S.M. Johnson's Blog, page 22

SM Johnson ~Thursday Morning Cofee~

Happy Thursday, darlings! I am so please that I remembered what I wanted to talk about last week immediately after posting an excerpt as an alternative. Isn't that the way of it, though? And since the post was already skirting the edge of afternoon coffee (which I love and must have, by the way - right around 4 PM), I decided not to change the topic mid-Thursday.

Besides, ya'll got to celebrate the first draft completion of DeVante's Choice with me, so in the end, everything worked out.
In the meantime, one of my first readers has let me know which parts she loved and which parts probably need some work. A novel is so darn bulky that it's really hard to see from a reader stand-point what works, and what might not, so my early readers are an absolute godsend. The only other way I can tell how I've done is to let the manuscript age in a drawer for a few month, then pull it out and read it cold. And even then - my own opinion of my own work is not nearly as valuable to me - it certainly doesn't help me develop as a better writer.
So today's (mainly rhetorical) question is:
Where do you get books?
I was a library child all of my life - and oh, how beautiful was the day that I was finally old enough to walk or bike ALL BY MYSELF to the nearest neighborhood branch of the local library. I would stay there for hours, browsing here, sitting down on the floor to read there... just walking into a library and experiencing the distinct scent of old books transports me back, even now.
But these days my library jaunts go in spurts. I'm either always rushing to be somewhere, or loathe to leave my house at all. So for a few weeks I'm really good about reading and and returning, and then for some reason my interest wanes.
Once I bought myself a Kindle Touch, my interest in buying books from Amazon soared. For awhile I was really excited about cheap and free books, and I absolutely love the whispernet delivery system. Everything blurb that caught my attention went right on to my wish list, which is currently several pages long.
Every payday I'd reward myself for sticking with a day job by visiting my wish list and buying one or two more expensive books, and five or six books priced $2.99 or less.
But then a couple of things happened. 
One of them was that I found some reviewers who's taste seemed to match mine, which increased the length of my wish list.
At the beginning, I considered $5.99 "expensive." But I would pay that for a known author, a popular author, a book on the best seller list, or even an unknown author with great reviews (that seemed genuine). No problem.
But then suddenly my wish list contained a slew of books with price tags of $7.99, and (gulp) even $9.99.
I bucked up and bought a couple of these that really intrigued me.
And then the other thing happened:
The books actually weren't all that great.
So I started reconsidering these ebooks that were price-matched to paperbacks, and wondering about value.
I can pass a paperback on that I didn't love. I can even donate it to my local library. Or I can bring it to work and it will make the rounds among both staff and patients. Someone might love it and keep it on their home bookshelf forever. Or they might take it home and pass it on to a friend, donate it to Goodwill, or sell it at a rummage sale. 
Ultimately, spending $8 to $10 on a paperback is not a bad deal. I receive a product that I can hold in my hands, and give away to someone else when I'm done or if I don't care for it.
But what about the ebooks I buy from Amazon? The file goes from Amazon, to my Kindle, and then, if I archive it, back to Amazon. It doesn't seem like I actually OWN it. Can I reformat it and email it to my friend who reads on a Nook? Well, maybe, if it's a DRM-free file. 
But is that considered pirating? Or, in other words, stealing?
But if I'm paying the same amount of money for an ebook as a paperback, why is lending it to a friend STEALING? After all, it's not as if there is the expense of a printer/binder/distributor to recoup.
And can I donate an ebook that I feel confident I won't read again to my local library? It's a thought worth a little research, I guess.
All right, anyway. Let me explain where I'm going with this. I compared my Amazon wish list with my local library's online card catalog. And guess what I found? 
About a dozen titles on my list are available to borrow from my library. Some of them are ebooks. Some had to be requested through inter-library-loan (a simple "request this item" button right there on the page of search results).
In particular, most of them were books in the $8 to $10 dollar range, the ones I had not yet convinced myself to buy. 
In less than a week, 6 of them are in my hands. One I've already read and returned, another I'm almost done with.
I'm a happy camper.
Ultimately, as both an author and a reader, I'm going to say this: Shame on publishers for charging the same amount of money for a "virtual" book as for a book I can hold in my hands, borrow to my friends, or donate to my library. Your greed dishonors readers.
My publisher (of the DeVante trilogy) originally priced my ebooks at about 1/2 the cost of the 6x9 trade paperbacks. When I asked him to lower the ebook prices even more, he did so.
And I can't speak for my publisher, but I can speak for myself: I believe in the power of sharing books.
If you've purchased any of my self-published books (Dungeon series or non-DeVante short stories - which are mostly free anyway), please, share them with your friends. I would be honored.
~SM

SM Johnson ~Bloody Monday~ Dark YA

I stumbled onto a list on Goodreads that had me browsing and thinking and adding more and more titles to my wish list.

The list is called Best Teen Books About Real Problems.

It made me remember how many YA titles that I have read that absolutely blew me away. Some of them were on this list, and the memory of others was stirred up while I explored the list.

YA can be pretty freaking dark. I don't write in the genre, but I do enjoy reading it. The stories start fast, don't spent eons of time with description or background, and I find YA main characters really engaging.

Some of the books are so gritty and real that they hurt, covering subjects and going to places where even I don't dare to tread.

Which is funny, because the main reason I don't write YA is because I'm fairly certain I'd have difficulty staying within the realm of appropriateness.

What could be more inappropriate than the way Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott faces head on what children abducted by sexual predators very likely go through? Wow. And I mean... wow. I will never forget this book. I will never forget that Alice was so tortured and damaged from repeated rape that she was not only willing, but enthusiastically willing to help her abductor choose her replacement. Whoa. Talk about freaking cold. And yet so real that the thread of truth can't be denied.

And then there's Hate List by Jennifer Brown, a story told from the point of view of a school shooter's girlfriend, Valerie. The girl who helped write the list. The girl everyone thinks should have known, should have done something, should have stopped him. She doesn't know how to feel, so she works really hard to feel nothing. How can she be sad that Nick is dead, when he did such an awful thing? How can she explain that Nick was more than just a kid who shot his classmates - but who would even want to hear it? This is no tale of sweet adolescence. This is the story of a girl's major struggle to cope with the aftermath of major trauma.


Along the same (but different) idea is a poignant story called If I Stay by Gayle Forman. Mia doesn't remember the accident. A part of her knows there was an accident, her thoughts and memories are fluid as she lies comatose in the hospital healing from her own injuries. She goes between trying to remember what happened, and never wanting to find out. If she opens her eyes, she'll live the rest of her life as a brother-less orphan. But if she keeps them closed, maybe she won't have to live at all.

Another astonishingly dark one is When Jeff Comes Home by Catherine Atkins. This book begins sixteen year old Jeff is returned to his home by his kidnapper, after being held captive for three years. Jeff tries to navigate back into his old life, but keeps getting hung up in webs of scar tissue - some physical, some emotional. He keeps telling everyone that nothing happened, but no one believes him. The carefully awkward conversations that Jeff and his father have eventually lead to truth, acceptance, and healing, but it's an agonizing journey.


As much as I love a bloody and biting vampire story, I feel absolutely slammed with paranormal stories all of a sudden. Down every aisle of the bookstore (virtual and real) lurk demons, dragons, werewolves, and witches Don't get me wrong, a lot of them are terrific - but when I pick up one of these, I need a certain kind of energy to suspend belief and open myself to worlds often far beyond the one we live in.

And sometimes it's a nice break to read about the real world - even the dark parts. These stories, though dark, speak to the resilience of the human spirit. And sometimes maybe we need to be reminded of that - it's not only angels and witches and dragons who can save us... truth is, we often have to save ourselves. And we're well-qualified.

SM Johnson ~A Year of Sundays~ ch 12, pt 3

Sunday, July 17th

Chapter 12
Part 3


Craig's voice was gentle, his tone calm and sincere. "Of course he is. He's downstairs watching a movie with my dad. Do you want to talk to him?"
A wave of relief rushed over her. Craig was an amazing dad. He would know immediately if someone hurt his son. Craig had been thrilled to be a father right from the start, which sometimes felt like Melanie's only lucky break in life. She could fall apart like a Lego tower, her pieces scattered from one end of town to the other, and Craig would be right there, looking out for Caleb, no judgment. Pretty lucky to get knocked up by a one-night stand like that.
"No, it's okay. I just had to check. You know."
Craig's voice stayed soft. "Yeah, I do. You want me to remind him about stranger-danger again, maybe on the way to school tomorrow?"
The tears welled up. Craig was the most decent guy she'd ever met. "Would you? It's not too soon from last time?"
"Nah," Craig said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "He wants more independence, always more. Reminders are good."
The combination of Craig's voice and his ability to reassure her of his vigilance wound into her and she relaxed, just the tiniest bit. "Not too much independence yet, okay?" she said. And Craig laughed for real.
"Of course not."
As she hung up the phone, Melanie experienced, not for the first time, such a huge longing to be normal that she felt hollow.
She could have had a chance for a life with Craig and Caleb, all of them together as a family, if only she weren't bat-shit crazy. The hollow feeling was usually replaced by sheer hopelessness. But this time, it emptied her of fear and filled her up with anger.
That fucker better not get within a mile of her son.
The computer was ready. She clicked open the internet browser and went to Yahoo.
It took her ten minutes to create a new yahoo account.
Approximately three seconds after that, the new message notification dinged to get her attention.
Almost too late.
The screen name, DollCollector, was so cute she almost vomited.
She typed, Fuck you. I'm here.
Beautiful dolls are sweet. If you can't be nice, the alternative will be more fun for me.
Shit. The surge of adrenaline that revved up her anger was backfiring. She needed to draw him in, not piss him off.
She tried to remember what he'd wanted her to call him, way back when, in the shed. There was something, she knew there was, but she'd given up her voice. And anyway, he'd kept her gagged most of the time.
She typed, I'm sorry.
More words appeared on the screen, and the alert dinged again, making her flinch. She would have to figure out how to turn that off, but for now she turned the monitor volume all the way down.
Tell me the truth: Our time together changed your whole life. Yes or No.
That was easy. Yes.
Tell me the truth: You've been waiting for me. Yes or No.
If she'd thought for one second he'd ever go free, she would have been waiting for him with sheer terror, dread, and a baseball bat. 
She typed, Not really. Well, I mean because they claim nobody ever leaves MSOP. Besides, I'm you know, not young anymore.
The dialogue window flashed with new words. But you are still beautiful, like a perfect doll. The way you cried for your poor mother – ah. Brought back so many good memories.
 He was talking, first about her mother's funeral, and then about the three most terrifying days of her life. She cringed way from the screen, wanting to scream 'what the hell is wrong with you? You terrorized a child, you sick ass-wipe, you utter waste of skin.' 
She did neither. She bowed her head and let the anger rise up, flood her whole body with prickly heat, until she suspected her brain was boiling.
And then she pictured Caleb. As a baby, a toddler, a kindergartner, a third-grader, and now. She thought, you sick fuck, you will NOT damage my son. If she had to sacrifice herself, so be it. It was like aiming a fire extinguisher at a fire pit.
A puff, a sizzle, and then nothing but ash.
What do you want? she typed.

SM Johnson ~Thursday Morning Coffee~

Good morning, darlings!

I had a topic all picked out for Coffee and sitting right there in my brain when it was time for Bloody Monday. And then I started a huge push to completely finish the first draft of DeVante's Choice so I could shoot it out to my early readers, and somewhere in there I forgot what that topic was going to be.

Heck, I forgot that today is Thursday.

We are not always terribly organized around here (smile).

It's been one heck of a busy week. 8 year old Sprite tested and earned her "yellow-with-a-black-stripe" belt, which, basically, is an advanced yellow belt. She goes to karate camp later this month, and at the end of that, she'll get to test for orange.

She is already tougher than I am. I held up my hands last night for her to punch, and quickly decided that I need to invest in some kick-boxing pads, because she packs a lot of power behind that punch.

Daughter #1 just graduated from a private college. Yay! One down, one to go. And I even remembered to order a cake for the party. Go me!

So... how about a sneak peek of DeVante's Choice? This is kind of later in the book, but I don't want to give too many details and spoil other parts of the story. Suffice to say that the blood drinking thing really gives Emily the creeps.

DeVante's Choice, excerpt


Emily was completely discombobulated. She'd been lying beside DeVante on his bed, finally worked up to this whole blood sharing business, because, God, anything had to be better than another night of lessons. DeVante could be so sincerely tedious with his damn lessons that Emily thought she might absolutely lose her mind.
No more.
The first night was about learning to walk. Tonight was even worse. He taught her this submissive pose that he liked – which could have been kinky as hell – but just… wasn't.
He'd put her on her knees on the floor, forehead touching the ground, expecting her to wait silently for a verbal release.
When she wasn't angry, she was giggling, and when she managed to stop laughing – quite at his insistence – she wiggled her ass and tried to get him turned on. But he wasn't having any of that. He refused to see the humor in it – Emily supposed because he was so deadly serious – and she thought the whole exercise was ridiculous a hundred times over.
He kept saying stuff like, "If Roderick can learn it, you can learn it."
"You have to make me want to," Emily had told him. "Offer a reward."
"I am offering a reward. Immortality. Isn't that enough?"
"Nope. That's not an immediate enough reward. It's like a deferred reward, and I can take it or leave it, you know that. You need to find, oh... I don't know... some words of praise that warm me up inside and make me want to please you."
"All you have to do is be obedient."
"Yeah, but you have to make me want to be. If you know me as well as you claim, it shouldn't be that hard."
"If you would stop arguing, it would not be hard."
"But I was born to argue with you."
"No. You were born to destroy me."
"Oh, come on, that's a bit dramatic, don't you think?"
"Not at all. I have become soft. I rarely follow my own code these days. It is very disturbing."
"Blah, blah, blah. I'm just saying, if you make kneeling on the floor at your feet a little more attractive, I would be happy to do it."
"You would be happy to drive me insane. I should know that by now. I do not know what ever made me think you would be compliant."
"After all, you know me so well," she said.
She couldn't help baiting him. He was so rigid in how he wanted things to be – no, how he fully expected things to be – that upsetting his apple cart was pure joy. It probably was about as safe to bait a vampire as a shark, but Emily amused herself endlessly in her head with planning how next to aggravate him.
She wondered what he'd think if he knew that?
But he must know. And he must like it, because he kept coming back for more.
So let him bend on this one. It wouldn't kill him.
Surprisingly, he tried to bend. "What do you want me to say?"
God. He wasn't exactly bursting with romance, was he? Emily shrugged. "Just think about it. Can we be done now? Aren't there rules and stuff you need to tell me? I know how much you love your rules."
He tried to explain "the rules" to her, but she asked more questions than he cared to answer, baited him more times than he cared to respond to, so finally Emily gave in to one of his requests.
"Okay, since we're just pissing each other off, I'll give, and we can do the blood thing."
Just the tiniest acquiescence and she found herself on the bed, DeVante looming over her and grinning, all flashing eyes and teeth and nefarious purpose.
Oh good Lord. "That's it? This is it, you're just going to bite me and then get me to bite you? No build-up, no romance?"
"It's the moment, not the build-up to the moment, that matters, love."
And just like that he was attacking her throat.
Only it wasn't like an attack. It was like the most incredibly intimate interaction she'd ever had with a human being. Well. If he still counted as a human being, which she suspected he didn't.
It was like he crawled right into her skin with her, and every nerve ending she'd ever had that experienced longing, he filled, immediately, with utter perfection. She could hear his heart pounding out her name, Emily, Emily, Emily... and her own heart seemed to be answering, all her everything rushing into him. She moaned aloud, completely lost. It felt like all her life and all her dreams and all her hopes belonged to him, and she'd just been borrowing all of that, just holding it for him until this moment. 


Without him she would be lost, she would be broken, she would be unable to live.

SM Johnson ~Bloody Monday~ Too scary to read

click here to make your own signGood morning, happy Bloody Monday to you, my darlings.

So just for shits and giggles, and as a salute to dark fiction, I am going to tell you about the most recent book I could not read. Actually, assuming I write this fast, I will tell you about a couple of books I could not read, and a couple of authors who scared the bejeezus out of me so badly that I stopped attempting to read them altogether.

These aren't bad books or bad writers. These are amazing writers. These are characters and stories that  leap off the page and are so real that I experience anxiety and terror.

Now that's something isn't it?

Violence, torture, blood, and gore don't really do it for me, which probably sounds strange coming from a vampire writer. So I say this, right out loud, in fact, and then in the same sentence tell you that I love me a good John Sandford novel (featuring serial killers), Patricia Cornwall mystery (forensic medical examiner), Anita Blake adventure (vampire hunter and animator of zombies). I certainly read more than a fair share in the horror genre.

And yet... I can't watch bloody, gory stuff on TV at all. I find The Tudors very disturbing, as well as King of Thrones. Even Dexter gives me enough anxiety to makes me leave the room sometimes, although I avidly watched the first couple-three seasons. Television is so vividly in color that it's difficult to skim past the yucky parts.
Image from Amazon
But, as I am so often guilty of, I do digress.

Here is the last book I had to put down because it was just too scary: Lisa Gardner's Say Goodbye. It was just plain too scary. I found myself staring at it, lying in wait for me on the kitchen table, and the sight filled me with cold dread from stomach to toes, as if  the book was daring me to torture myself, daring me to risk my ability to fall asleep easily, challenging my psyche not to have nightmares.

I have read other books by Lisa Gardner. Her ability to weave a story with characters you care about is amazing. That's part of why some of them terrify me utterly.

There have only been handful of books that I could not read because they were just too damn scary.

I must read in black and white, because I can read through icky stuff in books that I cannot watch on television.

I had to quit John Saul cold turkey. Again, a terrific writer, unafraid to go deep into the dark recesses of psychological horror, deeper and darker than almost anyone else dares to tread. Suffer the Children, which I was probably MUCH too young too read - gave me nightmares for weeks. In fact, once the nightmares stopped, all it would take for them to visit me again was the sight of his name on a book.

I was involved in a great writers group way, way back. At one point we formed a sub-group, and planned a teacher-led analysis of how to build tension in writing. Our textbook was Dean Koontz's book Intensity.

Definitely a book worthy of examination.

We were supposed to read the first two chapters by such-and-such a date. Mm-hmm. I read the whole damn book in one sitting. I felt slightly guilty about this, but I couldn't stop.

Now that's tension.

I was really looking forward to the instructor tearing this book down to words and sentences and pacing.

The day of our first "class" arrived. I anxiously awaited the first email.

The email I received was something of a disappointment. It said, in its roundabout way, that the instructor found Intensity too frightening to read, and therefore decided to make an alternative suggestion.

Man, I was totally pissed. And the alternative selection was a book by a famous author whose work just wasn't to my taste.

Besides, I thought the instructor really wussed out and let us all down.

Of course, since that time I've come to understand - some authors write so powerfully that not everyone can bear to read them. It's happened to me.

If you feel like commenting, I'd love to hear if you've ever given up on a book or a writer in your favored genre because they were just too damn _________. (fill in the blank).

SM Johnson ~A Year of Sundays~ ch 12 pt 2

Chapter 12- Sunday July 17thPart 2
The letter arrived the week after Mom's funeral.
Receiving a letter was odd these days, anyway. Everyone Melanie had regular contact with, except her sisters, emailed, or Facebooked, or sent text messages. Her sisters, of course, called regularly. Sometimes Melanie ignored their calls, annoyed that they felt the need to check on her constantly, but mostly she answered, because she needed to hear their voices as much they needed to hear hers.
The scrawl of her name and address was such a disaster it was a wonder the letter reached her at all. There was a return address with a post office box number, but the name of the sender was hardly more than a scribble. She'd picked up the mail on her way out of her apartment, tossed it into her carry-all, and actually forgot about it for several days. Might not have thought about it again for weeks, actually, except she pulled it out at a meeting, looking for something on which to write down Alex's phone number.
Alex had laughed. "Do you always carry unopened mail around in your purse?"
Melanie had shook her head, ruefully, and looked with slitted eyes at the return address again, trying to make out the name. She gave up. "No. I guess I forgot about it."
The meeting was called to order then, but the letter was burning a hole in Melanie's brain by that point, and she had trouble paying attention.
She opened it as soon as she got home.
And now she wondered if she wouldn't have been better off just dropping it into the wastebasket as she left AA that night, leaning into Alex, laughing and making fun of anyone who attempted to communicate by snail mail.
She'd been doing so well for so long.
The Minnesota Sex Offender Program, or MSOP, was a six-hundred bed facility that housed sexual predators on civil commitment, above and beyond their prison sentences. Melanie had researched the place, ostensibly out of concern for her own safety, but mostly out of curiosity, and discovered that hardly anyone ever completed the program or got discharged.
Sex offenders, and especially those who rape children, were considered impossible to rehabilitate.
She didn't sign up to be contacted if he was released, because she never believed he would be released. And even if, in the long shot event that he would be, he was a pedophile. He wouldn't be interested in her now that she was an adult.
The handwriting on the letter was a total contrast to the outside of the envelope. It was so neat and careful that even a ten year old could read it.
My Beautiful Doll,
Even though our time was short, I'm sure you would agree that it binds us together as much as a wedding ceremony ever could have. Maybe more. We are each a part of the other, with no escape.There were so many things I still had to show you, gifts I had to give you, and it pains me greatly that I haven't had the chance.I saw you leaving your mother's funeral with your nephew, and you were so beautiful I almost stopped breathing.
She closed her eyes for a second, herself unable to breathe. Nephew? What was he talking about? But then she knew; he was still crazy, and he would not be able to accept that she had a son.
She took a deep breath and opened her eyes to read more, even while wondering how the hell he had managed to send her this letter.
I'm sorry you didn't understand the way it was between us. Perhaps if I had waited, things would have been different. But alas, I waited as long as I could, which was only long enough to get your doll house minimally ready for you. But now I realize that I rushed our relationship, that I should have waited until I could make the doll house nicer, prettier, for how could I expect an incredibly beautiful doll to survive in such a plain little house?
The bile rose in the back of her throat. He thought she chewed through the gag and screamed her head off because the shed was ugly? He may have found some way to earn his release, but he wasn't cured, not by a long shot. He was completely delusional.
I know you were afraid of Mr. Snakey, but you don't have to worry about that anymore. It was just that you were so small and new, and that made you perceive him as impossibly big. You will enjoy his inspections much more now that you have grown into a woman.
Some rational part of Melanie's brain was coaxing her to crumple the paper, throw it in the garbage, and laugh at how stupid this was, how stupid he was, that he would still call his penis Mr. Snakey. And yet… and yet… as soon as she read the words, her whole body seemed to contract, from her pelvis, to her leg muscles, to the blood in her veins… and for a second she thought she would fall down and "go away" in her head, exactly the same as when he'd actually raped her.
She heard herself whimpering.
What did he want from her? She wasn't even his type anymore – she was an adult. And how could they ever, ever let a child murderer and rapist go free? That was crazier than all the rest of it put together. It didn't make sense. She should call someone, because if he actually had been released, this should get him locked up again. And if he'd escaped, maybe they needed her to lure him in.
The thought chilled her. And yet… she didn't call anyone. She didn't even put the letter down.
And thank God for that.
What I want you to do now is create a Yahoo ID. You will name yourself BeautifulDoll1987, then log into the instant messaging service and wait for me to contact you. You will want to do this as soon as you can, or I will find it necessary to make contact with your nephew, who isn't one hundred per cent my type, but close enough.
I've done my time and passed all my tests, and I'm back in your world now.
Melanie collapsed onto the floor, unable to think, unable to breathe. 
The short, painful sobs felt like they were being ripped from her gut right out her throat.
Motherfucker. That fuck. He knew Caleb wasn't her nephew. He knew.
Oh, God. How many days had she been carrying the letter around in her purse, unopened? A week?
She called Craig as she booted-up her dinosaur computer. He answered with a casual, "Hey, what's up?"
Melanie had gotten control of her breathing. She forced a laugh, and said, "I know I'm extra paranoid right now. I fell asleep on the couch and had bad, bad, nightmare. And I know it was a dream, but I still have to check. Is Caleb okay?"

SM Johnson ~Thursday Morning Coffee~

Good morning, darlings, and welcome to Thursday Morning Coffee. So pour a cup and let's chat!

All right, so you guys don't talk much. I get it. No worries, I talk enough for two people all by myself, so it's all good.

Guess what? School's out and it's officially summer! Yay! And here's the most exciting part - WWIII at our house began IMMEDIATELY.

So... I've already put in a call to the therapist. Our third therapist.

Say what? Yeah.

We who are mental health workers often counsel our clients that not every therapist is appropriate for every client, and that it's important to find one you're comfortable with and with whom you feel able to build a trusting relationship.

Such advice slips past my lips pretty easily when I'm at work.

Much more easily than when I'm sitting in front of the THIRD therapist, trying to explain how the others just didn't get us, or at the very least, were not helpful. Or, probably closer to the truth, they allowed the Sprite to maintain her sweet, perfect child act, and therefore were likely convinced that I am psychotic (therapist #2 wouldn't even allow me to show her a video depicting what it's really like to life with my Sprite, the yelling, the screaming, the sheer and utter madness of it all).

I found the whole "search for the right therapist" thing kind of embarrassing, actually.

In my average, every day life, I'm pretty sure I'm not psychotic. But this is my first round in the parenting ring, and I freely admit that there are times when I really need some guidance. Usually what I want to know is this: Am I being unreasonable... and are my expectations too high?

My Sprite is an amazing actress, and she can turn on the charm like nobody's business.

But our new guy keeps us all in the same room together - rather than separating us out to discuss issues one-at-a-time. One-at-a-time is great for venting, but not so great for brainstorming the stuff that's really going to help us communicate more effectively, or, at the very, very least - stop driving each other up into the crazy-tree.

Body-language can be so telling. It's pretty obvious who is or isn't psychotic when the room vibe reaches Highly Uncomfortable.

So anyway - that's my ramble.

I'm writing the rest of DeVante's Choice by hand - not that there's anything wrong with my computer, other than the ability to constantly distract myself with such lovelies as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Stumble Upon. The story arcs are done, but there are some transitions to write, setting work, and the tying up of loose ends - tedious bits and pieces, but that can be the difference between a smooth read and a WTF?

That's all I've got for coffee this time, darlings. Hope you have a wonderful, warm, rain-free weekend. Unless dancing in the rain is your thing.

SM Johnson ~Bloody Monday~ Dark Ground Trilogy

Good morning, Darlings!

Since pop culture hasn't been begging me to read a new "latest and greatest" story, I decided to revisit an a very dark trilogy that I read in the past. I could not remember the name and I could not remember the author. I Googled keywords for a couple of hours, but still had no luck putting a name to what I remembered of these books. I know, right? My bad.

But here is what I knew: I checked these books out in hardcover from the actual, physical library. So that is where I went to find them. And find them I did.

The Dark Ground trilogy, by Gillian Cross.

YA books. Very dark, violent, and rather disturbing YA books, to tell you the truth.

This will be a little bit spoilery, but I not much more than the book descriptions themselves, so I think it should be okay.

Robert gets shrunk down very small - about the size of the thumbnail (the one on your thumb, not the book cover on this blog) and dumped into an unfamiliar environment, that actually turns out to be a very familiar environment. He finds his way to a cavern that houses a society of people who have become small.

This fist installment is definitely a wilderness adventure story, and quite well done. One of the cavern people that Robert knows he will miss terribly is a girl named Lorn, who teaches Robert how to weave intricate braids.

Robert does return to his regular size and his regular life. He tells his sister, Emma, everything, and they become allies determined to help the small people in the cavern survive the winter.

When Robert's friend Tom finds a braid similar to the complicated braids Robert can make, the teenagers investigate and discover a family who has kept their daughter in a hole under the floor for all of her life.

The girl can braid. In fact, weaving is about the only comfort the girl has.

The three teenagers rescue the girl (Hope) from under the floor, but she is stunted and strange, and not at all okay. Robert, Emma, and Tom have a plan that will be impossible to carry out if they call the police, so they are on their own working out what to do about Hope.

They are still trying to help the small people in the cavern, and still trying to figure out how people become small, and if there's any way to make them big again.

This is a raw and complicated dark story, and just when you think there might be some redemption, you read book three.

I just read the trilogy for the 2nd time. Somehow I became convinced that I had never read the Nightmare Game, because when I thought about the story, I had strong feeling of incompleteness.

The truth of the matter is that the story never quite comes all the way around to completion. I'm not sure it was ever meant to. At the end of this book is a deep, unsettling feeling of uneasiness. And to counter that, the brain wants to know the practical details: how old is Hope, really? Does she turn out some sort of normal? Does she return home, and if so, can her mother and brother allow her to become integrated into the real family?

What happened to Magee? What happened to the people in the cavern? And what is happening to Tom?

Dark.

Despite all my questions and my sense of incompleteness, I quite love this story. It's like a really dark, complicated version of Honey I Shrunk the Kids. Without the comedy.

PS - it's my 13th wedding anniversary today, and marks 20 years together for my husband and I.

It seems like forever. But then the time has gone by in a blink. How odd that my heart can fully embrace both of these feelings - all at the same time.

SM Johnson ~A Year of Sundays ~ ch 12 pt 1

Chapter 12 – Sunday, July 17th
Part 1
~Melanie~
She was lying flat on her back, staring at the ceiling. It was Sunday again, which meant they would swoop down on her, en masse, and the complaints and arguments over the total non-issue of ECT would start all over again.
The very idea of it made her so, so tired.
She'd gone through with it, the treatment, on Friday, and was just now starting to feel real again – not better – but finally coming out of the fog caused either by anesthesia, or by the ECT itself.
She had no memory of the treatment, which had worried her, but the nurses assured her that's the way it worked. She remembered walking to the surgical prep area, lying on a gurney in the hallway, having an IV put into her arm, and then… nothing until waking up here in this room on the fourth floor, groggy and confused. The rest of Friday faded in an out. She'd had a headache and slept a lot.
But overall, it hadn't been all that bad. Certainly didn't warrant the family drama it was creating.
Melanie had confronted Dr. B when she saw him Thursday morning, after most of the week had passed and nothing happened.
"How long are you going to keep me here? You haven’t sent me to ECT, and you haven't done anything with meds at all."
He looked at her in that implacable way he had, like he couldn't believe she was asking for a passing grade when she hadn't turned in her assignment. Trouble was, she had no idea what the assignment was.
"We'll do it tomorrow. Plan on being here another week or two."
"Are you kidding?" she'd asked. "I've never been inpatient that long. You can't keep me. Don't I have rights?"
He just kept looking at her like that.
"Seriously?"
"Melanie. You have post-traumatic stress disorder. Maybe a touch of bi-polar, a chemical imbalance probably caused by your trauma. You've been functioning lately by way of drugs and alcohol. Honestly? I don't know if ECT will help you, but I don't think it'll hurt."
"You've got to be fucking kidding. My family is flipping out, pissed that I'd even consider it, and now you say it might not work?"
Dr. B just continued his steady, probing stare. "That's right. You did well for a long time. Years. When you finally tell us what's going on, we'll be able to help you."
"My mother died. Jesus. You know that."
Dr. B nodded, and his eyes grew kinder. "I know. I also know that you're losing your son because of your chemical use. I can see that you're depressed, but that's not what I'm worried about, not really."
"Then what?"
"It's that you're barely here at all. You put on a good show, you might even be trying really hard to convince the nurses and staff. But most of the time, you're not in this world. Where are you?"
She didn't answer. She couldn't.
"Melanie? Did you put yourself back into that shed? Or somewhere better? Or somewhere even worse?"
She shook her head. She couldn’t talk about this. Pretty soon she was going to have to stop talking altogether.
"So, I'll have ECT tomorrow, then?" she asked, starting past him at the bathroom door, unable to meet his eyes.
Dr. B nodded his head, but still he waited, as if he thought she'd cave and tell him about something more shocking than electro-convulsive therapy.
"Okay, see you then." She rolled over in her bed to face the wall, putting her back to him, knowing he'd eventually go away.
She'd had the treatment Friday morning. It was fine, whatever. Nothing more spastic than the current forcing a seizure through her brain and limbs, noted only by the jerk of her big toe.
Today was Sunday, and they'd be coming.
She stared at the ceiling and waited.
There was a metal box fixed to the ceiling, and sometimes she forgot where she was and thought it housed a video camera. She shrank into herself, cold, afraid, and wishing she had clothes, or at least blankets.
She knew he watched her, that he was fascinated with the beautiful doll he'd locked into the little doll house. He'd told her that a hundred times, like he really believed it, and like it was really important that she believe it, too.
But he was lying. Or he was just plain crazy.
For one thing, doll houses had furniture – little beds and kitchens, rugs and curtains. Some of them even had toilets and sinks.Here there was a light bulb on the ceiling next to the square metal box, it was harsh and bright and on all the time. There were no windows, just one green door, locked tight. There was a thin plastic mattress on the floor, and a yellow Tidy Cat bucket with a blue snap-lid in the corner, which he explained was the toilet.
She wasn't stupid. This was no doll house.
But it didn't matter. She was still his beautiful doll.
She blinked until the room came into focus. Bed, blankets, window, curtain, and sink. Faded blue carpeting. Tan walls, except for the one the head of the beds butted up against, which was a better blue than the carpet.
She heard her name, and realized it was the voice, Liz's voice, that had brought her back. She opened her eyes and forced a smile. "Hi," she said, and, "I was sleeping," although it wasn't sleep, not exactly.
It was more like waiting. In the shed.
Liz held a microwave container in one hand. The other was hidden behind her back. "I brought you lasagna."
"And?" Melanie asked. "What's in your other hand?"
Liz set the lasagna on a table that rested between the two beds, against the blue wall. She put both hands behind her back for a second, then held up the one that had been hidden. "What? This hand? Nothing."
Melanie rolled her eyes, but a flash of excited anticipation rolled through her, giving her stomach very faint butterflies, and making her toes curl. If she'd been on her feet, she'd have been impatiently dancing on her toes. Maybe the treatment had fixed her a little bit after all.
And yet… some part of her observed all this from a distance, like from a top corner of the room, or through a video camera hidden safely inside a square metal box. That part of her remained cynical – what could Liz have possibly brought into the hospital that would be worth this excitement, a bottle of whiskey? A pot brownie? Surely not.
Liz, laughing, withdrew the hidden prize with a flourish. "Look!"
She was holding a zip-lock freezer bag.
Melanie's jaw dropped, and a rush of pleasure raced from her throat to her belly.
Watermelon, and strawberries, and blueberries… bite-sized and glistening with fresh appeal, the gallon-sized bag bulging. Her mouth watered, and then she started to cry.
She couldn't even speak right away, her throat too tight with emotion.
Who but a sister would ever know?
Melanie raised her hands, helpless, and finally felt her throat open to let a laugh escape. A real laugh.
"You're the best sister in the whole, wide world," she managed to say as Liz handed her the bag of nirvana.
Addiction was a bitch. Melanie craved, and paced, and ate anything she could find, especially sweets. But the only thing that came even close to salving the need was this exact mixture of fruit.
She was suddenly so filled with gratitude she felt like her chest would burst.

SM Johnson ~Thursday Morning Coffee ~ NYC part 2

**What do you think of the new tiled homepage? Love it, hate it? It would be fantastic to hear from you! I really loved the dramatic look of the blog the way it's been, but I fear the white-on-black is difficult to read. Thoughts?**

Welcome to Thursday Morning Coffee! Here's part 2 of my trip to NYC. Toward the end I'll list some "insider tricks" either I figured out, or that people told me about.

Let's see... I think I was talking about Saturday when I hit the moment wherein which it became impossible for me to stay awake for one more minute.

We took the subway to Chinatown for some shopping. Whoa. That was crowded. The story that thieves will cut your purse strap right off your shoulder, and make off with your money, probably originated in Chinatown, because the street was so packed it was difficult to even move. Impossible to really shop, but we managed to buy a few things anyway. There was something going on down there that involved a parade and some dragon heads and such. We didn't stay for the parade, but I took pictures of the dragon heads. We did stop at a Chines bakery and ate a chocolate cake thingy that was mmmm, yummy. It looked like rich chocolate mousse, although it turned out to be lightly sweetened cake, but the frosting that glued thick chocolate curls to the edges was to die for.

Leaving Chinatown - we got on the subway going totally the wrong way. We needed to go to Midtown, but instead were heading for Brooklyn. Oops. But sort of like missing your exit in Minneapolis, all we had to do was get off at the next stop, turn our backs on the train, and catch the next one going in the right direction.

Get this - that was my ONLY navigation error. Do I rock, or what?

OutMediaI was SO looking forward to Saturday evening's Speak Up! reading at El Museo del Barrio. I mean, honestly, the whole trip became much more exciting for me the moment I realized I would get to hang out with writerly friends - my peeps!

But here's the tricky part - I was traveling with my mom, and my peeps are not her peeps. She found herself way outside her comfort zone at El Museo, which was pretty unfortunate. Here's the thing - when I'm with my mom, somehow I stop being 40 and go back to being 14. Mostly this is tolerable. This time, it was a bummer. I probably should have insisted upon going alone so I could relax, stay all the way through to the end, and have a chance to take some photos.

I did one thing wisely - I asked my friend Emanuel Xavier to sign my copies of his books before the reading started. I didn't make the moment a photo op because Manny was the host of the event, and I didn't want to get him hung up while was getting organized. (I've blogged about Emanuel before, here)

So anyway. I was able to listen to a few open mike readers, Emanuel, and someone I hadn't heard before called Simply Rob.



Somewhere in the midst of that, I lost my mom.

El Barrio basically means The Neighborhood in Spanish. Most of the attendees were Hispanic. Probably most of them were gay, as well. Some of the poetry was in Spanish, or partially in Spanish (my 8th and 9th grade Spanish is pretty dang rudimentary, but I was able to catch a word or two here and there). The words rape, cock, fuck, AIDS, etc. were present and accounted for - in English. A lot of the poetry detailed experiences that were tragic and sad.

Poetry is like that. Even mine.

My mom was in New York for a fun, light-hearted vacation. The reading was more intense of an experience than she was looking for. So we ended up leaving before it was over. Sad for me, but it's hard to relax when your companion isn't having a good time, you know?

We cabbed it back to Times Square and went to Carve for pizza. And there we saw the most astonishing show of our trip.

It was a day party - in our neck of the woods, we call it a "pub crawl" - a bunch of friends crawling from bar to bar, drinking and dancing and having a great time. A New Yorker told me these are actually illegal. This one was hysterical. There were, I don't know, 25 - 30 black women, all dressed as if they'd come straight out of a whore house. The skirts were short, the shirts were tight, and the heels were high. And they were having a ball. The pic at the left is the LEAST shocking - the gal at the far left with the mesh dress? The front was mesh too, except for built-in nipple pasties...

Honestly, we have never seen such a group of skimpily, tackily dressed women. And without intending to be mean, I have to say that we laughed so hard there were moments we were pretty much doubled over. It was quite a sight for a couple of mid-western girls, let me tell you. We desperately wanted to take pictures, but it was hard to figure out how to do that without insulting people.

It lightened my mom's mood, which was a good thing.

Sunday we went to a street fair in Hell's Kitchen, which was a lot of fun. I drank a watermelon/strawberry smoothie thing that was refreshing and cold. The weather was beautiful - as it had been every day. I bought an iPhone case that has a picture of Steve Jobs on the back. I don't know why, but it seemed like the right thing to do, considering Steve Jobs changed our world.

We also walked down to the permanent flea market, also in Hell's Kitchen. Took an awesome picture of my mom with a transvestite. (See? Gay poetry reading on Saturday, smiling next to a tranny on Sunday - I'm definitely broadening my mom's world).

Saturday night we wandered out of Times Square and landed, ultimately, in the lobby of the Trump Building, where I took pictures of the Trump Bike, built by Paul Teutul Sr. of Orange County Choppers.  Pretty damn cool.

I also took pictures of the storefronts of Versaci, Prada, and Armani. Because I am a little bit strange that way. But hey, some of my characters are label queens, so it was fun.

Ended up walking our feet off.

Monday it rained. I was just shocked to walk outside and discover rain. I felt mad at myself for not packing an umbrella, but one second later, a guy came walking down the street carrying an umbrella and a garbage bag full of umbrellas, yelling "Umbrellas!"

Man, New York is freaking cool.

We had an appointment at the 9/11 Memorial site at 4 pm, so once again I got out my subway map, and we made our way to Daffy's and then Macy's. Had coffee and a burger at Macy's basement cafe. I bought some chocolate for my husband's grandmother, who has been watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade for years.

The walk to the Memorial site was pretty long, even though I took the recommended subway train to the recommended stop. We had to go through security measures similar to TSA, but I guess you do what you have to do.

When I was there in 2007, the site as still considered Ground Zero, a couple of holes in the ground surrounded by construction fencing. The 9/11 timeline was hung up along the fence, and it was an acutely painful experience.

This time was a bit different. The museum isn't completed yet, and the Freedom Tower is still under construction, but the holes in the ground have been turned into these beautiful pools with waterfalls on all four sides, with the names of the people etched into the ledges surrounding the pools. The experience wasn't as painful this time - it was melancholy, but also incredibly peaceful. I think the memorial pools are a very fitting tribute to the many lives lost, both on 9/11, and also the terrorist attack on the WTC in 1993.

Last, but certainly not least, we called our Expedia concierge to see if she could get us theater tickets for Monday night. And guess what? She could! We landed 5 rows behind the orchestra pit for Phantom of the Opera.

Whoa. And by that, I mean WHOA! Pretty amazing stuff!

Getting to the airport on Tuesday sucked, same as getting from the airport to the hotel on Thursday. We thought we were smart this time around and signed up for a shuttle. Hahahahahaha. Joke on us. We boarded the shuttle at 1:05, expecting to head to the airport. What actually happened is that we drove around Times Square from hotel to hotel for over an hour. Then the driver promised to get us to the airport by 4 pm.  4pm! We passengers revolted and demanded transport to the airport immediately, and arrived at JFK at 2:30. Plenty of time for our 4:20 flight, yes?

Um. No. We stood in line for TSA screening for 90 minutes, until a Delta employee pulled to the head of the line, basically because our airplane was waiting for us. JFK is apparently the Keystone equivalent of TSA - 2 agents checking IDs, and 3 lanes open for "stuff" and person screening - all serving THIRTY-ONE departure gates. Truly, truly ludicrous. I filed an official complaint/suggestion. No, my civil liberties were not violated (that was a previous trip), but the inefficiency of their system at JFK was shocking. I don't even know how they can do a good job when the people they are screened are exhausted and pissed off from standing in line, not to mention stressed that they're about to miss their plane.

Okay, I promised some insider tips. I'll try to make this quick.

1) Wear a plain shirt for your flight. I found out last year that "exciting" shirts with vines and rhinestones and little copper doo-dads on them look like bomb wires and connections to the x-ray machine, and will result in a full pat-down and having your hands tested for explosive residue. Trust.

2) Fly into La Guardia, rather than JFK, if at all possible.

3) Someone told me that you can get a shuttle from the airport to Grand Central Station for $12.50, and many hotels offer free shuttle service from there. (I didn't test this out - it's just what I heard).

4) The guy loitering by the Metro-Card machine will try to sell you a "barely used" unlimited ride card. I don't know if he's full of shit or not, but when he swipes the card and urges you through the barrier, he will ultimately separate you from your companion(s), and, I suspect, then give your companion a "hard sell." I didn't fall for it. I recommend you go ahead and buy a 7 day pass for $29. You can use it as much as you want, then give it away, perhaps to employees of your favorite eating establishment or deli/coffee shop.

5) The double-decker buses are cool if you don't know the city. The 48-hour hop-on/hop-off pass was totally worth the money. Try to get on them in the morning, but eat a good breakfast first!

6) When you need a cab, go to the nearest hotel door guy. They are super-awesome-friendly, and will flag you down a taxi in no time (and give him a tip for getting you the cab, even if he's not from your hotel). Also a good resource when you come up out of the subway station and have no idea which direction you need to walk in.

7) Find your mother something else to do if you want to attend a gay Hispanic poetry reading.

8) If you book through Expedia, an Expedia concierge will call you before your trip and offer you their services. Write down that person's phone number and work hours - they are a great resource if you want  to add excursions, tickets, and local attractions to your trip - even at the last minute!

9) You can pay for your NYcity cab with a credit card, even if the driver insists that he would much prefer cash. They are REQUIRED to accept credit/debit cards for payment. They might not want to tell you this, however.

10) In New York City, if you need an umbrella, there will be a guy selling them within 8 feet of you. Same thing if you need sunglasses. In Chinatown, the people mumbling at you are saying either "Buy handbags, ma'am?" or "Watch? You want watch?" I suspect these are the illegal, back-room sort of sales that can get you in trouble. Just saying. OH! And this - compare the prices at your hotel gift shop and other shops before you buy a bunch of stuff - I was shocked that the hotel shop, literally seconds away from my bed, was considerably cheaper than everywhere else.