Lavinia Thompson's Blog: Seeking reviewers! , page 18

~Update~ “She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle” reaches 100 sales two months in a row!

To take a look at a paperback edition of “She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle” it is weird to think about it as all the pieces of what my life used to be, all compiled neatly into that little book. But it has a big message.

And it is ironic that on a morning when “Happy Karma Day” is trending on Twitter, “She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle” has reached what I consider to be a celebratory milestone. For the second consecutive month, my poetry book about domestic violence and child abuse has surpassed 100 sales on

~ Poem ~ Who Do You Think You Are?

This poem was featured in my poetry book about domestic violence and child abuse, “She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle.” Eight years ago my mother’s abusive ex boyfriend burned down our house, symbolizing both my darkest hour and the day it all ended, as he was driven out of town a week later. This was a poem I wrote long before the house fire happened, and revised it before putting it into the book.

Who Do You Think You Are? 

When time ran out

the clattering pieces to this life fell apart.

All the two-faced masks people wear

turned away into the deathly light of the sun,

whenever you sat in that hotel bar room,

mother’s blood on your hands.

How many times can you scream at night

beaten and tortured?

Truth is a barbarous blow in a ruinous home…

Who do you think you are?

You’d stagger home from the bar

yelling and bellowing, bottle rent broken

in your clenched hands.

Watched you throw her around

like a helpless rag doll…

everything is wrong.

When time ran out

blood was the shadowed war paint,

words slashing from the roof of your mouth

like a knife across the wrist tonight…

Someone’s got hell to pay for the

nights of slamming doors, crashing pictures.

You always thought a sorry would

put them back together again…

Who do you think you are?

Acting now like nothing ever happened.

Go on and scream at me still;

bruises over my face and no such tears.

Seems you can only scream so many times

before you’re insensitive

to everything that’s wrong.

When time ran out

the house was on fire, smoke

billowing black in July skies,

torn apart, agonized, brutalized…

Swear I saw your shadow on that hill

watching, deathly wolf waiting for the kill.

On my knees screaming in the pouring rain;

truth was one more resonating blow

on the desolate street.

Who do you think you are?

Two faced people still looked the other way

but how many times can you scream

before you just crumple to the sidewalk?

If I could stand strong with blood on my face

this would be the day they’d finally see you’re wrong.

This would be the day they’d be asking:

Who do you think you are?

But when time ran out

only nostalgic ashes remained.

A single butterfly flew round the remnants

of the house that I grew up in,

Truth; a delicate memory,

precariously bitter in its blood-drenched misery.

Around and around the flowers that butterfly fluttered.

I sat there alone in the summer dusk,

orange dusted, knew nothing would ever

be the same…but the screams still echo…

I swear to this day…

Who do you think you are?

“She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle” is available in ebook on Smashwords (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/92467) and is currently 50 per cent off. It is also on Kindle (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005QTX282) for $0.99. It is in paperback on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Wasnt-Allowed-Giggle-Lavinia-Thompson/dp/1466401613/ref=tmm_pap_title_0 for $8.00. 

 

When a voice is no longer silent…

Eight years. It occurred to my yesterday that it has been eight years this month since Mom’s ex burned the house down in 2004. A lot has happened in that time.

As many of you know, I lost the original draft of my first fantasy novel, Spellbound by Fire, along with many other pieces of writing I had done; novels, poetry and short stories. Writing has always been as vital as breathing to me and it was in that next year I discovered just how vital it really was.

I stopped writing after the house fire. After years of being told by him that writing would take me nowhere, it was worthless, and I would never get anywhere. After years of the violence, threats, abuse of all kinds, anger and pain, he ended it all with one bottle filled with gasoline, thrown through a bedroom window. That house on Main Street was in flames in no time that night. He left within a week after the house fire, having been driven out of town.

After losing all the pieces of what had been my sanity over the years, I lost all faith in writing. I stopped writing and for a dark, hazy year it was like I stopped feeling. I honestly cannot say what is worse; to feel so much pain you want to end it or feeling nothing when you know there should be something, driving you to that same cliff edge.

I became suicidal. It was a dangerous brink I was on. After seriously contemplating it, knife in hand and all, I stepped away from the brink. Something in that day shook me back to reality…if I killed myself I was letting him win.

He would get exactly what he wanted, again: pain. Suffering. I felt angry, but suddenly it was something…I wrote a few poems that same day.

My novels wouldn’t be touched until about 2008, when I joined an online writer’s group and was encouraged to continue on with Spellbound. It was released in 2010, and the new edition, Legend of Kawilara, was released this year.

That inspired me. Writing would get me somewhere. It is what I am meant to do. I am now working on a few other books which I lost in the house fire. Edge of Glory is the next one I am tackling. It is a story about a young girl who wants to be a rock star, enduring addiction and abuse along the way and searching for her biological father, who is a famous rock star and her inspiration.

I am looking back on the last eight years and comparing it with my life today. I know deep down that I will never stop writing again. I have seen the rock-bottom crevice it takes me to when I walk away from it and I never want to go there again. I have broken the abuse cycle in my own life by marrying the best man I could have ever met.

She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle has gone from a self-publishing experiment to my pride and joy. It is ranked #19 in Amazon’s Dysfunctional Relationships category and just broke the top #25 for the Child Abuse category. It has caught the attention of organizations like GEMS, who used it for their poetry workshop last fall and the local YWCA has also shown some interest in it as well. They will be receiving donated copies of the paperback edition.

I also hear from abuse victims and survivors about She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle. It does what it was published to do, and that is help people. Some are inspired. Some get angered. This is why writing is my true calling. I have a story and a message, and I will never stop until it gets out there. It’s a revolution and voices will not stay silent forever. I know I won’t. I was silent for far too long. There is no stopping me now.

 

 

See the  official video at: Independence Day by Martina McBride

~Release and excerpt ~ Legend of Kawilara Part 1: Fire

The Spellbound revamp is done, and from that has emerged the “Legend of Kawilara, Part 1: Fire.” It is available on Smashwords right now for 50 per cent off as part of the Smashwords Summer Winter Sale. Using the code SSW50 you can get the book at half price. It will be available on

Keep a Candle Burning

{I am sitting here tonight, a candle burning, and Our Lady Peace “Innocent” on repeat. I joined the World Candlelight Vigil for Child Abuse on Facebook tonight and reading some of the stories has touched me incredibly deeply. Here is a poem for all survivors and victims. May peace be with you and may we one day find the day when we can say “Never again.” Join the vigil, light a candle, and read the stories here: https://www.facebook.com/events/382726258451113/391386010918471}

I would keep a candle burning forever

if it meant the monsters stayed

in their own oblivion;

the one where they held me

hostage so many years ago.

Chains,

bound in

shame.

If it is just one little flicker

in the darkness

I will keep it there

just for the innocent,

broken hearted,

the weary, ragged,

worn down vagabonds

looking to the stars.

Let there be

light,

hope,

peace.

I will stand at the edge of the world

with just one candle burning

if it means

there is such a thing as

never again.

 

 

Smashwords Summer/Winter sale!

Four of five of my books are enrolled in Smashwords‘ Summer Winter promotion, which runs for the month of July. “Travis” and “Just a Canadian Girl” remain free as they always are, but “She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle” and “Wildflowers Scattered, Estranged: Memoirs of a Small Town Girl” are 50 per cent off for the month of July!

Use the coupon codes to get your discount- for both books the coupon is SSW50. “Spellbound by Fire” will be enrolled after it is through being revamped and retitled “Legend of Kawilara: Part 1: Fire.”

So get copies of the books while they are one sale and keep an eye out for the announcement of the release of “Kawilara”. Happy summer reading! Find all my books at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/LaviniaThompson

New short story: Just a Canadian Girl

Canada Day is absolutely one of my favourite days of the year. Just like Americans love being American on Independence Day, I love being Canadian on Canada Day.

As much as a squawk about the demented justice system and the way Canada treats sex offenders and serious criminals, Canada Day gives me the clarity to look at my country in a positive light. I have freedom, I have food on the table, a roof over my head and friends and family I love. I have my hockey sweaters and countless piles of hockey memorabilia, I can watch hockey every fall and enjoy my favourite Canadian teams. I love walking into a Tim Hortons coffee shop on a frigid winter day, one of many that Canada sees in the coldest months of the year. Toques and maple leaves, maple syrup and hockey, and the red and white flag, and so many other things make up the reasons why I love this country.

In 2009 and 2010, I was lost. I was soul-searching while in college. In the summer of 2010, as the college year was coming to a close, I heard on the news that the Queen of England, a huge figure in our family and heritage, was going to Ottawa for Canada Day. I made up my mind right then and there. I had to go. It became an experience I will never forget, and in this short story I released today, I tell that story.

This is a story about a small-town girl who, tired of her own town and in the midst of soul-searching, decided to take a chance, fly across the country on her own, and experience Canada Day in Ottawa, Ontario.

Free on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/177400 and will be available on Amazon in the next few days. It can also be found in my most recent poetry book, “Wildflowers Scattered, Estranged: Memoirs of a Small Town Girl.” https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/168954

~ Update ~ Revamped Spellbound cover, new title

So you all know I have been revamping my dark fantasy novel, Spellbound by Fire. Part of the revamp is a title change. With over 3,000 results that come up when searching “Spellbound” on Amazon, and most of those being romance novels, I feel that a title change might help market the series. I am disappointed as I was rather fond of the title, but romance authors seem to have killed the word for fantasy writers like myself. So, I have touched up the cover as well. New title: “Legend of Kawilara Part I: Fire” What do you think?

This is going to end up being a five part series.

Part I: Fire (Janessa)

Part II: By the Sword (Billy)

Part III: Air (Jill and Olivia)

Part IV: Earth (Queen Jaffee)

Part V: Water (Queen Rhiannon)

Silhouette of a Storm

Rain on a summer day

pours through evening rays;

cotton on the wind

piling on the side of the highway.

June storms,

wafts of rain-soaked earth,

cloud drops refreshing on wildflowers

through the window…

I am alive…

Shining down through rainbows,

clattering off tops of cars,

hockey flags draping, drenched,

storm intoxicating, exhilaration

tingling through every restless bone,

young girl become a woman too soon

dancing down the empty street

to a song only she knows

something about gypsies and wild hearts,

used to be it meant breaking free

until she stood in the

fanatically pouring rain…

I was alive…

Jumping through puddles

like the dream is gone,

every little hue ever dreamed for you

as darkened clouds roll away

sending summer storms to roar

another day,

orange sun settles, content

and a gypsy becomes just

the silhouette of the storm,

some other rock and roll song

and one more hockey game

at the end of the season…

I feel alive…

 

“Silhouette in the Storm” will be featured in my next poetry book, “Like Throwing Hockey Pucks at Wall.” Release date to be announced!

~ Thoughts on the Sandusky verdict ~

Jerry Sandusky, an ex-assistant coach from Penn State university, is finally facing justice for destroying so many lives. He was found guilty on 45 counts in relation to the sexual abuse of 10 victims, all boys who attended Penn State. His assaults included forced oral sex and anal rape.

Penn State administrators covered up for him. Even when a witness, boy graduate assistant Mike McQueary, went to them with an account of Sandusky raping a young boy in a shower at the university, no one went to the cops. No one said a word. Not until someone else stepped forward and everything was spilled into the light from the dark life he lived, destroying so many other lives and the reputation of a whole university.

His defense lawyer stood up for him, as defense lawyers are hired to do, said even with witness testimony, the fact the university administration covered up his twisted acts, and the fact there were so many victims coming forward, what if there was a chance he didn’t do it?

But, in spite of all that; in spite of the fact victims were discredited by a lawyer like they are by so many people, and in spite of the fact Sandusky was protected by a place that should have protected children, this is not a blog post to express my disgust at the justice system. This is not bashing the university administrators, as that has already been publicly done.

This is to celebrate a day when finally, a sex offender, a child abuser, is seen for what he really is, and treated accordingly so.

Sandusky faces the potential of dying in prison. The minimum sentence is apparently life in jail but let us not forget: the minimum sentence for sex offenders in Canada is seven years and infamous sex offender and disgraced hockey coach Graham James only received a two year sentence.

For now, I am satisfied the jury and the justice system is treating Sandusky for the monster he really is; giving him a fast trail and a just verdict. I am glad the jurors saw the credibility in the victims and really listened to them. I wish peace, light and love to the victims, in the hopes they can somehow move on from their horrific ordeals and live their lives how they want.

For now, I am looking at humanity with a little hope left that maybe, just maybe, this will be a precedent setting for how sex offenders are treated in the future.

For now, I am hanging on to that hope, in hopes that the sentence they hand down to Sandusky backs up the verdict.