Lavinia Thompson's Blog: Seeking reviewers! , page 25

Update: Another job bites the dust…

So quite a bit has happened this past week; some good and some bad. First off, I didn't get the journalism job I wanted…it's sad but everything happens for a reason. I did say I was leaving journalism after all…secondly, I got fired from my job. Just not having luck in the job area this year!

The good news is that yesterday I released "She Wasn't Allowed to Giggle," my poetry and prose collection that explores the dark depths of domestic violence and child abuse and about finding the light at the end of the tunnel. It is based on my own experiences growing up, told through the perspective of the little girl he destroyed grown up to be a woman with a voice. It is available on Smashwords for $2.99: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/92467

So where am I going from here? I have no idea. Back to the job hunt to see what I can find I suppose. Still chasing the dream of continuing to self-publish and soon becoming a full-time novelist. The potential of moving again has crossed my mind but I take once glance out to the vast ocean and remember- I came out to the west coast with a dream. This is home. This is right where I want to be. I must be crazy to keep going like this but I've always been stubborn and determined. Something will work out here.

Sun set over the ocean here on the west coast

Otherwise, I am planning a second poem book. "Wildflowers Scattered, Estranged: Memoirs of a Small Town Girl" will explore the world of a small town girl as she grows up from little girl who feels like she doesn't belong to a young gypsy looking for a place to call home. I've had all these poems lying around for all these years and should probably do something productive with them!

While I've been dealing with jobs and getting my book published, my fiancé has been inspired to start up a freelance editing service. As you can tell, neither of us gets incredibly enthused about working for other people. We both agree we want some way to be self-employed and not worry about the hassle of job hunting, though we still need something while we get started. He edited "She Wasn't Allowed to Giggle" and I have to say I wouldn't have had him do it if his ability with the English language was anything less than meticulous. He corrects me in mid-conversation when we talk, for goodness sake! Just saying…if any of you self-publishers out there need an editor, he's around. He is @Trivates on Twitter.

That's about all that's new on this journey…back to job hunt and writing!

 

 

RELEASED TODAY: She Wasn't Allowed to Giggle

I didn't get the reporter job. I'm slightly torn up about it, to tell the truth…so to make up for the disappointment of the day, I decided to release "She Wasn't Allowed to Giggle" TODAY. It is now available on Smashwords for $2.99: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...

The journey to self-publishing continues!

Bullying is for losers!

"I've had enough, this is my prayer, I swear, I'll die living just as free as my hair. I've had enough. Jamey you're not a freak…" ~ Lady Gaga

"Bullying is for losers" was a trend on Twitter yesterday in light of the suicide of 14-year old Jamey Rodemeyer, who was bullied for being gay. Last week he took his own life. I feel that devastation every time another kid does this. One of my best friends is gay. A part of the devastation I feel when I hear tragic news of another suicide is how agonized I would be if it were him that it happened to. I don't know what I would do.

Stories like that gave my life an interesting turn in college. I had always acknowledged there were gays in the world and I had been pretty impartial to it for most of my life. I didn't really know what they went through when it came to bullying and discrimination. I didn't know it until I met this friend. It was in college when I was working on the newspaper. Not only did I meet my gay friend, but I was in class with a girl who discovered her sexuality after being a Christian for a long time. She went through some dark times, dealing with her family and her boyfriend at the time, but she managed to break through it all and is now dating the girl she wanted. I couldn't be happier for her. In covering an event where the university's pride group was writing messages of love for gays and lesbians in chalk on the sidewalk I discovered that some students in my college were starting a pride group. It was only the second one my college had ever seen. One of the girls from that group just got married over the summer to her girlfriend.

The thing is, no matter how much hate and bullying circulates throughout society, there are always going to be those who persevere with love and determination. For every one of these young lives that are tragically ended, someone else is discovering who they are and embracing it. All one needs sometimes is to know that someone, even just one person, stands behind or beside them. It is senseless to cause hurt and suffering. It is no more than an ugly monster rearing its head to tear apart lives of innocent people who are just trying to be who they are.

I've wanted to write something about this for some months now. It just hasn't brought itself to light until recently. It will be one of my next projects.

Everyone has the right to be themselves and bullying truly is for losers. My gay friend posted on Facebook a tribute song to Jamey Rodemeyer called "Hair" by Lady Gaga. It is truly a touching tribute and brought me to tears. It reminds me of every gay or lesbian I have met in the last few years and how they have changed my life in so many ways. So I'm sharing it here. Jamey was not a freak and neither is anyone else. BULLYING IS FOR LOSERS.

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Dreams do come true- an update

"She Wasn't Allowed to Giggle" is being formatted as we speak and is right on track to be released mid-to the end of October as I had planned. It will be available as an eBook through Smashwords and possibly Amazon. I'd like to take the time now to thank anyone and everyone who helped me along while self-publishing for the first time! The help and advice has been invaluable and very appreciated.

The Spellbound sequel is picking up again. I am about halfway through chapter 7. Don't forget that Spellbound by Fire comes out Nov. 16, 2011.

As for my return to journalism, that is still pending. I had a second job interview today and will hear about it for sure on Wednesday. Regardless of my return to that career or not, my main objective remains the same as it was when I first moved out here: to eventually become a full-time novelist. That's still the dream and it hasn't faded at all. This is the beginning stages to it and I am excited for it. Dreams do come true if you are willing to work towards them!!

Witch hunts still happen…

In many ways, the witch-hunts of ancient ages seem just like that- ancient.

The thing is, they're not as far off in a distant past as they seem. In Ghana, located in West Africa, there are six "witch camps" in which thousands of elderly women are forced to live. Upon researching the camps, the numbers fluctuate in articles between 3,000 and 6,000. Some have lived in these camps for as long as 40 years. These women are torn from their homes, accused of witch craft.

The Voice of America (VOA) News website quoted Karen Palmer's book "Spellbound: Inside West Africa's Witch Camps" (no relation to my "Spellbound."):

"'Both the accuser and the woman who is being accused would come before him, each of them holding a chicken," she says. "The accuser would make her accusation that she felt that this woman was trying to attack her and they would slit the throat of the chicken and throw it up in the air. And depending on how it landed, that either confirmed the accuser story or denied it. They would do the same with the woman who was defending herself. She would basically say 'If I am not guilty, let my chicken die with its beak in the sky. If I am guilty, let it die with its beak in the ground.' And that would sort of decide it.'"

This is incredibly similar to the witch hunts that are most infamous from the 1600's, the ones that sparked my own fascination with the issue. Even I was naive enough to think that witch hunts were a thing of the distant past, though I know now different. The medieval witch hunts used methods such as "swimming." The accused person would be tied up, sometimes put into a large bag, and thrown in a river or lake. If they floated, they were a "witch." If they didn't float, they were innocent- but they drowned anyways.

There is a certain twisted cruelty to these hunts. Sadly, such hunts have been a part of certain countries for years, as indicated by how long some of these women have lived in these camps. In her book, Palmer describes how some of the women live in the camps with their kids and grandkids, not allowed to leave.

And yet this type of abuse and violence against women in ways is not dissimilar from what we know in our society, the things that happen in our own homes and neighbourhoods. If there was more help for these people, more ways of improving their quality of life, the deep-seeded fear of witch craft in these cultures might fade. It would stop people from thinking they have to cart women off to camps to prevent bad things like illnesses from happening on the fear that such things might be the result of witch craft.

It is strange how in a world where many countries have come so far and where these things are unheard of, that elsewhere these camps exist and the fear of witch craft is still real and runs rampant. Human rights groups have petitioned for these camps to be disbanded, but you can't disassemble years of something that has been building. It will take time, not only to rid of these "camps" but to educate people that such accusations without proof are unfounded.

A great website that explores the issue also discusses a book by journalist Karen Palmer, called "Spellbound: Inside West Africa's Witch Camps" (no relation to my "Spellbound"): http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/arts/Sentenced-to-Witch-Camp-106299383.html

Update: Poetry book edited and return to journalism!

I just wanted to give everyone a quick update on my self-publishing journey here.

She Wasn't Allowed to Giggle has been edited and after formatting/typesetting and eBook conversion, it will be ready for release at the end of October at the latest. Ideally, as October is Domestic Violence awareness month, I'd like to have it released for the beginning to end of the month, but we'll have to see what happens. I'm ecstatic about the release!

Nothing much has happened with Spellbound; I've been busy with She Wasn't Allowed to Giggle. I'll be returning to where I left off in chapter 7 of the sequel very soon. I have been compiling ideas and more ideas for it, and in the weirdest of places: my fiancé's pirate computer game. He has no idea why it's so entertaining for me to watch him play it, but the battles and sailings and plotlines give me plenty of story ideas.

My return to journalism is still pending as well. I had a job interview yesterday for it and I have a good feeling about it. The editor was pretty impressed by the skill set on my resume, which I was happily able to elaborate on. The reporter position is the beat for politics/municipal hard news, which I'm pretty excited for considering the municipal election, which is coming up next month. Election nights are always a lot of fun. Sooner or later I'd like to get a crime reporter position. It was sort of my specialty in college.

Other than that, nothing much is new here…so I guess that means back to writing and the finishing touches of She Wasn't Allowed to Giggle!

 

~Poem~ Wildflowers on a place to fall (Memoirs of a small town girl IV)

The fourth and final poem in the "Memoirs of a small town girl" series.

Well we haven't talked now

for over a year,

not until I received her letter late last night.

Letters are funny things.

They can say goodbye or fix everything;

apologies written

on petals of wildflowers scattered,

when estranged strangers meet

on a rainy street in April's dullness

in a small town, long after

another friendship has gone to hell.

When you stop expecting apologies

they become a surprise.

I was sure surprised to hear from you.

Can we go for coffee one more time before I leave?

I remember three years ago telling you you'd be there

forever if you didn't get out then.

I was surprised to hear you were leaving.

I have to turn that down only because

I'm not in that town anymore…

finally moved to the west coast again

when summer came.

Getting married myself now, long story

but in a heartbeat to tell you-

we were meeting for coffee

when his girlfriend accused us of having an affair.

It never happened but between

a few letters from up north after he left

and a long walk in the rain

when he came to visit…

From somewhere in those long hours

something deepened, like the blush

on cherry blossoms when summer comes.

Delicate wildflowers on a summer wind.

That's what it's felt like all this time.

Been so lost, looking for a place to fall.

It was a long winter

without a best friend to go for coffee with,

to talk to at 3 a.m. and reminisce.

I miss you more than you'll ever know.

He and I, we left that small town

after he gave me the ring.

11 years my elder, found him alone

aftermaths of a tragedy that left him

with nothing but the pieces of his

life he had to somehow put back together.

We both know that feeling, don't we?

Been 4,000 kilometres down the highway

since she and I last talked, chasing dreams

and being free of small town darkness.

And of all the big cities, far off places

I ever imagined I'd live, it's strange that

I found myself in the same small town

where I was born, one much less cruel

to the battered gypsy soul,

not at all like the one I left behind.

I remember whispering run

every time I'd pass the high school there.

Tonight I'm content watching

oceanic waves crash in under the moon.

Wildflowers scattered along roads,

it's a strange feeling to not be so restless.

Well everything has its timing

like changing seasons when wildflowers

fade and the whole world just snows.

I ran for so long, crashed into him.

We just kept running before

ghosts of that town clawed through our dreams

and I've come to know that sometimes home

is the most unexpected place of all

cause I ran along highway lines

between city walls, concrete sidewalks,

looking through glass at cold faces

of all the places I thought I'd go

I never thought my place to fall would be

here tonight.

It's been great to hear from you, keep in touch.

Life goes on, like wildflowers scattered, estranged.

How good does it feel to finally break free?

 

 

 

She's a hometown girl after all…

I might be going back into journalism. So much for "ditching it for novels."

The local newspaper here is hiring. And it's weird timing because for the past few days I've been missing journalism. I know I said I was ditching journalism for novels. This doesn't mean for a second that my novels will take second place. Spellbound by Fire will be released Nov. 16 and She Wasn't Allowed to Giggle will still be released at the end of October; and with the fact that I have found an, perhaps sooner.

See, I never saw myself as a hometown girl. For so many years, after so many towns and houses and schools, it felt like I didn't have a hometown and it was strange. All my friends knew where they were from and were proud of it, and still are. They know their roots. I never really did. I was always that gypsy-hearted hippie who's "something more" always meant something familiar. I never could find that familiar something. Something inside the soul felt lost, drifting around like a handful of wild petals on the wind.

But this self-publishing journey- and it certainly is an ongoing journey- has taught me more than just about the self-publishing industry and what it means to the writing world. Writing to me is always part of the life journey as well, that long stretch of highway we all travel down, a path that sometimes we feel we are doomed to and others we feel we are destined for.

So when I drifted back to the Sunshine Coast this summer, there was finally something familiar to vagabond eyes. Out here, the stars shine so brightly in an indigo sky that it feels like a billion more emerge every time you look up. And when you look down, the ocean crashes at your feet, and between the sea and sky it makes you feel like just a small particle of life. It is that kind of wonder to be astounded by that I have been looking for.

It wasn't journalism I was ditching for novels. It was an old oblivion of a life I used to know that I was ditching and running from for new dreams. Even if I don't get the job right away, I have least learned something. Just like my friends who all have bragging rights to their hometowns, I have bragging rights to mine. I don't want to be anywhere else in the world right now. I guess I'm a hometown girl after all.

My next self-publishing project explores this journey. It will be called "Memoirs of a Small Town Girl" and will explore the feelings of being lost, growing up always searching for something and feeling out of place, growing from a little girl to a woman, finally finding love and most of all, finding home. It will include poems and short stories, mostly accounts from my own life and experiences.

Wildflowers Over Open Highways (Memoirs of a Small Town Girl III)

Do you ever question what might have been?

Wildflowers simply don't cross paths

twice in one lifetime.

For some reason I still care about

words we shared, our dreams, who we were.

Guess I just don't know

who I am tonight.

Days become years.

Been a long time since we talked.

I think about it every day.

Do you think it was anyone's fault?

I don't completely blame you; every one changes.

I guess this went to hell long ago.

I miss that crazy, careless innocence,

staying up 'til morning light on a school night,

declaring that we had to leave this town.

Is it strange that we're both still here?

The years passing by

are all I see these days.

Do you ever miss me?

Truth is, I miss you every damn day I breathe.

Standing at a crossroads where

one, my life is before me and I got to

take this chance and run;

two, I see everything that has been

and question what will be;

three, you don't even know who I am

so why do I still care?

It's like standing outside

the high school doors knowing

you'll never get back to that time or place.

Do old friends ever haunt you?

I still see you, laughing, stealing kisses

then holding your baby girl,

every day pretending that being a house wife

was everything you dreamed of.

Sometimes I think I was the only one

who seen the wildness in your eyes

when it started driving you crazy.

I tried to be there.

You pushed me away.

I don't know what to think.

Do you think it was meant to be?

Staring at snow piling high outside the window,

dreaming a little of the west coast

and remembering you, the grace only

childhood has. Somehow it's

never recaptured like butterflies in autumn,

leaves in coloured spirals, or wildflower

petals scattering over empty highways.

It always called my name.

Guess nomadic tendencies

have always been in my blood.

Do you know it's too late for apologies?

To take back how you shoved me

out of your life like I never mattered.

Don't you know I'd of never done

the same to you and not a day goes by

I don't wish it was different?

A year gone by,

time to leave again. There won't be

a word spoken this time.

I guess I just want you to know that

I miss you, always will, right down to the bittersweet end.

Seasons change and you carry on.

I'll be on my way; don't know what else to say.

If we matter to each other we don't show it.

This is simply lying out

the heart's thoughts in some lyrics.

This is just how I feel.

You might think different; that's alright.

By now I know I'll never again hear

any words from of you.

Somehow I'm content with that.

~Poem~ Wildflowers by the Railway Tracks (Memoirs of a Small Town Girl II)

The second poem in my Memoirs of a Small Town Girl poem series.

Are you still convinced it's for the best?

Like wildflowers by the railway tracks;

so many places never been.

I still don't know why you stayed.

Babies and bills, stolen kisses,

lack of affection.

She smiled and said marriage is

what she truly wanted; I believe it.

She didn't have a kid like you did.

They live in a trailer in town.

She hasn't changed but you have.

We're strangers these days.

You never say a word to me

cause being me isn't good enough.

Are you still wondering

what it would have been like

to break away before settling down?

I see you there, head in your hands.

I always knew this wasn't what you wanted

but you do what you must for the child.

You need to think before jumping

into a one night stand. We're not perfect.

I'm a gypsy no one remembers

or they wonder what happened to me.

If you see those girls, tell them I'm doing fine

seeing places never been, wildflower

estranged as I've always been.

Are you thinking about the letter

you pushed under my bedroom door?

It said enough for me to know

you don't want me to come back.

More like it's what your husband wants.

I don't know when you let people

tell you what to do.

Used to be you'd tell them off for me.

But we grow differently, don't we?

If you like the life you've built,

where the kid is the only one

you talk to all day, I'll be on my way…

just to reminisce coffee shops at 3 a.m.,

plans we made, how it's all

gone to hell tonight.

Are you happy with how this turned out?

I could say no, but it could be worse.

I could be in your kitchen

with your screaming baby.

I always said I'd never be back

but found myself in this stupid town.

You said you wanted help if he ran.

I guess he's the good guy for staying.

I don't know where I'll sleep tonight

but it won't be beside a man,

that's good enough for me. I'll be gone again,

no one will even notice anyways.

You can look at me standing at your door

to get the rest of my things…don't speak.

You don't even know who I am anymore.