childhood Archives - Author K. Williams

Holiday Watch List – Open Book Blog Hop #299

November 15, 2021 By Captain Maiel

♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦

Topic #299
With the slew of holidays coming up at the end of the year, do you
have watch list of shows/movies you like to watch to celebrate? What are they?

Welcome back to another Open Book Blog Hop! The authors included in this ongoing series wish to thank you for your reads. We appreciate, even more so, when you share our writings with your friends. If you’re new to the series, welcome aboard. The authors engage and impress weekly. Prepare to become a regular reader.

Boy, do I! You may know that I’m the mother of one toddler. It took a lot to finally have her. Therefore, I am all in on the holiday celebrating. This year is going to be even more epic than the last, because her consciousness is becoming full-fledged. She remembers and understands so much more. The magical groundwork has been laid. Now to build from a blue-print 46 years in the making!

All of the shows that I enjoyed as a child are pretty much available on disc or via some online connection. I’ve done my due diligence in collecting them too! As much as I love cursing out Amazon for their practices, they have been an amazing resource for me in multiple areas (whether that is collecting movies/television copies, art supplies, cosplay gear, affordable clothing/footwear for my kid, and food from outside the USA just to name a few–have you ever had Saki kit-kats? They’re sublime. Sesame candy? Barry’s Irish Tea?). I shake my fist in the air frustrated that by their convenience wrapped in evil.

Regardless, I have been able to collect the holiday specials I enjoyed as a child, way before my daughter was here. I loved them so much, that I enjoyed watching them every year. It became a bit of a tradition with my mother. Each of us have our favorites. My little one, of course, will watch them all repeatedly. That suits me just fine!

So what’s on my list?

After we’ve perused the Halloween fare, we start on harvest/turkey day stuff. There’s not much. I’m not big on this holiday, just the food, and it’s going to be a educational moment for my daughter in the near future, as I teach her about the truth–something school will likely gloss over and repaint so no one is made uncomfortable–even if they should be! I’m thankful for American Indigenous friends who speak exhaustively on the topic. I’m so much more ready to have this talk with my child. In fact, I’m ready for so many talks regarding American history and the problematic truth. Indoctrination into the rewrite isn’t helpful for advancing any nation to better days.

So what’s on that list?

Right now we have Peanuts Thanksgiving and Garfield.

After this holiday closes, then I allow the rampage of Christmas specials.

We have the usual Rankin Bass and other movies, such as:

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Santa Claus is Coming to Town
The Little Drummer Boy
Nestor The Long-Eared Donkey
Jack Frost
Frosty The Snowman
Frosty’s Winter Wonderland
The Night Before Christmas
A Year Without A Santa Claus
Rudolph’s Shiny New Year
Peanuts Christmas
I Want a Dog For Christmas, Charlie Brown
Scrooge (Albert Finney)
It’s A Wonderful Life
Miracle on 34th Street (Natalie Wood)
Santa and the 3 Bears
Bah, Humduck!
Garfield’s Christmas
Elf
White Christmas
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Winnie The Pooh’s Christmas
The Bishop’s Wife (Cary Grant)
Mr. Magoo’s Christmas
Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas
Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas
Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Mickey’s Magical Christmas, Snowed-in At the House of Mouse
Muppet’s Christmas Carol
Muppet Family Christmas
Prep and Landing
A Christmas Story
The Santa Clause (only 1 and 2 – 3 has Martin Short and I don’t like him).
How The Grinch Stole Christmas
Frank and Bing’s Happy Holidays (Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby)
Colbert Christmas
Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas
March of the Wooden Soldiers

Hopefully, I didn’t miss any! There are so many to list. I’d make links, but that would be exhausting! If you want to find it, let me know and I’ll try to get you the link needed. I’m serious! Leave a comment!

So you can bet that after Thanksgiving Day, I’ll be somewhere watching from this list in the evenings. Hop through the other author links below to find out what movies or shows they like to watch during the holiday season. I’m looking forward to reading what of our non-US members partake in!

Pinky – Open Book Blog Hop #298

November 8, 2021 By Captain Maiel

♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦

Topic #298
Do you still have a treasure from childhood, can you tell us about it?
How about any of your characters?

Back in October of 2018, I wrote a short article on a hospital stay I experienced as a small child. This resulted in me having one of my oldest life artifacts: Pinky. I know you’ll probably wonder how I could possibly keep such a thing around, considering I loath clowns, and it’s barely more than a scrap. Let me tell you, Pinky is why I got through that trauma. I believed as a girl that he protected (yes, he. and you can read that in the older article, too).

My childhood had some major traumas. This small fabric friend helped me negotiate my brain’s healing from those scary experiences. The side-eye game is on point. I felt safe under those eyes. Somehow, it felt as if Pinky could see the things that were unsee-able and keep them away.

Pinky sits next to my bed to this day, right beside the stuffy that inspired my Zo Duck Series. Do I still feel safe. As houses. That clown has the power. If you know, you know.

Do such totems exist within the realm of my work, though? There’s nothing from the childhood days of my characters that exists in their stories to serve as this kind of memory/protection, or what not. They do all have something, however, which comes to them either in the course of the book, or back to them from earlier times.

First, there is the picture that Emily gives to Joseph, stolen from her parent’s collection. This serves as a reminder to keep him pushing forward through the war and all that comes to end him. Next, there is Claire’s lipstick. Some think this item is less important than it is symbolically, but I assure you, it’s meaning is on par with my Pinky. That lipstick is an anchor to better more stable times and the freedom of adulthood that Claire has long sought. It is breaking from the abuse, surviving, and normalcy. The bombs are dropping, but Claire still believes in life after the attacks come, and that it and she will prevail. Red lipstick, also, became a glorious symbol of feminine power from the time of WWII to present day.

Lastly, I’ll speak on Maiel, and the feathers on her barracks apartment wall. Those feathers are from General Mikhael. Their power is to watch over the individual who keeps them. Indeed, they were gifted to her by him. Their presence is not only symbolic of their growing bond, but his unyielding protection promised to her. In the sight of them, she is always protected. This (SPOILER AHEAD) is a good reason for why Dominic moved them to the wilds of Eden. The feathers were most definitely left behind! Those watchful eyes would have detected all his moves, and he couldn’t bear that.

Covering the childhoods of my characters isn’t the purview of any of my books thus far. That said, it is richer to have mementos crop up from earlier times. I have items in my keep that are from my earliest times, and it makes sense that others would as well. However, not many people who experience trauma hang onto things from those times before. They can be sources of grieving, or the trauma included losing all their things. For me, it can be bittersweet to see these items, even as I pass a great deal of the surviving toys and books on to my daughter. They from safer feeling times, when someone else buffered and protected me from the big bad world that always seems to be on the precipice of ending. So, too, Maiel’s feathers create a bittersweet nostalgia in the moment they’re rediscovered.

Let’s hop on over to see what items and other details the authors on this hop have to offer. Click on their links below!

open book blog hop photography ad, camera with photos on a vintage map

Zo Bee

May 1, 2020 By Captain Maiel

You might recognize the helmet in the following piece of Zo Duck from her Skate Zo days. The throwback nod is perfect to accomplish the emotion I planned in the image. Our duck has modified her helmet to hold a magnifying glass, because, of course, her wing buds are far too small to hold onto the tool. Zo won’t be deterred, as you know. Thus, she gets to experience amazing moments.

Moments are what it’s all about. Zo studying the small bumble is reminiscent of childhood adventures and whimsy. The tones chosen convey the same. Rendering it in a semi-watercolor look just ads to the nostalgia.

I hope you’ll enjoy this with all it has to offer…

zo duck stands before a daisy looking at a bumble bee through a magnifying glass strapped to her skater helmet. — Zo Bee

Love my duck? Support this blog by buying a book.

Zo Duck collage with web address and author name, K. Williams, The Blue Honor Blog — ladycaasi designs on cafe press

When I Grow Up – Open Book Blog Hop #218

April 6, 2020 By Captain Maiel

♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦

Topic #218
What did you want to be when you grew up vs. what you are today?

Welcome back to another Open Book Blog Hop! The authors included in this ongoing series wish to thank you for your reads. We appreciate, even more so, when you share our writings with your friends. If you’re new to the series, welcome aboard. The authors engage and impress weekly. Prepare to become a regular reader.

Growing up, I had many ideas about who I would be when I grew up. Most I never shared with others. Some are marked in those half album-half journal log books, where you keep your school photos and write something about yourself from that year. I mulled cheerleader, nun, teacher, doctor, nurse, soldier, thespian, musician, dancer, and so on.

When it came time to choose I started to lean more directly: medicine–either animal or people. But, then, in the green of high school, I started to write, not just read books. At first, I had no idea if I wanted to write scripts or short stories, or books–perhaps something else entirely. Regardless, writing overcame me and I was always caught writing my stories. The majority of that material has disappeared with the dump truck (thankfully). However, I have persevered.

In college, I still focused on the biology career. I had evolved from veterinarian or obstetrician to Zoologist. I could sort of do something like both of those things without having to perform surgery. Surgery takes extreme skill and patience, plus a lack of most fears. Doctors certainly do worry, but they have science and skill and training and cajones. I was too afraid to be a surgeon. What if I couldn’t put things back right? Too much is riding on the procedure to be haunted by such doubt.

While my studies progressed, I found that calculus and organic chemistry were quite difficult. In addition, when I sought help from the professor of my math course, who had flat out stated how much he hated biology students–especially female ones–I was refused. I still remember the face of the other student standing there in shock of him. I dropped the course. Then I had to sit through OC listening to the professor talk about how he deserved to teach at better schools, and was wasting his time with us, basically because he felt we were stupid. Although I carried a B+ in the lab, I was carrying a low C in the course. I was barely cutting it and I already felt that there was no help to obtain from these men.

Long story short, it was only a two-year school, and I was transferring anyway. I changed my major to English. I toyed with the idea of a bio minor or a double minor in bio and history, but went with history only. I never looked back. Not even when I went back for my Master’s years later.

Is there a difference? On the surface there is a big difference. But if you think about what I do, you’ll see the echoes of everything in my career path coming together. It all informed and assisted me on the way. For instance, one of my early jobs was data entry. I learned to type fast and accurate, a plus for writing (yes, I still make typos because everyone does!). The eclectic choices I was running through in my youth look like book characters. I was probably more or less exploring characterization, rather than just a life goal. As for surgery, you see how plots are stitched together. Zoology or Obstetrics, the care and feeding of an author’s cast of characters–who will be housed with who, what are their cycles, feedings, development, enrichment, creation….

I sure would love to be a zoo mom still. If my work ever afforded me the pleasure, opening a sanctuary for North American Wildlife is a top priority. For now, I just have my daughter, my dog, and my writing. That’s Zoo enough for me!

Where’s It All Come From

January 31, 2020 By Captain Maiel

One of the favored questions that readers ask me is: where’s it all come from? Until recently, I couldn’t have begun to explain, because I hadn’t spent much time thinking about it. When you’re busy writing up a storm and blogging, your mind is more on the present or future, not the past. The problem with that is that you can lose your way. Remember the saying: If you don’t know where you’ve been, you won’t know where you’re going?

four round stones that say dream, courage, inspire, harmony

Back in the late summer, I started watching a few of my favorite childhood films with my toddler. That brought on the realization of how I came into being a writer. Or, at least, it spoke to me of what inspired me to tell stories. Both film and books have been a hefty part of my life, and I’m not talking about the average watcher/reader. Clearly. After all, I have pursued a degree in film as well as writing.

The films I brought to my little girl had a common thread, beyond genre. They were each touched by a master storyteller: Jim Henson. From the time I was very young, Sesame Street streamed into my home along with the Muppet Show, and all the subsequent films.

It often feels like there is not a thing he didn’t touch with his genius. If asked, I am certain that most filmmakers today would list him in their top ten–safe to say top five, even. That’s a seat earned and deserved. And, I believe he’s responsible for me, too.

Jim Henson’s desire was to touch the lives of those he entertained and educated with his puppets and stories. He wanted to inspire. Sadly, his time to do so was shorter than anyone dare guess. Yet, the work he made lasts through to today. Forever thankful, I share these works with my daughter, still finding the spark in them that has had power over my own life.

Finding out where it all comes from is really important to continuing forward. That’s the path to maintaining the inspiration. Without direction, we often flounder. I’m not okay with just flopping about from pool to pool until something sticks. That’s one aspect of finding my way alone in the publishing world that I have detested. I much prefer teamwork and mentorship. If only more people had the ethic of cooperation that Jim Henson did. Cooperation and caring were lessons he weaved into all of his work. Think about it…

Although my work is not geared toward children and takes quite dark turns, I find the essence of Henson couched within the narrative. The fantastical characters and hero journey are just the wrappings on that inspired gift. Dig a bit deeper and you’ll start to see the similarities.

Think of Maiel, for one. Much like Sarah, she is drawn into the Labyrinth and set on a journey to not only save children important to her, but to realize her truth. The Baron is no Jareth, but he serves the same purpose, obsessed and lovelorn in his own way. The pair fight over the salvation of Dominic. Will Maiel prevail and Dominic rise up, or will the Baron defeat her and they become his goblins? The main issue is that Maiel is not entirely aware of her own truth–her own story. Realizing that she is in control of fate, the Baron loses all power over her, and his bid to conquer her becomes tenuous. The Trailokya Trilogy drives on from there.

Henson also liked to pay homage to history. As I said above, knowing from where you came helps you best gauge where you’re headed. Also, it makes for great storytelling. Messages hold more weight and have greater ability to be assimilated when they’re told in the form of stories, especially fable-like stories, which is an aspect of historical fiction writing.

Most similar is the love of educating and entertaining that I hold. What Henson did was special and this world needs more people like him. His children carry on his legacy, but they should not be alone in that. Their father touched the lives of millions, and many of them are also out there working on their own stories.

Growing up with Henson to watch was a blessing. Having his work to consume to this day is a reminder of that opportunity. Sharing it with my toddler gave me new perspective on these old friends, and I can feel the rivers of creativity flowing strong from the source.

That’s where it all comes from…