,

another summer too long;

some say it’s not long enough.

Lights in the night,

lovers under cover of a city,

wildflowers and pavement,

mountains and highways,

weary eyes, curled up lyrics

on a yellowed page

tattered at the seams,

a little like me…

Something I did not see.

You light up these nights,

stars like fireworks,

sweat on skin;

could lay with you forever,

nothing better,

silly love letters,

another song you write,

tames something in a gypsy.

Tired eyes back to life

like the wildflowers…

wildflowers…

Always said I’d get back

to the sea,

but I’m still

standing here

or am I standing still?

All I know is

you’re standing here too,

leather and cigars,

another highway,

this same old town.

I guess it’s not so bad…

Sleepy eyes,

gypsy nights,

moon lit delights.

Something about love

never makes sense

but here we are.

Copyright Lavinia Thompson 2012

Photo by Lavinia Thompson 2007

 

Sample Sunday ~ Kawilara 2 excerpt, chapter 13 ~

His eyes avoided Dalannah’s, though he knew she was looking at him, perhaps wondering just what kind of darkness he had come from and what terrors tortured him. Across the room, he spotted three men at a table, travellers who he recalled passing through Tia Justace when he was a kid. They were peddlers, if he remembered right, and spent a lot of time in Ol’ Ace’s. It was possible they knew Gary.

He motioned for Dalannah to stay put as he stood. “I’ll be right back.”

Dalannah didn’t say anything as she watched him cross the room in the casual demeanor of a usual pirate. The travellers spotted Billy as he approached their table.

“Evening, gents,” he greeted sombrely.

One of the travellers motioned for Billy to sit down, his fingers boney and old, gray hair sticking out in frizzy messes beneath his floppy black hat, clothes ripped and torn.

“What can we do for you, sir?” he asked, clasping his hands on the table before him.

Billy sat, setting one elbow on the table with a serious expression across his face. “I’m looking for a man, one you men might know. You’ve been coming through town here for some years and might remember him.”

“A man you seek, aye?” the elderly traveller replied. “Does he have a name?”

“Gary McGee,” Billy said, shaking off eerie tremors he got from speaking of the monster. “Tall, dark-haired, hard core alcoholic. Might have claimed to have a wife and kid at home. He would have been through here, oh, about 11 years ago. Disappeared mysteriously…”

A haze of recognition crossed the man’s deep blue eyes. “I know who you speak of, boy.”

A second traveller spoke up, a younger man with shaggy, dirty blond hair and a white bandana under a brown hat. His red shirt was puffy at the sleeves and his eyes were an ominous brown. “McGee…he claimed to have a wife and kid, alright. But everyone knew what he was, what he did to her. Poor woman…wish there was something we could have done for her.”

Billy closed his eyes for a moment before speaking again, holding his composure together. “What do you know of him?”

“He claimed to be a Black Guard, which is why we never could do anything for that woman of his,” the elder said, anger on his voice, his blue eyes haunted with the ghost of Billy’s helpless mother. “Oh, we tried. Olivia over there, her best friend, tried to get her to leave, but McGee had a dangerous hold over this town. Alcoholic he may have been, but he was a dangerous man, you see. Threatened us, that if we ever tried to take what was his, he’d make sure our wives and sisters burned alive too. They claimed her death was a suicide, she’d stabbed herself to death…but we all knew better. McGee was a bloody monster.”

Billy was taken aback by that. There was more to it all than he thought. “Do you know for sure if he was a Black Guard?”

“No one knew for sure,” the younger man spoke up. “But we had the suspicion. This town is isolated, whereas the Black Guards like to hit the bigger cities for victims to drag back to that prison. The fact they would come all the way out here…it was bizarre. Not their usual territory, you could say. After he vanished, another Black Guard showed up, and he wasn’t so quiet. Gregory Wolfram runs this town now as a Black Guard, has a son, Azrael. Azrael’s mother ran off shortly after they got here…went back home to Adara, after finding some witch rescuers. But that boy is being told a totally different story than what really happened…”

“Of course,” Billy muttered. “What of McGee now? Where is he?”

The elder traveller sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. “Rumour had it McGee kidnapped his woman’s son, kid’s name was Will or something like that. Took him to the prison and the boy was never seen again, at least not in these parts. As for McGee, he high tailed it out of town after killing his wife or girlfriend or whatever she really was…he comes back to Tia Justace every so often, just passes through when his ship needs repairs or something.”

Billy’s heart beat a little faster in his chest. This was more information than he thought he would get. “What’s he sailing?”

“Naturally he sails under the Black Guard flag,” the younger man said, tapping the table thoughtfully. “He sails a frigate, calls it ‘The Burning Whore.’ If that doesn’t show his true colours, I don’t know what does. He frequents pirate havens along the Nevermore coast line. Occasionally, he sneaks down to Weril Island.  Last I heard he was sailing around McGough.”

“Right, then…thanks, gents. You’ve been a lot of help,” Billy said as he stood up, turning to go back to the bar.

“And what is your interest in Mr. Mcgee, might I ask?” the elder’s voice filled Billy’s ears although he had his back turned to the table.

It was like the room stood still. Billy didn’t hear yelling drunks, laughter or any of usual noises in the tavern as he looked back just once to the travellers, who all awaited his answer. “You know that boy, the one who vanished? That’s me, Billy. My interest in McGee? My sword through his heart for what I’ve been through on his account, for what he did to my mother…because I haven’t forgotten.”

 

~ Poem ~ Summer Dusk

Orange shades of dusk settle,

splattered paint on blue canvas,

watercolour hues too bright

to comprehend.

If paint were light

it would look like tonight.

Sitting outside, smoke in hand,

contemplating things

complicated to understand,

west coast dreams,

decided some things have to change.

Photo by Lavinia Thompson 2012

It starts now

as wildflowers fade

to autumn shades,

swirls of leaves and petals

between pavement cracks.

There might not be a hockey season

this winter, there hasn’t been

real hockey since the seventies anyways.

Not since glory days of Dryden and the Rocket.

I live for when I get to see

glory days of my own.

Been on the edge,

been just that close,

not close enough,

or maybe looking back lost

in fear the glory is already gone.

Working checkout at the market,

nowhere near what the dream was

even a year ago.

So scared of being one of those

singing the same leaving songs

at karaoke 15 years from now.

Still awaiting the dream,

wondering how long it can wait.

Dreams die with seasons…

unlaced, dreams move on…

Another summer ends,

list of things never done

just as long as it has always been.

Summer dusk whispers

some things have to change.

 

Photo by Lavinia Thompson 2012

 

 

Legend of Kawilara 1 FREE for the month

Leading up to the release of the Kawilara sequel next month, I am making Kawilara 1 free for the month of August! It will be available to download at no cost on Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/110429

I also created a Facebook event for this for all of you to share and invite people to if you feel they would enjoy the series. That can be found here: www.facebook.com/events/330026380423029/

I am about to surpass 55,000 words on the sequel, so it is coming along nicely. I can’t for this one to be released!!!

 

Just some updates…Kawilara 2, writer’s festival…

So I just wanted to give everyone a few quick updates…

I have surpassed 52,000 words on Legend of Kawilara 2 and am just starting chapter 14. Things are getting interesting! Things are looking to be on track for the September release…I am hoping to have it done and ordered in paperback for the local Word on the Street Festival, which I am excited to announce I will be at on September 23! More details to come soon on that. All I can say at this point is there will be paperbacks of Kawilara 1 and She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle along with bookmarks and other fun stuff.

Createspace also had a little surprise for me the other day when I logged on. Apparently She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle sold four paperback copies in July! Ebook sales have been fairly steady with the usual summer decline but for a peak in paperback sales…I was definitely surprised, but happy. This little poetry book continues to keep me guessing, considering I am doing little marketing for it these days while focussing on the Kawilara series.

That’s all for now…stay tuned for more updates!

Art or just a repulsive fashion campaign?

I am about as unfashionable as it comes. I don’t follow fashion trends, nor do I pay attention to what is “in fashion” or not this season. I have my own style and I wear it loud and proud.

But for being so out of the loop on fashion, I found one style I won’t be sporting anytime soon. A friend of mine posted this link on my Facebook wall: http://www.fashion-law.org/2012/06/12-magazine-victim-of-beauty.html

And I think it’s disgusting. So suddenly it’s fashionable to look like your boyfriend just beat the living daylights out of you?? Seriously??? It is bad enough teeny bopper Chris Brown fans think it would be OK for him to beat them up as they so infamously said over Twitter during and after the Grammys, but for fashion to suddenly start telling girls it is ok to actually look like that? Seriously, if I were to get a photo off Google of Rihanna after Chris beat her up, it wouldn’t look too much different from these models. And that is disturbing.

The intent of the photos was to show off the makeup in a different and artistic, I get it. But are there not more beautiful, feminine and more empowering  ways to show off this make up to girls who want to and deserve to feel good about themselves? Because when someone uses injuries and a simulation of being beaten up to show off make up, that tells me it isn’t that attractive of makeup, or that girls who do get beat up, “should use this make up to cover it up.” Both messages are WRONG.

And of course, it could also be a shock value, which I wouldn’t put it past the fashion industry to do. Maybe they didn’t consider how it would look to the world. But what kind of fashion and advertising tells girls it is ok to look like you got beat up, or to use make up that was shown off on girls who look like someone beat them up? Not cool. I have some younger friends who are like little sisters to me and I have a biological little sister. I personally would find it extremely disconcerting if they were attracted to make up in this kind of ad campaign.

Fashionista reported that the people behind the campaign, 12 magazine EICs Huben Hubenov and Slav Anastasov said they were glad the campaign sparked this conversation, questioning what if it had been men? What difference would it have made if it were men? Abuse and violence against EITHER gender is wrong and displaying it would have sent out the same message. This campaign is simply glamourizing victims of violence, period, no matter the violence type, and it sure wouldn’t matter the gender. Glamourizing either is wrong. By the way, 12 magazine’s reaction to the backlash against their campaign can be found on the Fashionista website: http://fashionista.com/2012/06/editors-at-12-magazine-defend-their-beauty-editorial-featuring-brutally-injured-women/

The makeup is probably gorgeous and the artist is talented to be sure. But I can’t over how tortured and in pain the models look. As I said, there has to be more empowering and elegant ways to show off makeup. I am ok with being different and artistic…but I am questioning if this is artistic or just meant to shock people. I am betting on the latter. And then to even use the term “victim”…I have to say, I am rather disturbed by this campaign all around. To imply women are somehow “victims of fashion” is absurd. If I am a victim of anything anymore, it is a society that normalizes violence in my culture and tries to tell me it is ok when I know it is not!

Flowers are beautiful. Girls are beautiful. Blue skies are beautiful. Horses are beautiful. Butterflies are beautiful. This campaign? Nothing short of giving the same Chris Brown fans something else to make them think domestic violence is ok, whether that was the intention or not.

Now, a butterfly picture to make up for all the gruesome photos:

Photo by Lavinia Thompson
2012

Excerpt Kawilara 1, chapter 4 #SampleSunday

Janey broke from the embrace she was sharing with Billy. “I should get going.”

“Janey…” Yearning lingered in Billy’s sweet voice.

She paused, looking back momentarily. The sun by then was just an orange silhouette eclipsing the foreign distance. Crossing her arms, she turned away, making her way up the beach and back towards Tia Justace. She always hated showing her vulnerability to anyone, especially to Billy. She didn’t know how to talk to him anymore. They had gone from passionate lovers to strangers and in that moment they were holding patches of the friendship with which they had started out. She could tell herself he only meant the best by being there but it didn’t change how much she didn’t want to trust anyone. She could tell herself he had changed; that maybe they both had changed and maybe it could have been true. She just couldn’t convince herself of it.

Wandering alone, she left behind the ocean, whispering like a spirit calling her back, though she didn’t even look over her shoulder. She knew that all she would see was Billy standing there questioningly, watching her walk away, and it was a sight that could be hard to take. She sauntered home, the dismal sensation of being lost weighing down like a vague morning mist in its heavy bearing.

As she came into Witch Elm Village, however, her heart began racing wildly, her breaths becoming shorter as she saw black robed men scurrying along the street. As she came closer, she painstakingly realized they were in front of her and Olivia’s house.

A horse drawn wagon was surrounded by men, their black cloaks rippling on the breeze, their faces cold and expressionless. She spotted Olivia standing outside, whose hazel eyes went wide when she saw Janey, and she hurried over.

“Auntie ‘Liv, what’s happening?”

Olivia grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away. “Your damn ex, honey. He’s really done it this time.” She was holding her breath.

Janey could see the fear and uncertainty in her aunt’s eyes. She didn’t know what to say. Two houses down, she could see more men at the Greitzers’ house. Orson and Nancy stood outside talking to them. Nancy seemed hysterical, arms flailing in the air before she fell into her husband’s arms. Orson held her before the men pulled Nancy away from him as she screamed and cried.

Orson was holding onto her so tightly that the witch hunters had difficultly grappling her away from his arms. “You bastards can’t do this! Leave my wife alone!” He followed them as they dragged Nancy away. The desperation in her eyes pleaded with her husband to save her. “I told you guys, leave her alone! Nancy has done nothing!”

One of the witch hunters turned around and drew his sword. It let out a chilling ring as he unsheathed it.

Thrusting the shining blade of his sword against the skin on Orson’s neck, the witch hunter asserted his royally ordained authority. “You don’t have a say in the matter, old man. Your wife is a criminal. The bitch is coming with us. Say another word I slash your throat and she gets to watch you die right here.”

Nancy was pulled over to the wagon; her hands bound and threw her in the back. Orson could only stand there helplessly, the same lost look in his eyes as Mike had, a devoted husband powerless to get his wife and his love back from such horrors that were ahead of her. Orson was stuck between a sword at his neck and dying to save his wife, which would have meant leaving his kids and grandsons on their own.

Forcing her eyes away from the scene, Janey’s heart stopped, seeing the eldest of the men, grey hair and his dark eyes the coldest of anyone else’s. She recognized him, though she had only met him once.

Azrael’s father….oh, no, what have I done to us? Janey thought to herself as he began striding towards her and Olivia.

Instantly, she scowled menacingly as he stopped before them, traces of a grin slipping into his face. “You’re the no good tramp who humiliated my son, aren’t you?” His actions made it easy to see where Azrael got it.

Janey crossed her arms stubbornly and faced him down in shadowy blusters of glares.

She could feel Olivia’s eyes on her intently, pleading her not to say something stupid. “Humiliated? Like he had any right to do to me what he did!” She heard Olivia sigh behind her.

Janey grimaced. She was so mad her words were no longer controlled.

“So you’re admitting it, then. I don’t stand for that, not from some lowlife witch and her useless aunt.”

Janey bit her tongue this time, her hands clenched angrily by her side.

“I’m not admitting to a damn thing, Wolfram. He messed me around. He’s not the good boy you think he is.”

Wolfram shook his head with a grin. “Take them both, men. We’ll question them later at Warbeck.”

Janey’s heart stopped and her breath slipped from her lungs. She looked back at Olivia in sheer fright. Her aunt sighed and simply stood there, her eyes half closed in dread. Azrael had really done it. Janey bit her tongue, refraining from her rage as two men bound her hands in rope and led her to the wagon, carelessly throwing her in. Olivia came in after, quietly cussing them. With them in the wagon was Nancy, a brown curly haired woman, heavier set and her dark eyes wild with fear.

Olivia glanced over to Nancy “Are you alright?” Her face and voice were hard to read.

Of the three women, Olivia was the only one who had ever been in the Warbeck prison. Only she knew the horrors awaiting them there.

Nancy was trembling, tears fresh down her pale face. “I-I-don’t know.”

They slit your wrists, beat you and rape you, again and again as they please…and if you don’t confess, the torture just gets worse…

Janey could only close her eyes, the words lost when she thought of what was before them, the terrifying ordeals she had only heard about in stories, the ones of which even her aunt wouldn’t speak all these years later.

Nancy interrupted her own sobs. “What…what are we going to do, Olivia? I have kids and a family to care for…I…” Her eyes were flickering with terror.

Janey could see her mind racing incoherently.

Olivia bit her lip before speaking again but Janey knew it was taking all her aunt had to hold herself together. “Listen to me, you two. We’re gonna get out of this. But you have to stick with me. Where we’re about to go, what we’re about to go through, it isn’t nice. They call it torture for a reason. I don’t know if I’ll make it through another bout with these guys, but I’ll damn well try.” The colour slowly drained from her cheeks, the most sickening, palest colour Janey had ever seen on a person.

“Auntie ‘Liv, I’m so sorry. I-” She shook her head with her whole body trembling uncontrollably.

Olivia looked over at her sadly. “It’s OK, Jane. Mistakes are mistakes, we all make them. Nobody told you about Azrael. I should have. I wasn’t thinking about the consequences if it got ugly. I sure didn’t expect you to. I’ll make sure you get out of this, baby girl, I promise. You’re the last one I’ll let them hurt. I can’t stop them completely, but I’ll do my best.”

Something told Janey her aunt already had something planned, but she couldn’t say what.

***

Each minute closer Janey was more sickened with tension and trepidation. The four men accompanying them on the few days’ travel to the prison were quiet for the most part, one of them occasionally making a wisecrack about women while drinking beer or whiskey. Apprehension sat tensely among the three women, silencing them for most of the trip.

Janey felt horror drench every bone in her body disgustingly blood-like as they approached their fateful destination. The stone-grey walls were like glowers of grave anger intensified by the very thought that there was no telling what was happening beyond there. Janey would sneak glances over to her aunt, whose eyes grew duller as they got closer and the terrors that waited for them, the oncoming madness of unheard screams like dark swirls of ominous clouds.

All of her mistakes sagged upon her chest as the wagon slipped through the forbidding iron gates, spine-chilling in their fearful domination reaching like demons towards the skies.

What destroyed one love destroyed the next too. Billy had been the best she ever had in spite of his flaws and recklessness. His drinking was a habit he wouldn’t break, no matter the nights on end she spent with him, talking him out of another suicidal episode. The scars on his arms were self-inflicted, Janey had watched him when he’d let that blade precariously slice his own skin, as if bleeding and feeling the pain made him somehow human again. She would take the knife from his hands and hold him when he cried, a wrecked soul for whom she felt such unrelenting love. He had needed her; that much she knew. She kept telling herself that he had loved her, even if Nadine and a bottle tore them apart. They had their times when it was just apparent, his beautiful smile that seemed to melt the rest of the world into another time and place. But through it all, Janey knew that as reckless and destructive he was to himself, he would never think about hurting her.

Then there was the day it all ended. She remembered watching Billy walk away after the big fight exploded in her house. He had told her that he had been cheating with Nadine, that he felt he loved her and wanted to be with her.

“It’s over, Jane, I’ve done enough,” he said. She never did understand what that was supposed to mean. She sat crying on the kitchen floor until Olivia got home from work. Her aunt held her as Janey told her what happened, all the time helplessly wondering, for all she had tried to do for him, was it pointless in the end? Had she just been his temporary one, to ward off his demons only for a while? Did she matter at all?

“Oh, girly, it’s alright,” Olivia had said softly, cradling Janey like a child in her arms, “some boys are like that, honey. He just left the best thing he had ever had, he’ll learn it the hard way; just you watch.”

She tried to drink it all from memory instead of watching, spiteful at Billy for throwing away everything they had. Somewhere between the bottle and a beautiful smile, was the one night stand with Azrael that she let progress into the cycle that let him use her, again and again. He’d beat her, rape her, and in the end she still had to do whatever he pleased for the lurking threat of worse damage he could have done. It was damage she couldn’t will away even if she wanted to, and it was with a slowly nearing madness she knew that she never would…

There were too many regrets haunting her as the men yanked her from the wagon and pushed her, Olivia and Nancy through the doors of the prison, relentless weights that crashed when she knew she had finally gone too far, the moment she realized she was in too deep to save herself.

The desolation behind the doors revealed the terrifying ruination of lives captured by the Black Guards. The unfeeling darkness within hid the beasts from the rest of the world, lying low in the shadowy depths while outside, life went on even as hers stood still. Janey caught a glimpse of a tapestry hanging beside them as they came in. It was an image of a witch burning at a stake, the orange and morbid crimson flames savagely consuming her body, just like in her nightmare. Only a Black Guard could have depicted this woman as emotionless, nothing in her face but grave death, as if she felt nothing being burned. Janey somehow knew it had been painted that way on purpose.

The pain was real, the torture truly barbaric, and women really were burned alive; not just stories…I guess I’m about to find out just how bad it really is…

Legend of Kawilara, Part 1: Fire is available on:

Smashwords $4.50: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/110429

Amazon Kindle $4.50: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006HJ6XT0

Paperback on Amazon $15: http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Kawilara-Part-Fire-Volume/dp/1478195142/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1343585097&sr=8-2&keywords=Kawilara

 

 

 

 

Domestic Violence Awareness ebook giveaway ~ Legend of Kawilara 1

Just a quick reminder about this week- Only four days left in the Domestic Violence Awareness ebook giveaway! Get your copy while it is FREE on Smashwords- all formats available here! Give away ends on July 23.

I will be resuming my monthly Domestic Violence Awareness ebook giveaways- and coming soon I might do a paperback giveaway!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/110429

Heroes in a world of darkness

I saw this article posted by someone on Facebook and just had to share. It is about this group called the Bikers Against Child Abuse (BACA). They are a group of bikers dedicated to empowering families and abuse victims; namely children. These guys show support to children who have been victims of abuse by becoming in a sense their biker “family.” These bikers watch their home and attend court hearings, keeping close to the child to prevent the abuser from coming anywhere near him/her.

This is too cool. For all the let downs the justice system gives abuse victims and for all the stupidity it displays, treating victims like criminals and criminals like victims, I am ecstatic to see a group of regular citizens standing up for the most vulnerable people in our society- children.

I talk a lot about abusers and sex offenders, but the true heroes who truly help victims don’t nearly get enough recognition. These bikers deserve that acknowledgement that they help these kids, empower them and make them feel safe and protected after the safety net of their little worlds has been shattered by someone they were supposed to be able to trust.

These guys remind me of the pirates in my Legend of Kawilara series. Usually portrayed as bad guys, but saving the vulnerable and the abused where ever and however they can. True heroes. Bikers to me have never been “bad guys” per say. My dad was a biker until he died and he was a good man…so this group reminds me in a sense of him.

Needless to say, I wish these guys were around when I was a kid. Here’s a shout out to the BACA-  from  a child abuse and domestic violence survivor and an advocate against such atrocious acts, thanks for what you guys do.

Finally, here’s the article I found posted: http://www.azcentral.com/news/azliving/articles/2012/07/13/20120713bikers-against-child-abuse-make-abuse-victims-feel-safe.html

And I also found their website: http://bacaworld.org/

COVER REVEAL: Legend of Kawilara 2

So I officially have the cover for the Legend of Kawilara, part 2: Swords. I am excited to reveal for the first time here!!!

Cover art done by French Fox on Deviant Art.