Help me choose which books to finish first

Here’s some covers for books I’m currently working on. I will publish at least two of these before the end of 2020, possibly with these covers or possibly with some design I like better and didn’t make on my phone while watching DS9.

First two: The two poetry books I’m the closest to perfecting at the moment. First is love poems written by a self-declared villain, for a hero, and the second is autobiographical and about being a queer townie during all this bullshit.

Second two: Gothic ghost stories set in the Pacific Northwest. In the first, a college student arrives for a summer internship at a museum in a small town on the Columbia River only to find that the curator selected her for a nefarious purpose. In the second, a woman takes shelter from a corrupt small-town sheriff in the ruins of an extremely haunted mansion.

Last two: Paranormal historical romance with queer characters. I give you: a witch in an arranged marriage to the reluctant heir of a vampire line, and a mermaid fleeing from sexy ghost pirates.

If you tell me which you’d most like to read, it may influence what I’m ready to publish first. But no promises, as I’m terrible at staying on task.

by Categories: books, creative writing, publishing advice, writing adviceTags: , , ,

Demon Lover: Part Five

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four

Trigger warnings for disordered eating, self-harm, abusive relationships.

My girl saw nothing of her lover but what she wanted seen. Love like that is an ideal camouflage, such that a monster cannot see herself for what she is, as caught up in the moment as her prey. The best deceit is wholly believed by the deceiver. 

She woke at 4 am frequently, extricating her legs from Elise’s, looking down on her girlfriend’s prone body with something between possessiveness and contempt. She often thought to herself, in those moments, that she was the only thing in the world keeping the girl alive. If Elise had ever woken during those moments, both of them would have mistaken that look for love. 

Perhaps Elise would murmur with a slight, sleepy quirk, a little “Vela, stay.” The nurse’s mouth would also turn up, perhaps teasing in theory, but so spiteful I could have drunk her like a fine merlot. 

“One of us has to pay the rent.” 

At first, their evenings were all tenderness. Elise would even cook, though the smell often turned her stomach. She’d spend hours in the bath, preparing herself. Vela wanted her, cherished her. She needed to prove herself worthy. 

Vela thought so too. If her new worshipper’s intensity did not increase with every supplication, she needed a reason. Was Elise lazy? Was she broken? Was she talking to her ex again?

Elise denied it with her tears and with her words and with her body. It was only Vela. Could only ever be Vela. Vela found her, Vela saved her, she couldn’t live without Vela. 

“You’d better remember that,” the nurse said, kissing down her convex of a stomach before scowling at her unruly mound. “God, can’t you at least wax? I’m tired of this.” She tugged at the dark, curling hair sheltering Elise’s clit, so hard my girl gasped. 

Elise went out the next day, and when she came back she was hairless from the neck down. I could taste her experience ⁠— professional women, crisp and uncomforting, had done the work. She might have enjoyed the pain, in another context, but not from a stranger. Not when she just wanted to be held. 

I was surprised Vela hadn’t wanted to do it herself. When she returned from work, her hands roamed my girl, sculpted and pale, a prize to be handled. Elise vanished into thinghood. 

That night, she dreamed that all her hair grew back, and kept growing, until she was covered. Her arm, her knees, her back, her stomach. Her hair grew so long that Vela couldn’t find her. When the nurse got near, screaming her frustration, she choked on Elise’s thick, dark hair. Blinded and confused, Vela reared back in disgust. 

In the quiet of the dark room, I curled around my girl’s heart and smiled. 

She woke shaking, telling Vela it was a nightmare. The nurse comforted her as if she were a child, her voice achingly patronizing. Elise fell into the sugar-coated words, pulling from my influence. 

By morning, the nurse was surly, blaming Elise for her lack of sleep, although I was the one who’d growled at her all through the night, long after her trembling girlfriend fell asleep. She snapped at my girl to help her make breakfast, overwhelmed by her lack of sleep. Her thoughts were clear to me ⁠— blame falling on the delicate woman beside her, who would never be good enough or strong enough for her. 

Still, she wanted Elise. She’d shaped her so beautifully, but there was more work to be done. My girl’s hands trembled as she cut the soft, crusty bread. 

“Goddammit, Elise,” the nurse snapped, grabbing at the knife just as my girl jumped, startled at the sound. 

The knife sliced open Vela’s reaching hand, the sound visibly red in the dim kitchen. Elise’s eyes widened, her mouth stammering out an apology disconnected from her mind. That was filled only with the sound of her hammering heart. 

Vela grabbed the knife with her uncut left hand, making an uncoordinated slashing motion toward my girl, who thought to herself that Vela seemed possessed.

As if I’d ever inhabit such a vessel. No, as Elise let out a mental cry for anything to help her, I slid into her body, grabbing the knife with my own strength. It cut into Elise’s hand, but Vela’s eyes widened when I squeezed the knife, and it clattered to the kitchen floor, bent. 

Who was the demon now? I didn’t pause to gloat as I would have in any other case, but moved Elise’s feet to the bathroom. She locked the door herself, crying as she held her cut hand.

It took Vela mere minutes to rally. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry,” her voice came from the other side of the door. She was calm and comforting as ever, totally in control. “I’m so tired, and I meant it as a joke, but I lost control for just a second. I’ll call off work and we can talk about it.” 

Elise shook her head, still sniffling. “Go to work,” she said, voice trembling. 

“I think we should talk about this now,” the nurse answered, sweet but assertive. 

“Go to work,” I growled from Elise’s throat. 

Vela stepped back from the door. I like to think that she recognized my voice. Finally, I smelled fear on her. 

My girl calmed as the nurse left, closing the front door quietly. She loosened her grip on her hand, and under my suggestion, found her way into the shower. The water slicked her fear away as she relaxed into its ministrations, blood dripping from her hand. 

“You need to leave,” I spelled in rivulets running red into the drain. 

I know, she thought. 

“I don’t know how,” she said. 

Together, I whispered directly into her brain. All alone, together. 

She bundled herself in a long sweater dress, her hand wrapped in gauze. A woman at the hardware store told her how to install new locks in detail, then slipped her a card for a woman’s shelter, along with her own cell number. 

“In case you have any questions.” 

We went home. Elise packed up Vela’s many territory markers, putting them in a box outside her newly impenetrable door. By the time Vela came back, pounding on the door and demanding to talk to her, Elise was deep into a dream of a dark forest, branches curling around her, protecting her from all other harm. 

Three long, red marks appeared on her arm. Even in her sleep, she smiled, her fingers tracing the interruption of her bare, already stubbling skin. The wild woman in her dream felt the sting from a branch, protective and embracing. The trees, she thought, have eyes, and claws. They are all energy. 

Already, hair was growing over the marks I’d left her. That, too, was me. She grew warmer by the second, wrapped in herself, and me. She didn’t know how to live in the wilderness yet, but as her hair grew, I would teach her, teach her everything she needed to live without shame or order.

After all, what is a demon, but an angel broken free?

by Categories: fiction, horror, short story, Stories & EssaysTags: , , , ,

Retelling Beauty and the Beast

Just because something has been done before, doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing again.

I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for a good fairy tale retelling, and Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorites. The story form is rich emotional soil for drama and intrigue, be it Cruel Beauty, A Court of Thorns and Roses, or one of Robin McKinley’s gorgeous fairy tales. The tale as old as time does not actually get old.

In my retelling, prompted in part by rage at certain choices in a recent movie adaptation, I take a serious look at the viewpoint of one of the story’s villains. Originally published in 2018, this short story is now available for free on StoryOrigin. If you, like me, can’t get enough fairy tale retellings, I hope you’ll check it out.

by Categories: fiction, short story, Stories & EssaysTags: , , , ,

Demon Lover: Part Four

Part One Part Two Part Three

Trigger warnings for disordered eating, self-harm, abusive relationships.

A thing like me cannot be frantic. We are not made for frivolous impulses, even weak versions like I. Elise’s absence did not fill me with worry, merely frustration. I was trapped in her habitation until I rode a human out ⁠— and they would have to stay long enough to let me in, then live long enough to cross over some more fitting threshold. 

Moreover, I wanted her, not some convenient stand-in, like the awkward male coworker who gathered up a bag of clothes after a week of her absence. Elise existed in the most delectable state of shame, and had only grown more succulent by the day. She would taste so pretty, writhing in pain within my grasp. And now she was out of my reach, at a hospital somewhere, from what I could gather from the man’s murky thoughts as he shuffled through her closet. 

Had I pushed too far? Had I missed my chance at the kind of meal I hadn’t had since the Inquisition? Was she going to make it home in one piece?

Unmoored from my purpose, I sank into a sulky hibernation. I barely noticed the hum and flow of the maintenance man, the landlord, or the nosy coworker who kept coming by to gather mail. They held no interest after Elise. 

I woke properly in early fall day, to the footsteps of a woman wearing sensible clogs meant for long hours of standing. Tall, and nearly as thin as Elise, with a brisk step I’d only ever noticed in military men, she brought bags of groceries and soft blankets, rearranging the apartment to suit herself. 

A few hours later, my girl shuffled in. 

Elise was gaunt as the grave, and as I flickered through her memories, I could see that she’d been institutionalized — without me! I writhed at being denied such a treat as plaguing doctors with ever more unfathomable symptoms. 

But she’d brought one back. Our interloper, who busied herself with tidying and talk. She had the stench of death on her. A nurse, or perhaps a physician’s assistant. Elise looked at her with delicious agony, worshipful and eager to please. 

Their relationship had progressed beyond professional already. The nurse fed her by hand, waited with her for hours while she digested, then scowled at her beeping alarm. With a searing kiss, they parted. 

Deep love is hard to override, but sudden love is worse. My girl’s mind was full of thoughts of her new lover, swimming in endorphins I couldn’t trade in. I was locked out. 

She sang in the shower. She kept the lights on when she dressed. She ate and slept and exercised at her new god’s command. The woman didn’t move in, but she may as well have. 

I resorted to growling through the walls while they slept. There was more in the nurse I could have worked with ⁠— even through her haze of love, I could taste fear, and anger, and a need for control ⁠— but people like her were no greater victory than the resentful repairman who had been in and out of the apartment for decades. 

Still, she annoyed me. I watched the nurse watching Elise on rare mornings when they woke together. I wanted Elise, a line of light snaring her spine, as treacherous and narrow as a ladder out of hell. I wanted to line that creamy expanse with claw marks. The nurse didn’t think in those terms, but there was a baseness to her destructive urges that I recognized in myself. I hated the thought of myself in competition with a mere mortal. 

I would read it in her, the urge to destroy perfection. Unlike Elise’s former lovers, this one had no desire to marr her skin and hold her afterwards. Though my girl begged her for a bit of violence to take solace in, the nurse wouldn’t have it. She would snap and order and fuss, but it amounted to control, not care. She wanted the vessel to achieve perfection while the soul crumbled beneath her grasp. She wanted to inhabit an empty, pliant body. 

That was the first time I thought that the nurse should have been the demon, and I the lover. 

I could have taken the nurse. I could have slipped inside her in an instant. There was nothing in her to withstand me. It would have been so easy, riding that beast to freedom. Or I could have stayed, had Elise physically as I destroyed the nurse from the inside out.

And my girl wanted it. She panted for it, out of love and lust and loneliness. She’d happily agree, beg for it, enjoy it. The nurse didn’t want that, which I didn’t mind, but I still despised the idea of inhabiting the nurse. She was ever so base, and only wanted to hurt Elise in ways my girl didn’t want. 

Like I had. I told myself the taste looked worse on a mortal. It wasn’t supposed to be their nature, to want to harm each other. I was meant to make them want it.

by Categories: fiction, horror, short story, Stories & EssaysTags: , , ,

Demon Lover: Part Three

Part One Part Two

Trigger warnings for disordered eating, self-harm, abusive relationships.

The next night, Elise didn’t come home. Nor the night after that. I barely noticed the time slip by, but when she returned, she brought a man with her. 

She wasn’t the type to coddle living things. Most people like to have something living nearby ⁠— a plant, a fish, a cat, another human. I’d never seen another living being in her space. It was just her and me. 

Until him. 

He was chewing gum when he stepped across the threshold, his eyes following her as she vanished into the bathroom. He closed the front door gently, then stood in the pristine living room. 

Tabula rasa, meet tabula rasa. He was as well groomed as the apartment, concealing a bit of pudge and a mountain of uncertainty under a pressed and tailored shirt. 

“Elise, where’s your garbage?” he asked, his voice too loud for the space. 

He could barely understand her answer, but found the trash anyway, taking the gum from his mouth with his fingers, which he did not wash in the sink. 

Was this her someone to talk to? It didn’t seem so. She emerged from the bathroom in only knee high socks and a loose wool sweater. Nothing they said after that held any meaning. 

She didn’t let him take the sweater off her, although she allowed him to peel off the socks with a reverence most would reserve for church. He failed to please her, so she pleased herself, not bothering to hide what she was doing as he collapsed next to her. He left a few hours later, after they’d both fallen asleep. 

She did not invite him back. 

I waited. Seasons changed. She didn’t speak to me again, and gradually, I reintroduced my calling card: three long and inexplicable scratches on her arm. The new scratches, once again discovered in the shower, did not result in another one-sided conversation. When her fingers lingered over them, she smiled fondly, drawing on some memory I couldn’t reach. 

She left for a few days after that, packing a small overnight bag filled with lace dresses and long silk nightgowns. When she came back, it was with starry eyes and a chest full of vapid sighs. 

When I crept under her covers that night, ready to slash at her other arm, I found her body covered in long, thin marks. Someone had gotten there before me. 

I hovered centimeters over her skin, halfway to being offended. There was nothing to do but leave my own marks anyway, but it hardly seemed meaningful. I wasn’t even sure she’d notice three more marks on her pale, covered arms. 

For good measure, I ripped through her dress. Let her try to ignore that. 

Yet, she did, discarding the nightdress into her laundry without a second glance, humming in the shower, stroking the lines on her arms, legs, and stomach. Whoever her new paramour was, she had no space in her head for wondering about demons. 

That suited me perfectly, even if it meant I needed a new plan. 

Her absences lengthened with the sun’s reign. I would have followed her, given the opportunity, but without a vessel I moved as slowly as a glacier. She wasn’t ready yet, and if she kept ignoring me and absenting herself from her own living space, she never would be ready. I would exist only as a concept until some other poor fool moved in. 

She was too fond of my favorite kind of physicality. I needed to change my game. 

One night she came back weeping, mascara running down her face. I felt her emptiness from the moment she came in from the street: heartbreak, plain and simple. That was a memory I could touch. Unhappiness fell within my domain. 

I saw it all as it ran through her mind on repeat ⁠— her lady was leaving, called to work in a far away city. They’d only known each other for a few months, but Elise hoped, then begged to be taken away with her. To be worthy. 

This I could work with. Her intensity of feeling finally made her easy prey, and once she cried herself to sleep, I ripped into her dreams. I became her lady, a beady eyed, heavy set woman of no particular grace. Elice had only cared about how her lady covered her in praise, each strike accompanied by an ode to her uncertain beauty. Afterwards, her lady would hold Elise, glowing, and she would vanish into the soft pink cloud of warmth and safety. 

In the dream, I did all of this, just to snatch it away. 

“You’re too much to take with me,” I told her, shifting my hefty body to lean over her. “Don’t worry, pet. I’ll put you to sleep.” I put my forearm over her throat and bore down. As she began to choke, I showed her my truest face. 

She woke gasping, the memory of my form already vanishing, but the rest stuck like tar to her soul. Sleep didn’t find her again until dawn. 

Let no one convince you that human unhappiness is varied. After a few eons it all runs together like snow-melt to the sea. Hers was no different. She bundled her self-worth up in new dresses and old tears. The dreams I sent her barely made a dent in her nightmares, so plentiful were her naturally occurring fears. It seemed to her that her lady had lifted her from mediocrity. She would do anything to not descend again. 

Limes replaced the grapefruit in her fridge, accompanied by rare treats of melon. She soaked up the torments I sent her.

After a month, she disappeared. 

by Categories: fiction, horror, short story, Stories & Essays, UncategorizedTags: , 3 Comments

the honeyed river of summer

the honeyed river of summer
flows through my open window
as I drive home through Nisqually
dust in my eyes
and shadows on my tongue

I’ve been watching all the omens:
a pregnant fish split open
a flock of gulls headed to the mountains
I hear that raven finally stole the sun
now that everything else has already been stolen

lives, and land, and time, and tongues
all thrifted goods, lined up and categorized
on the side of an imperial road
where fast cars, overcrowded
force themselves slow

if you want to live in stolen times like these
you’d better have poetry writhing under your skin
it gives the human heart some mettle
it gives the mortal coil some context

The context that poetry brings is life giving, revolution birthing, hope reviving. I don’t know how I would have handled this ugly 4th of July without Langston Hughes’ words echoing in my head:

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

I’ve read that poem on every 4th of July for many years now. It’s the only answer I have to the saccharine propaganda of American history classes and the murderous, genocidal reality. Over and over, Hughes created a space to revel in that dream, refuse the attached lies, and demand a better world. Now, more than ever, we need that space.

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Witch/Pilgrim/Heretic: Poems for Serpents and Sorceresses

A book for serpents and sorceresses.
A meditation on sacred darkness.
A thesis on God and magic.

These are not sequential states of being, but a triskelion of consciousness. They are all aspects of seeking: myth, movement, and philosophy.

This collection of poetry came about as I was walking Camino de Santiago. Many of the poems were written during my journey across Spain. Others were written before or after ⁠— on hikes, at monasteries, in dreams.

As I sat sick in my room all through March 2020, I felt compelled to bring the collection to fruition. This book comprises what is essential in my current philosophy and practice. It has been a balm and comfort to me, and I hope it will help you similarly.

Release Date: May 23rd 2020

A few poems from Witch/Pilgrim/Heretic

by Categories: books, poetryTags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

May Day Message

Happy Beltane! Happy May Day!

This is my second favorite holiday, falling directly opposite of my favorite holiday, Halloween. The veil is thin, the sun is shining, and everything is growing. What a wonderful time to announce some changes. Last night, for Walpurgisnacht, I tried my hand at broomstick making, then jumped on our backyard trampoline holding said broom. That counts as a witch’s flight, right?

I’ve been silent for a while, resting, working, and meditating on projects. I started out April planning to record a poem for every day of the month. Once I recovered from illness enough to head back to my day job, I didn’t have the energy to to do all that, but my channel is still active, and I’ll continue slowly filling it with poetry. I’ve had some wonderful feedback and encouragement on my readings from Mary, Marnie, and others. Thank you so much.

I’m continuing work on Witch/Pilgrim/Heretic, my poetry book partly compiled during my Camino de Santiago journey. I’m determined to make it available by the end of May, at the latest. If you’d like to know when it’s ready, you can sign up for my mailing list and also get a free copy of Between Death and the Devil, my book of tarot poetry.

Side note: I’m glad I learned that Geminis are notoriously flighty, because it gives me an excuse for starting dozens of projects at once. Since quarantine started, I’ve been feeling the call to get back into zine making, especially since I’m having a great time collecting witchcraft related zines from other writers. As such, I’m reopening my Etsy shop. Soon it will be full of signed copies of my books, my zines, and probably some witchy art as well, so be sure to follow.

Finally, most of my books are currently on sale or free on Kindle, and will be until May 5th or 6th, depending. Check them out on my author site on Amazon.

With that, I’m off to build a new vegetable bed. Happy Beltane. I hope you get a chance to soak in nature, support a strike, and play with flame today.

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living like a medieval monk

I live in what I have to describe as a goth/solarpunk collective, in a small house with a large garden. Because of a (possibly not coronavirus) illness I had, I’ve been self-isolating for more than a month now. Here’s a look at my quarantine life with 4 roommates:

  • We all have projects we’re working on. A lot of them revolve around the garden or home improvement. There are new bike hooks on the carport and a pulley system to hang the kayaks. No one is in charge.
  • Time has lost all meaning. I wake up around 11 now, usually to something strange happening in the living room, like a sword fight, or an 80s workout video.
  • Someone ends up baking something at least once a day. Yesterday Roger made scones and clotted cream. Today I made garlic rosemary cornbread. I am eating better than ever before because there is time for it.
  • We set up a booth with seeds and vegetable starts along the road, free for anyone. It’s the one resource we have that easily translates into helping our community.
  • I only put on bras for photo shoots and the video parties we host about once a week.
  • I’m in the midst of creating a complete tarot deck. I think it will be called the Isolation Tarot. The suits are currently Eyes, Serpents, Caverns (okay, they’re vulvas, I admit it) and Tentacles. I’m almost done with the Minor Arcana and I haven’t started the Major Arcana yet.
  • We’re trying to make friends with the crows by putting out unsalted peanuts whenever we see them. Mixed results so far.
  • I started a YouTube channel where I read poetry but I have no finished the book that I meant to publish last month.
  • We have a swing and a trampoline. These are getting a lot of use, and I’m so grateful that my roommates set them up last year.
  • I’ve started yelling at airplanes. When they fly over my neighborhood, I yell “Shoo, sky demons!” until they’re gone. Then I go back to gardening.

Collective living: pretty damn nice in the midst of a crisis.

by Categories: Stories & EssaysTags: ,

reconciling with the sound of my own voice

Like most people, I hate my own voice. Unfortunately, reading aloud is a rather important part of poetry. So, for National Poetry Month, I’m reading a poem a day on YouTube. So far, all the poems I’ve read are my own. No promises that will remain a hard rule — I have a hankering to read some Plath and Keats and Coleridge.

Reading my poetry aloud still feels terribly scandalous to me. I’ve only halfway recovered from my WASPy embarrassment over being a confirmed poet. Reciting verse out loud, sometimes outside, where anyone might hear? It’s a horror. Especially when I can hear my own emotion.

Luckily, I enjoy horror, and entertaining my deepest, darkest fears. So here I am, with my heart in my voice and my soul on video.

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