Maze 2:4:2 -- storytelling

Book Two

Chapter 4

Part 2

In the last episode 2:4:1 Maze and Ame pay rent to the Pakis who run the boarding house where he lives. Ame has a moment with a vending machine. She finds a friend in the woman behind the counter, who laughs as they turn out their pockets to pay rent in pennies. Someone needs some lifesavers.

Maze 2:4:1 -- storytelling

Book Two

Chapter 4

Part 1

In the last episode 2:3:4 Ame watches the strange behavior in the street of the woman she accosted days before, and isn't quite sure what to make of it or how to feel. She and Maze head back to his boarding house. She rides her bike while he skateboards. She's clearly in love. Good news, the book just reached it's highest ranking yet on Amazon kindle...

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,674 Free in Kindle Store, #28 in the subcategory.

Maze 2:3:4 -- storytelling

Book Two

Chapter 3

Part 4

In the last episode 2:3:3 the two lovers are heading back home. They stop at the 7-11 for some coffee and are treated like punks. Which they are. Maze behaves badly and gets them kicked out. Out on the street there is a commotion. Someone familiar to Ame is in the street actin crazy. 

Maze 2:3:3 -- storytelling

Book Two 

Chapter 3

Part 3

In the last episode 2:3:2 our protagonist's love interest, Maze, makes his entrance. On his skateboard. As seen through her eyes. 

Maze 2:3:2 -- storytelling

Book Two

Chapter 3

Part 2

In the last episode 2:3:1 Ame leaves the scene of the crime with her bike and some boots for her new friend (and kindred Delux) in the room down the hall. She shows the girl (who is in some sort of drug-induced haze) some kindness and sleeps beside her in the room. Kell wakes startled, come between worlds, and not thrilled to have a stranger in bed with her. Ame takes off but not without offering the boots and her friendship. Kell doesn't know what to think but thanks her anyway.

Maze 2:3:1 -- a reading

Book Two

Chapter 3

Part 1

In the last episode 2:2:3 Ame uses her energies to perform the alchemy upon the thief, who dissolves into a pure pool of being and soaks through the carpet (which cannot seem to hold him) and into the floor, which becomes waterlogged with what's left of him. 

Maze 2:2:3 -- a reading

Book Two

Chapter 2

Part 3

In the last episode 2:2:2 Ame comes upon the thief and scans the situation so to determine her course of action. She sees her bike there in the room full of stolen goods. She takes account of his deepest personal desire before proceeding.

Maze 2:2:2 -- a reading

Book Two

Chapter 2

Part 2 

In the last episode 2:2:1 Ame comes across some runaways while tracking the thief up past the mezzanine. She gives a protection spell to the orphan boy she saw in the street. On her way to confront the thief she also comes across some Shades, and a young girl in one of the rooms, who has accidentally dropped a door (off its hinges) on her foot. 

Journal 11.21.15

The holidays are a heavy time for some of us and me. I wish you all the best with family and friends and laughter with strangers, or the most delicious silence in being alone in the quiet comes over the USA all the holiday weekend long. I wish you long walks into colorful autumn foliage. I wish you good health and a vision for your future. I wish you peaceful dreaming to maybe meet again those you have lost, and hold their hands in another world. I wish you warmth. I wish you be forgiven and given fresh chances and good food. I wish you would be kind to yourself, and if you find yourself alone again, you will be there in my heart, I swear, remember, we are all alone really, and it's okay.   - K

Update... On the writing and self-publishing front, I am trying to stay active with the Daughter of Darkness while it's fresh in my mind from working on Maze. When I published Book One last February, I took about a month away from the series before diving back into it. This time I don't wanna stop. Truthfully I don't know where Book 3 is gonna go. I mean I have 55,000 words of material I wrote last year, but much of that was written before the plot for Maze came together. There are some good hunting scenes, for sure, which I plan to use. If you have any ideas let me know.

Finally, I hope that my idea of reading all of Maze on this website is okay with you. I understand some would like to read my usual flashes, my creative nonfiction, but I am thinking about putting that aside so I can do these readings instead. They both take up about an equal amount of time to compose. Please let me know. Best wishes!

Maze 2:2:1 -- a reading

Book Two

Chapter 2

Part 1

And the paperback version of Maze has arrived!

 clocking in at 154 pages

available here...

Maze (paperback)

In the last episode 2:1:4 Ame returns to the former home of catholic charity (where Hendrix initially led her). She goes inside and sensing the presence of the thief who stole her bicycle, she awaits his arrival, then tracks him to his room above the mezzanine. 

Maze 2:1:4 -- a reading

Book Two

Chapter 1

Part 4

In part 3, Ame follows the lady she is tracking

out and up the hill on Vernon Street, and attacks

her to extract the tangy energetic. 

Maze 2:1:3 -- a reading

Leading up to this point in the story...

In Part 1 (Book 2, Chapter 1)
Ame is basking in the sun on the shores of Lake Merritt when her friend, the apparition named Hendrix, shows up. He is a bloodhound for 'the tangy energetic' (aka human fear). She follows him (with some difficulty). He takes her to a building on Harrison Street. She was here the day before, across the street, and had locked her bike to a street sign but now her bike is gone. She realizes it has been stolen.

In Part 2, Ame recounts the day before. She had 'the thirst' and tracked a lady into the Whole Foods who caught her attention.

Book Two

Chapter 1

Part 3

Maze 2:1:2 -- a reading

Book Two

Chapter 1

Part 2

In Part 1
Ame is basking in the sun on the shores of Lake Merritt when her friend, the apparition named Hendrix, shows up. He is a bloodhound for 'the tangy energetic' (aka human fear). She follows him (with some difficulty). He takes her to a building on Harrison Street. She was here the day before, across the street, and had locked her bike to a street sign but now her bike is gone. She realizes it has been stolen.

Maze 2:1:1 -- a reading

Hi, I am going to  read my book cover to cover, one installment at a time. 

This is the first reading...

Book Two

Chapter 1

Part 1

What am I reading?
The book I am reading is titled: Maze, and is the second in a series entitled: Daughter of Darkness.
Book One was titled: Grand Theft Life. These books are available for purchase on Amazon.com, and both were published in the year 2015.

sunday comes again

sunday comes again
in a cup of tea in a winter storm silently approaching

in red
in blue in white
world
at war

agents chew the thread
out like blistering metal music with teeth
and fuck up the spider web

how the world comes together
gathering all intel
2 penetrate islamic state

4 vengeance
4 the innocent dead
4 the bloodshed

sunday comes again
and i tell you it's out in the open

furious mad
it's terrible bad
gonna take lives 4 lives
without hesitation

refugee passports pulled
in the name of the innocent dead

hunting
for
the ones

i loved
you loved
we loved

sunday comes a deafening sound
 a bomb dropped off a drone
feeling kinda painful
alone

sunday comes again and god help us
raising our children
shelving our dreams

world peace is so much smaller than
this and some have gone away
never to return

sunday comes on fire
sunday comes with rain
sunday comes
sunday comes

again

this town

In this town unlike other towns all the people wanna get laid. All the people. In this town they all go to the library. It is a very small town, so the library is the only edifice and serves every function. But nobody gets married or divorced. The library has no books, only magazines. The magazines must all be obscene to stay in circulation. There are no pictures only words. There are no children in this town, and never were. Nobody leaves this town, by choice. This town has a finite beginning and a finite ending. It ends when the last of them is dead. This town is kept very clean, all the streets I mean. There are no dogs, and no cats. But plenty of platinum fish. Nobody does drugs. This town is very strange, unless you live there. There are no hospitals. If you get sick they will take care of you, and if they get sick you will take care of them. Intuitively. Nobody lies in this town. There is mayhem but only one night a week, after dinner, and if you want some you walk into the field of mayhem where everyone who wants mayhem, has it. The rest usually watch and cheer them on. People may get hurt or killed, but only by accident. At night everyone comes out to drumming, lights candles and stands silent in a circle. They listen to the wind. They see one another. Then they go to bed to a bugle playing taps. It's a really sacred moment, it really is. I made it up.

live long like gingerbread houses

I want to go into stores and have experiences. The people in these stores they are trained to talk to you a certain way. Make you feel special. What if I want to be treated like anyone treats anyone? Then the cashiers can ignore me when I'm trying to check out, make me go and self-check out. If I put something I decided I didn't want on the wrong shelf, someone might challenge me. Like I'm real again. I could see the workers unpacking the boxes and go and help them and feel good helping. Wow. I wanna go into stores and have experiences, real ones. I don't wanna exchange money for a receipt and a smile, how degrading! How about we start haggling and trading? I give you this old Madonna CD for that pumpkin pie? I don't want my experience to be limited to someone kissing my ass, then waiting like a fool for the chip reader to read my chip. Don't pull out yet. You have to wait. Sorry for the wait. Sign this, sign that. Do you have a rewards card? What kind of perks are in store for us? The ads and the phones are becoming smarter. I'm the customer. I'm always right. I'm never wrong. Gloss me over. Sugar coat me with Splenda. Pump me full of preservatives. Send me out with my gingerbread house. Then I really will feel special. I'll probably survive the new year, too.

Exeter NH

November came in with storms and I began to think of you again. I went out on the back porch with my coffee and the sun felt so good after the rain. The lemons turnin yellow on the lemon tree. Everything was gettin recycled even thoughts. I guess I could do somethin about us again, even if I hadn't seen you in ages. Did we have any kids together, and where are they? Probably without shoes somewhere cursin the memory. With hazelnut eyes and germanic steel wills. A century ago they'd be in Exeter, NH, underage workin in the mills. I would collect the pay and put it in a can. And hide it from the man. If we had any energy to spare, you would take me down the river aways and somewhere all alone, make love to me on a slab of granite stone.

I and my country, no longer depressed

What becomes of us. Pine Sol was applied and life began to smell chemically sound. All the memories of the unnaturally clean gave an egregious sparkle to my calm. Anxiety B. Gone. Outstandingly purified past a point of recognition, the chemicals ran into our pharmaceutical futures. Sometimes I put the coffeepot under the tap, if I was lazy or rushing to get to work. What a mistake! My thoughts went sideways and up was down. Only the headlights of the car could save me, pointing into the rain. I saw the materials filling in the light, each raindrop one hundred thousand part prozac. I and my country, no longer depressed.

The book description for Maze

In a modern day American city, there are those who track and hunt down humans for their fear. They are indiscernable from you and me. A young woman with attitude in her mid-twenties, Ame, has fallen in with them. Her abduction was foretold by the voices in her head. She has the same light in her eyes that marks them. In this sequel to Katya Mills' urban fantasy, Daughter of Darkness, Ame has fallen in love with a young man who shares the dark gift. He skateboards into her life and they roam the streets together. Conflicted by her own violent nature, she has become nevertheless intoxicated by the ways. She thirsts after 'the tangy energetic'. A death dealer of a different kind prowls around the boarding house where Ame and her boyfriend live. Meanwhile her best friend, Bless, vies for her attention. Hendrix, a bloodhound for tracking fear, inadvertently leads Ame to Kell, a kindred spirit in the grips of a terrible addiction. She takes her little sister with green eyes under her wing. Just as Ame seems to have found her rhythm in the chaos surrounds her, someone very close to her disappears. In her search she uncovers a secret, revealed on the tapes of a security camera, which threatens to uproot her, once again.

i finished my book!

On a dark and stormy morning (it really was!) I finished -- Maze. Around 6am, after another long night of editing, I had the puppy exactly how I wanted her. I went out for a drive in my Volkswagen in the rain, got on the highway,  listened to the radio and spaced out with my focus on the road. I didn't know where I would go. I decided to get off at El Camino Avenue. This road and I have some history. When I moved here to Sacramento less than 3 years ago with my head full of books but nothing yet published -- no job and no car and only one friend -- I used to ride my bicycle from the Extended Stay America (a decent hotel room with a kitchenette, at a fair price for a month) up north on El Camino several times a week. My friend lived about ten miles up the road. All I remember was the wonderful heat of the early summer, on the streets of Sacramento. I was real excited to be here and get my life going in a positive direction. Oakland tore me up and spit me out in twenty twelve. I had not much to my name. I was writing every day, and determined to start self-publishing my work. I thought for sure maybe someone would wanna read me. I had been writing all my life long. I stopped riding up El Camino at all. The friendship broke off, sadly, we went off in different directions. This morning in the rain and ready to press my third book in under 3 years, I was tired and overjoyed. All I had to do was go home, take a nap to rest my eyes, then get up and read through the puppy from beginning to end, one final time. And I did. And you know what? This book! I think this is easily the best work I have done in my life.

in better times

We all came together and sang songs terribly, and had a blast, smoking and drinking and singing awfully, i swear, the fingers fumbling around the keys, too, and everytime the foot dropped there was a pause for a breath and the snow was fallin heavy outside and icicles off the eaves, and we rolled up our sleeves the laughter was work and you could feel the stretch of your smile, and smoke was rushin up the flu and water rushin down the hill, not a goddam thing kept still and fuck it all, we sure were havin the best times of our lives and no one was gonna stop us

INTERVIEW (Wordpress)

THE BOOK: Girl Without Borders

PUBLISHED IN: 2013

THE AUTHOR: Katya Mills

THE EDITOR: Katya Mills

THE PUBLISHER: Amazon.com

SUMMARY: Chicago. West side. Follow the paths of three young lovers, at the turn of the millennium. Working-class punks and degenerate-labelled youth move across the urban landscape, effortlessly, at night. Suffering the depths to which culture has sunk. Looking for refuge. Fearless in love.

Will is a young man with a big heart and big dreams. Intelligent, sensitive and compassionate. Determined to make a life for himself in the city. Determined to learn the code of the streets. He falls for a girl, Bella, who has a punk attitude and style all her own. In no time, she steals his heart. There is another woman, Cass who has her heart set on Will. But the love is unrequited. LIfe gets complicated, as Will gets lost in love. Danger, drama, and emotional turmoil loom on the horizon.

Generation X. Raised on punk rock, hip-hop and celebrity worship. Raised on high fructose corn-syrups. Pop and pop culture detritus. Raised on flat land, with crazy straws. Wannabe rockstars and burnouts. Follow the tale of youth who live and love large, in the shadow of the generation before them. Praying not to be reduced to culture’s blind carbon copies. Where love becomes power… with tragic consequences.

THE BACK STORY: “I began this story when I was living in Chicago, the heart of the setting. I finished the book a decade later. Having an emotional connection to a place is the foundation off of which I like to build my fictions. I wrote the book mostly in coffeehouses in Bucktown and Wicker Park, and I swear I almost got my ass kicked for using a laptop in a café in some parts of the city back then, pre-millenium. This is my first publication, and a complete – DIY- labor of love. I did everything and designed the cover. (I still do everything on my books, I just don’t design my covers anymore). I put everything and my heart into this work.”

WHY THIS TITLE: I have a MA in Psychology. I chose this title in consideration of BPD: borderline personality disorder. One of the main characters clearly suffers from this condition (and those around her suffer from her suffering from it, too). Just so you know, I do not preach psychology or discuss diagnoses within the text, it’s just a feeling you get by the characterization.

WHY SOMEONE WOULD WANT TO READ IT: The book is character-driven and told from the perspective of a young man who is struggling to makes sense of his life, not always thrilled to be caught between two or more women, somewhat aimless and reckless and pretty honest about it all. You might want to read it if there was a time in your life where you were fighting the tendency toward becoming jaded and/or numb. I cannot doll it up. If that sounds interesting to you, check it out. I do think my writing style is pretty original, but not everyone and their mother is into it, so be sure and read the sample.

Link to this interview: Interview

Link to this novel: GWB

get me some coffee

The weather broke. I mean the summer shattered. I put on a layer of clothes over a layer of clothes, over a layer of clothes. The computers were all working on becoming human and devouring the electricity, while the humans were eating power bars and saying nothing is real. An X Box had crossed it all out. My coffee turned to tea. The lake escaped into the sea. You were scared for your life, trying not to be found; they wouldn't let you remain unemployed for long. I had been dead broke since back then when everything got real. Even nothing. I toldya what. You perked up. Find me a cup of coffee and I will hire your sorry ass, myself.

Journal # 11.07.15

I am living between holidays, between pages, between headaches from a screen, between meals, between distances. And probably between relationships, if I ever date again. I'm not sure why I would, though, I guess I used to enjoy suffering with short bursts of pure love. I miss my landlady from Oakland, she lives in Napa Valley now. She always did enjoy wine. I used to be able to wake up and splash cold water on my face and feel okay. That was so long ago I'm surprised I still recall it. Now I'm much happier, but I rarely feel okay, does it make sense?

so there

The sun is comin
 up early so
I can see what you
 are doin. do not think
i cannot

my eyes cannot see
you in the dark even
after they adjust
so

You tried to hide
so the sun came
up sooner. than you
thought

The light came
 into the sky like so. so
there was nowhere to hide

you're lucky so
lucky I don't really
care so

I'm gonna wink and
drop back. into my
 hole. No one will
 ever have to
 know

The teapot begins
to whistle. let's sing
along. the tune. I
don't really care so
there

life left us for walking

You were walking out with your keys to your car, and all the person you thought you would be and are. Anyone could see. You might just need to give up on those thoughts, look up and see what's left for you. I know I don't usually have the energy anymore, but when I do...  I wonder where you went, when you go. Please, go easy on yourself. I have a secret I think you oughta know, sometimes I follow you in the snow. Life left us for walking, disappearing into forest. See, that's a mighty gift. Please, go easy on your heart; are you taking all your meds? I made a medicine cabinet, to keep mine all together. I got the goddam flu shot, I know I'm getting old. I wonder what life has in store for us, when tomorrow comes. Then I grab a book to stop the wondering.

ghost trains revisited.again

We were young and sought our pleasure in the world, for a measure of happiness. Maybe for a moment the chase could end. Up all night laughing. I held you like I meant it, really tight but not too hard. You were so gentle with me when you were happy. Walking the streets at 3am. The ghost trains passed by and we readied ourselves and jumped, leaping for the handrails. The world went from absolute stillness to perpetual motion. The rails went West to outline the Pacific Ocean. The sea salt filled our lungs. We sought our shadows on the trains... then came the rains.

roses

I will bring some classical music to the backyard. There are roses bold enough to cross the chain link where the grass meets the alleyway, and yes, I have seen them stop there, stumbling drunk down the alleys in the middle of the night, clothes torn, not knowin where they're going. The aimless ones are beautiful to me. They have the courage to live today without any direction, the courage to go wherever the streets and alleyways take them. The roses are bold and red. Dark like blood. They cross the chain link and into danger. They are beautiful to me. The sun pulled them out and into themselves, the sun moved them, the aimless ones... the roses.

Blue Dreams

Here I was born in the USA and sandwiched between my two brothers, and I got the blues and they got the pinks and the kitchen sinks and the water was still good around here, maybe a little hard, and mom would boil it just to be sure. We were loved, that’s for sure. Dad had hurt his back carrying us around when we were little, and by the time he reached forty he began to really feel it. See what loving does? After all the medical leave dried up he had to go on disability. Life would get harder day by day. Dad was cross easy and all the time, and spent long days lying on his back in bed, in pain. Mom moved the television in there, and I sure didn’t miss it. We all chipped in to do the things Dad could no longer do, and we would have to do it well cause Mom was hard to please. We lived in a big old house probably wasn’t gonna survive the next hurricane. Everytime I saw one of those puppies swirling on the news, off the coast of Florida and comin our way, I got scared. My little brother he wanted to see it happen, he liked to see things destroyed. Big brother was the opposite. If it happened, if the swirling beauty bounced on up the eastern seaboard and reached us with still gale force winds drawing energy off the Atlantic shelf; if we got slammed, well, he would be the first one to begin rebuilding, after he made sure we were all okay.


Excerpt from BLUE DREAMS

my nanowrimo novel. 2015

time slapped me an hour

Halloween was over and I was feelin pretty dismal, cause I had gone to the store yesterday and bought ten whole candy bars which i put in the freezer for the kids or myself, depending on if i got any trick or treaters, and it was over and ten candy bars were still in my freezer. The funny thing is, some kids had come banging on up the stairs and knocking on my door. Sounded like a whole busload of them. But the timing was simply atrocious. I mean, I had woken up a half hour earlier from a nap, and it takes me at least forty-five minutes to really be awake, my meds have to kick in and all that, and for sure I'm not ready for visitors. 

Not only that, I had thrown a few egg rolls and a medley of frozen vegetables into the oven and was sitting down to dinner. Not only that, but the world series was on the radio and I was actually captivated, it was the bottom or top of the ninth inning, a couple of young studs on base, the closer on the mound, and electricity in the air or was that just static. Whatever the case, I had no mind to go answering the door for an entire schoolyard full of kids. All I had was ten bars, anyway. They were liable to ransack my place for more. Kids today do stuff like that. They're exposed to all that stuff on the internet, blogs and stuff; they're like little hardened pre-criminals just waiting for the crime!

My friend Rick told me there's fight and there's flight but they always leave out the other one, freeze. Well that's what I did. I froze like candy bars. It was hopeless. I would have to work up a smile, and that alone would take minutes. So I missed it. Halloween passed me by. Again. Last year I didn't get any kids (and thank god cause i didn't have any candy), and this year I did, but I blew it. I really blew it.

Long after the kids left empty-handed, I felt so bad I went out to the street to see if I could fish any stragglers off the sidewalk, lure them to my place so I could give out a candy bar. But they were all gone, why? I went inside and looked at the clock. It was 4am. No wonder. Halloween was over. I was feelin' pretty dismal, and went to the freezer for a candy bar. The chocolate started to cheer me up a little, and then some guy on the radio was kind enough to remind me to set my clock back. Wow! Time just slapped me an hour. The day after Halloween already was shaping up pretty well. Old man time must have felt bad for someone like me. There's tons of stuff you can do in an hour. Hell, I just wrote you a letter and I still have a boatload of minutes to play with.