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Where Fires Glow (a poem)

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WHERE FIRES GLOW

I was swinging to and fro
Hair flying
Laughing out loud
Barbaric is my memory

Devil’s on the playground
Here to erase my afflictions
God turned his back on me a long time ago
Now I live where the fires glow

Back and forth my memory rages
I struggle to keep my eyes shut
I need to stay where the fires glow
Let me rest in peaceful flame

Bottomless and salty
Protection from truths
Is the pit of the damned
Where the fires glow

Some voices, they urge me
Face your slave masters
But the fires beg me
Cover your eyes for sanity

Devil holds me
Gently in his arms
God’s gone, sweet child
So stay here where the fires glow

The fires
Avengers of my ravaged goodness
I know that I’m safe nowhere
But where the fires glow

Copyright 2018 Wanda S. Paryla

Chicago Down- Cover Blurb

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Greetings all,

I’m working on a draft of Chicago Down’s back cover description.  Here’s a peek at what I’ve compiled from the short synopsis so far. I’m still working on trying to dwindle it a bit more.

*****

Salbatora vows to honor her father’s last request: find Eliot Ness to help free her brother who was wrongly arrested for Prohibition violations. She abandons her Texas home, leaving behind memories, and the living dead.

Ness isn’t the only thing Sal finds. Chicago struggles under Prohibition. While its citizens covertly indulge in spirits, a sinister darkness grows. Born of greed, it’s more disturbing than a lust for alcohol. While gangsters battle over territories, the undead have no preference as they run amok, and the Illinois governor has lost his mind to a madcap plot to corral Chicago’s mounting zombie populace.

An unlikely team, Sal Guerrera, Eliot Ness, and Al Capone form an unusual camaraderie as they fight the Screamin’ Mimis, as Al calls them. They develop a strategy to deter the governor’s plan which will collapse the weakened city. But can they end the evil’s terrorizing hold? When they learn how the dead sprang to life, they must strike at the source to set Chicago free. And they may not survive alive.

Chicago, are you ready for your unsung heroes? (Note: this line is slated for the cover, as opposed to the back blurb.)

Copyright 2017 Wanda Paryla

A New Look

Good day to you all.

I’m all too happy to admit how much my author/writer friends have, unknowingly, inspired me to not give up my craft.

Several times over the past couple of years, I’ve mentioned on Facebook how hard it’s become for me to write. Once upon a time, the words flowed like water to wine. Like rapids even. Then one day, they were seemingly gone. Dried up. It went beyond writer’s block. The words were just gone. It was so bad that I asked the doctor if I could be getting Alzheimer’s. I was lost.

But my hopes that the words would return to me were kept alive vicariously through others. I’d watch their progress, secretly cheering them on. Their words and the thrill of performing their craft were not lost. Quite the contrary.

Recently, I got very ill. And as I lay in my hospital bed the first week in January waiting for the cardiologist to tell me I had some terrible heart ailment (luckily and thankfully, my heart & arteries are as exquisite and tough as Ethan Hunt), I was also very lucky. Due to these terrifying circumstances, I had some time to go over the good old mistakes-made list. I got a chance to see what many others never get to. My heart appears healthy.  But no one knew that for sure at the time.

Alone in the middle of the night – hooked up to all sorts of scary, beeping shit – in an all too quiet room in the cardiac unit, perhaps dying at 46, I was scared shitless as this Scorpio held back her emotions.

Hell, if I died, I was not going out all dramatic like a pussy. Heck, no. I’m Scorpio. I rule death. And if She’s coming for me, she better have 40 silver fucking pitchforks.

Regardless of how worried this warrior pretended not to be, death nor sleep ever came.

At the top of my mistakes-made list was not the things that I thought would be there such as vacations I didn’t take, the kids I didn’t birth, or sorrow at fights with family members. Nothing about a Master’s degree, or the lottery, or all the sugar I’ve consumed in my lifetime. Not even apologies never spoken.

There were two things there. Two sorrows. They are: never loving in return the men that loved me; never giving them a chance. They DID love me. I know that now.

The next is: giving up on my writing for reasons truly unknown to me at the time. I was beaten into submission by me, but had no clue.

Some who know me chalked up the lost interest in writing to depression, sadness, anger, etc. All sorts of barriers. A couple of thrifty pals delegated it to my recent obsession with fixing my past. Or my desire to live there, which actually may have caused my sadness. Maybe they are correct. It was destroying me on many levels. Keeping me blind to all the good; allowing me to only see the bad. I was drowning.

I had no idea what was going on. Maybe I was blind on purpose. That happens, you know? I think I’ve been fighting my age. Maybe those who are older than I know what I mean.

So I enjoyed watching my writer friends. I think if there was no Internet,  I might not have had access to them and who knows where I’d be now. In what state of mind.

They are all winners. And despite that I wasn’t writing, they didn’t treat me any differently than they had years ago. They let me stay in the winner’s circle while, unknowingly, hanging on to me by threads.

I’ve been ill before and hospitalized. But never with something potentially life-threatening.  Life ending. For awhile I was like, “FTW? Figures.” But, while we’re still searching for answers, I’m very much alive. My mistakes-made list is changeable because I’m not dead yet. It’s changeable because I’ve seen others change directions many times.

Scorpio may rule death, but also rebirth. I’m reborn. It’s not time to return to the Underworld just yet. The gods have forced my eyes toward what I should see: the good. This goes beyond writing. It encompasses my spirituality and beliefs. It extends to who I know, where I live, as well as to my abilities of storytelling. My ancestors have given me a gift, and I’m still alive to use it. I should not abuse that.

My advice: do not fight the inevitable.  Change only what can certainly be moved. Let the rest go.

Thank you for reading.

-Wanda

When Your Own Writing Sickens You…

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Book fire

 

That’s right. You read the title correctly.

 
Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever looked at a pile of your own manuscript sitting there, just minding its own business as it has for an undocumented amount of time, and you hate it? Just the thought of flipping through it makes you want to vomit. Or leave the house?

 
Maybe you’ve got a bunch of work saved on your hard drive, flash drive, or in Drop Box – or some other “cloud” archive, and the thought of opening it and looking at even the title of one or more of that crap makes you want to drink vodka. Have you experienced that?

 
Okay, so, those are extreme. (Maybe for you, but not for me.)

 
I had been going like mad. Muse was hitting me with ideas and storylines and character development like she was hurling mud pies at me. I had all I could do to keep up…or duck. You all know what mud pies are? I don’t think there’s a place in the world where anyone under the age of, maybe 35, isn’t familiar with a mud pie. But one cannot be sure. I’m sure. Haha.

 
Anyway, so there we were – her and I, just plugging along. A new idea, a new chapter. An old idea, a few new paragraphs. My notebook is half full of ideas and all the juicy things that go with them. Oh yes, a mile a minute.
Then, nothing. A few months ago, I hit a brick wall. No, I did not get writer’s block. It wasn’t even procrastination. It was plain old, bonafide….something. Something bad. Laziness is wrong. Maybe it was something more like depression, but that’s not really accurate either. I just stopped. I had just got finished writing a line and stopped for the day. I saved everything, turned off the computer, and that was it. That was all I wrote.

 
Oh, I tried a few things. Tried to look at stuff. Then my own writing made me sick. I hated it. I came so close to deleting months, even years of work. But I couldn’t do it. I would imagine myself printing everything out and burning it in the street.

 
Then I went numb and found myself just doing nothing. And the truth is I did not give one stinky hoot. Really. I was like, “Yay! I’m free! No more writing.” Oh boy. Then I’d get upset and feel guilty.

 
Then it set in hard. This depression-like feeling. And as silly as it sounds, I didn’t relate it to my writing. I mean, my lack thereof. Months went by. In fact, much of this year has gone by and my writing has just been lying around dormant for most of the months that have passed.

 
I started Chicago Down. Then, I worked on Angel Maker. Then I started slacking. Then some odd tale with no name came into my mind. I wrote 3,000 words then stopped again. I really did as I said. I shut down the computer and never did anything else.

 
Starting around the Independence Day weekend, I started thinking about myself. Not in a narcissistic kind of way. Just about my past in general. I always felt I had some talent lurking somewhere. Ever since I was a kid. Talent for writing fiction. I also had interest in directing movies or making music videos. I went to broadcasting school in my early twenties. Many people don’t know that. I think I would have made a good deejay.

 
I thought I’d make a great this or that throughout my lifetime. Unfortunately, I never tried a great many of those things. There were some I did try, but didn’t take them far enough to even glimpse a result.

 
Starting and finishing my book, Someday Always Comes, was a great accomplishment for me where my interests lie. But now it sits on a virtual Amazon shelf over two years after publication all alone. My very own love, my pride and joy. My very own Gone with the Wind. I didn’t know what to do with it. I’m broken-hearted about it. How can I revive it?

 
I’ve been considering other authors I’m familiar with, whose growth I have witnessed in the world of writing and publishing, and public relations, etc. I’ve been bearing in mind what they’ve been doing and how they accomplish what they do or what they have in the past. Then I was thinking about myself with those things in mind.

 
I think I got ho-hummed over my failure to promote, or to know how to promote, Someday Always Comes. I feel the story is worth reading. Really, I do. I caused its failure. That makes me sad. And, to go a step further, I did not know how to redeem it after interest dropped. More and more time went by and then I just gave up, citing the book is too old to revive. But after thinking about others that I know have talent – and how they succeeded, or at least keep an active voice in the publishing and self-publishing worlds, I see my awful, passive mistakes. I knew they were there all along. I did. I knew. I just refused to look because I might feel even worse than I had been previously.

 
But after looking at my work – all this work lying around on the floor, on flash drives, just all around, I did not feel worse. Sure, I felt brainless while milling it over. Then I thought, “Why are you crying over spilled milk when there’s more in the refrigerator? Here’s a towel – clean it up, Silly!”

 
Yes, I talk to myself like that often. But don’t overlook the whole point. Or even half of the point. I knew immediately that I had to stop this. I’ve been doing this crap most of my adult life: being negative toward myself and giving up on my projects; my interests. I’ve also found that when those closest to me do not care about my projects, or support me, I give up on them more quickly. I find my excitement fizzles out. I get a “No one cares. So who cares anymore? Not me,” attitude and I stop working the project, and even stop talking about it or other ideas.

 
I often long for other writers to talk to about my work. But I don’t know anyone personally, here in the same area. I don’t even know if I can be active member of any physical writing group. I have this phobia about my work. I really do. I know some of you do too. How do you get past the fear of sharing your unfinished work and it being stolen. Yeah, like someone wants to steal from me. Actually, the truth is, I had something stolen from me once many, many years ago. I guess the experience still makes me uneasy.

 
Ok. So no one cares. My sister doesn’t care. My brother doesn’t care. My niece doesn’t care. My mom, now she is always ready to listen to me. She doesn’t read anymore, but she likes me to read my work to her. When I read it, she “hears” my mistakes or any odd language or sentences. She’s always been a great help. But I have no one else to support me. Or anyone to talk to about what I do. And the sad thing is, they just do not care. My family situation is a blog for another day. In truth, it doesn’t surprise me one bit that I do not get support from them.

 
But wait. What the hell? No one cares? Some do. My readers do. They’ve said so. It’s been helpful to have their support and to have people that show curiosity. I admit that. But, hell. I care too. Fuck all those who are born to care due to their role in my life. If they do not give a damn enough about me or my work to read my book, screw it! I care about it. My 20 fans and readers care. I have a few friends that care.

 
The writing. It’s what is mine. And guess what my family of uncaring meanies, I do have fans. A few prized diamonds in the rough, they are. My small bundle of joy. I have a coworker who read Someday Always Comes, and I share my other work with her. She gives me nothing but praise. She has passed my book all around the office. She tells everyone that I am a great writer. I love it. Yes, yes I do. Even if she is stretching the truth a bit, it’s okay.

 
Support from family, friends, even coworkers means everything. However, with all the ups and downs – like mine…family doesn’t care, coworkers do care…I think as writers we should pick and choose our support – not the other way around. What I mean is, we need to seek it out. If we just stand around waiting for it…we’d be waiting for ages. I took a chance on telling a coworker who reads a lot about my book. She’s an avid reader and has given me overwhelming feedback. See? I would not have gotten a new fan and great feedback if I didn’t take a chance on her. Seek it. Don’t wait for it to find you.

 
Suddenly, I feel revived. I feel my accomplishments like I never had in the past. I feel all those half-finished manuscripts calling me. I feel the readers waiting for them. I do, I feel it. Can you feel it?

 

Conspiracy – What’s It Mean?

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Greetings!

I posed this on my private Facebook page and I thought I’d present this question on my blog here as well. This will also feed to Twitter, my Facebook author page and other sites. I hope you will lend me some feedback if the subject strikes you as interesting at all. Thank you in advance for your thoughts.  🙂

From Facebook:

HELP! What do you think of when you see or hear the word, CONSPIRACY?

Is a conspiracy only a plan for the future, or something that has occurred in the past? Or can a conspiracy remain so even as it’s being played out? Does that make sense?

I’m asking because I am struggling with using it in a book title. Some of you may recall my “The Adam Conspiracy” which is the working title of one of my babies that’s been on the shelf, then off again, for years. I pull it out for inspiration usually. But I believe the time is coming for it to not go back upon the shelf. Now I am struggling with the title. It’s always kept me focused, but I am not sure what “The Adam Conspiracy” will mean to a person before they read the back cover or skim a page.

Drafts

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I enjoy learning about how other writers create. What their writing steps and techniques are.

When I am first working on a story…a book…I usually write it, well, un-colorfully….if I can use a crazy word. Let me explain. I use plain, bland words. I might write a line like, “The boat rocked back and forth on the fierce ocean.” Eh…eh…. Later, I’ll add the words that matter and recreate the sentence. “The millionaire’s yacht creaked and rocked under the weight of the menacing waves. The novice millionaire captain was petrified. His friends and family fought to hold on for dear life against the storm that mysteriously appeared.” Then, later down the road it will change yet again and add points of view, character emotions, etc.

I met one writer who does things differently than I do.  She over describes things, then cuts out instead of building up.

What is your preference?  Your first-draft technique?

Thanks for reading.

Chicago Down (update)

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Season’s greetings, friends.

After a wee bit o’ procrastination, a couple of false starts, and writing a few different openings,  I believe things are going well with Chicago Down.

I cannot honestly say  that I’m right on track. Yes, I’m behind where I had hoped to be by now. That’s fine. I won’t go postal about it & Karate chop my holiday lawn ornaments or anything.  Although, that might amuse local law enforcement & have the neighborhood talking straight through to New Year’s Day. I live in a tiny suburb, you see, blessedly free of violent crime.  For now…Until I take out that blow up Santa.  😉

Anyway. On Sunday I’ll post a couple excerpts from my first draft of Chicago Down. I hope that you’ll enjoy the read. Stay tuned for that.

In the mean time, I’ll keep writing and avoiding all inflatable holiday lawn ornaments.

Thanks for reading.

Rain Falling

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Cat rainy day

 

RAIN FALLING

(From my journal entry of Tuesday, 10/14/14.) Most is from a journal entry, with added passages.

**
Rain falling steady
Warm air fighting Fall’s music
Autumn hums a chilling tune
**

Last week and this week is sure offering up some suspicious-acting weather. Some call it Indian Summer. It usually arrives in October of every year here. It can last 3-7 days. This one seems to be lasting seriously longer.

It did this crap last year, and it was an awful winter. 2013 ended rough, and 2014 began shitty. But, horses run. Fast. And thankfully the tides changed for me in some areas of my life. I’m glad of that even as some things stayed the same – good or bad. A thing or two got worse, a thing or so go better, but there were a few things that did not change at all.

Anyway – my handwriting is as shitty as it’s always been. I’ve been trying to work on my handwriting. Why am even mentioning my handwriting (in the WordPress version of this blog) I have no idea. I’m rambling.

Anyway, I have so many projects on the table – maybe too many – that I cannot accomplish even one. I have no idea what’s gotten into me… Or maybe, out of me. I’m gridlocked. I feel like I’m sitting in my car, stuck in a deep snowdrift, my wheels spinning as I watch the gas tank run dry.

I just paid an editor – who did fine work, by the way – to edit a book. I’ve mentioned it here before, Storm Dwellers. Well, I wanted to make changes to it. Some of these changes will take thinking and time. Therefore, I knew I would not make a near-Halloween release date. And, I was totally okay with that. Then all heck broke loose and I fell ill, and then Mom fell ill, then all sorts of craziness occurred.

Okay, back to Storm Dwellers. I received the edits back from the editor. I was all gung-ho to get this done, so she could take a look at the finished product. Deep down I knew that I would not be making a release for this Halloween. But then, I’d rather have a solid story than a Halloween release date. And if I really want an October date, I have all year to work on this story. It makes no difference to me and I’m sure it makes no difference to the editor. Time is what we have.

So, at first I thought I’d just lost interest in the story, but I knew better. And, believe it or not, I had no interest in writing anything at all! And I’d say out loud, “I don’t care! I hate writing. I don’t have to write.” In truth, I absolutely have to write.

It is not like I was working like made or anything before I got this bug. I don’t feel it is what’s referred to as “writer’s block.” It’s something else. What, I have no clue.

It is probably the reason I started this hand-written journal. To see if I can work out the bugs. I’ve gotten great advice on how to… or well, writers have shared ways they’ve overcome such obstacles in their past; they’ve offered exercises to help.

*shaking head*

What the hell is wrong? Editor returned Storm Dwellers. Something I worked hard on. I stopped dead. I have other manuscripts in the works. One I have 200+ pages. Stopped. I can make a list, but why bore you with my failures? Okay, I was told to not call them failures. So here goes…

I have newly started novels, some containing only a few chapters, some a few pages, some finished halfway, and still other stuck in limbo riding on their notes:
-The Devil Plays Dice (sequel to Someday Always Comes)
-Angel Maker
-Cop Lover (book 2 in a series after Angel Maker)
-The Adam Conspiracy
-The Gem of Crystal Beach
-Blood’s Immortal
-The Ghosts of Willow Marsh

Of course, the finished Storm Dwellers with a fresh return from the editor. Oh and a book of poetry I have work for.

And this list doesn’t end there – those are just the most notable. I was blessed with a Muse that never sleeps. Until now! My writing drove me crazy, often to the point a thought would cross my mind and the words would come out of my mouth. I had no control.

Here is the fact, and I’d like to share this because many people suffer with physical or psychological afflictions, or will at some point, especially as we age. We writers are not immune. In fact, it’s guaranteed that we will get some malady because we’re tagged. How else can we write? We have to be sad, angry, happy, crazy, or sick with something chronic and annoying but not always fatal. Often we are alcoholics, chain smokers or coffee addicts. Just to name a few things. I am no different. I find that I am not always sane, but in a good way. I think. But I’ve always had digestive issues, since I was about 30. It started innocently with GERD, gastric reflux disease. Then with an esophageal sphincter that doesn’t operate properly. Now it’s escalated to esophageal spasms, diverticulosis, diverticulitis, constipation, IBS, and now they’re going back in, in November, to recheck my stomach. Nice. So, I can’t eat, I vomit, stay nauseous. Check this and that for blood. Oh, yes there’s a whole list of gross stuff I can type here, but I’ll spare you the details. I spend quite a bit of time at the doctor’s office begging for mercy or lying in a hospital emergency department because they are the only ones that can stop the vomiting and pain and rehydrate at a high rate of speed.

My stomach and colon like to wreak havoc on my life, causing irritability and exhaustion. Which in turn causes depression. I cannot always sleep. Up, down, up down, every couple of hours. It gets on my nerves. I have to watch this food and that, and every day I find something else I cannot eat or drink, or something I should eat or drink. I found that too much dairy products are not good for the colon since they coat the colon and keep the good from attacking the bad. These bacteria cannot stay attached to the colon wall. This is the newest news. Guess I should not have eaten all that ice cream this summer. I have to take fiber, yogurt, probiotics, and this, that and the other! But I cannot have this, this and this.

I’m losing weight. Not a bad thing. But it’s due to the illness and my inability to eat larger meals. So anyway, I have to graze all day to avoid a full stomach. I find that doughnuts and light pastries are just what the doctor did not order, but at least they don’t make me sick.

I have been debating asking the doctor for sleeping pills. I hate them though. But I just want to sleep all night. Or maybe for like 5 hours straight for even one night. Just one night, that’s all I ask.

Oh forget it.

I miss Dr. Thomas. My prior doctor. She was so sympathetic and understanding. Seriously, June was a year that she’s been gone.  Nothing I can do.

Maybe I need a vacation. Even a 2-3 day retreat. I’d love to hear the sound of the ocean again. The real ocean, not the ones on those CDs. Just for a few hours. Maybe next year.

I miss the Texas sky. Dark blue during the day, purple at night. Maybe I can go to Texas next year and sky worship for a few days. Maybe go to the coast. Maybe not come back to this place. Maybe stay at home.

*Please note, of course, I did find out after this journal entry that it’s this medication I take for esophageal spasms causing so much mind blockage!…A medication that I am (was) on for a physical illness may actually be causing mental fatigue and disinterest in my own writing, like depression. Holy shit! See? You just never know. Anyway, as many of us know about medications, often they are two-faced. Making you feel better in one way, as they are destroying some other part of you. To hell with medicines! This is getting on my nerves.A medication I desperately need and there is only about one other med I can take because the others are some sort of blood pressure meds used in small doses, and they do not want to give me that, because despite I want to kill people often, my blood pressure is the only thing that stays normal, except when I want to set fire to things and throw stuff! 😉  I suspected that the medication was beginning to cause this, though it’s rare for the low dosage to cause any emotional changes, the doctor said. She said if it does, it should not be noticeable. Well, the last time I got sick, I could not take this med for a few days and I saw the difference but thought…”Hey, I need this,” and chalked it up to my imagination. Now I’ve fallen ill again and had to stop taking meds by mouth again…low and behold, the mind fog lifted yet again. So I guess, back to the doctor to find something new. Or I’ll have to seek out something holistic. That is if there is anything.*

Now, as for Storm Dwellers, I will have to work on this slowly to get it where I want it. In the meantime, since this medicine that’s caused me so many issues behind my back, is now leaving my system, I have had another story idea, which I posted about on Facebook as well as a short blurb here on WP a couple days back. It’s tentatively titled, Chicago Down. We’ll see how that works out as my senses come back to me.

 

Thanks for visiting my blog. And, be sure to check each day this week, I have blogs planned for each day. Happy reading!