fiction Archives - Author K. Williams

What’s Your Favorite Animal – Open Book Blog Hop #369

March 27, 2023 By Captain Maiel Leave a Comment

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

Topic #369

What is your favorite animal and why?
Have you ever included it in one of your stories?

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

The answer to this may be obvious considering my book series, The Trailokya Trilogy, and the covers of two of the installments. The animal I’d answer this question with features heavily in the series. Some other clues can be found in the type of companion I keep, and the videos I love to make on TikTok. I have a lot of fun with my buddy producing some bonkers content spoofing film and television favorites like The X-Files (1993).

A favorite animal is actually kind of hard for me to pick. I love them all. In fact, I had hoped to follow my dream of getting a bio degree and working at a zoo. When that didn’t happen, my love of animals didn’t stop. Sure, I switched gears to pursue a stronger dream (writing), and earn a degree I felt was more marketable, but the love of animals is still deeply with me.

Since I was a child, as you know if you know the Trailokya series, I’ve been dreaming some pretty epic dreams. In those dreams, I met the characters for the series. That included my favorite animals. There’s a twist to this, though. You see, my family bred and showed dogs. The tie to canines is deep and meaningful. Not only are they beautiful creatures, but they make great companions. Honestly, I can’t imagine my life without one at my hip.

The cool thing about dogs is their connection to human history which extends thousands of years. They descend, in fact, from my favorite animal: Wolves. I am sure you guessed by now! And, yes, they do show up in my dreams. In fact, I still see the packs that feature in my series in my dreams to date.

When I lost my dog, Sadie Sue in 2018, my depression deepened. I felt as if part of me went with her. I remarked to a friend that I cannot define myself without dog being part of that equation. Sadie had begun Shagbottom Theater with me. How could I continue the theater with existing images of her, and all my friends and followers knowing she passed? That would be most uncool. Moreover, I feel safer with a dog in the house. They also provide a lot of affection and fun.

Did you know that dogs share 98% of their mitochondrial DNA with wolves? It’s a fact. “One study showed that dog and wolf share 98% of their mitochondrial (mt) DNA, which contrasts to the 7.5% difference between wolf and coyotes (Canis latrans), the species that is their closest wild relative.” (Science Direct.) Think about that the next time you’re cuddling up to Fido! It’s pretty mind blowing, and it also should put the lore into better perspective.

Conflict between wolves and ranchers touches issues of conservationism and Native American rights – ABC News

Sadly, humanity grew apart from their long connection to wolves and have treated them as enemies for hundreds of years. Much of what is believed about the species comes from fairy tales and other media that continue a false image. Sadly, certain industries lean hard into the lies and continue to focus violence on the species, both removing their responsibilities and reducing their labor load for better profit margins. It also arose in species resource competition (such as food). You can read about the myths here. Also, keep in mind that indigenous populations regard them as sacred, and the hunting of these animals is a violation of their rights.

Wolves are truly amazing animals that should fill us with a sense of awe as well as gratefulness. Their contribution to our history is one of cooperation for survival. We owe them much and that bond should be respected along with respecting the protection of their populations. It behooves humanity to ensure their success, as it directly leads to our own successes. Our species are deeply entwined. There is no escaping this link of cooperation but to both species detriment.

We are all well aware that they can be dangerous when encountered in the wild, or when people attempt to make them pets, or even at the zoo. Wolves are wild not domestic animals. However, the danger comes from their self-preservation drive. In other words, if you make them fearful, they will defend themselves. Not everyone can interact with them, because not everyone understands their language. Wolves read us, just like dogs do. That said, dogs have had eons to understand our weird behaviors and facial expressions.

While wolves are wild animals and not the furry friends we keep at home, and we should not attempt to domestic them, I cannot help but see the link and love them. Did you know they’re about the same size as a Great Dane? Think about that the next time you meet a Dane. Also, keep in mind the bad behavior of humans, how dogs end up in shelter, the over use and abuse of resources, and the drive to do less and get more for it. Wolves aren’t evil. They’re not out for Grandma or the little girl skipping to her house. They’re just trying to live how they were designed for a wild world.

Hopefully, your appreciation for wolves grew from reading this post, even if they’re not your favorite. I’ve linked great resources for you to share with others to help these animals continue to be a fantastic part of our ecosystems. Click on the links below to see what the other authors have answered this week. Please subscribe to my blog to get this hop delivered to your inbox each Friday.

Atypical Lives – Open Book Blog Hop #368

March 20, 2023 By Captain Maiel 4 Comments

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

Topic #368

Tell us about the day in the life of one of your characters.

The books I write follow some unconventional character lives. Blue Honor, the US Civil War drama, is the only one that follows a semi-normal track. It is historically set, so the days in the lives would still be different from what we know today. That said, they’re a little closer to home.

During the US Civil War, life was hard–especially for women, indigenous, and Black people. There was nothing typical for the latter two of that list. Lives torn apart in the upheaval of colonization, they were no longer on their familiar territories and there cultures erased to force assimilation to the current power structure. Survival against the evils of the times really made the day to day mundane we would think of a lot more dangerous. Just walking to anywhere could be death sentence.

For the main characters of that novel, Emily in particular, mundane life was blown to bits by war. Emily was bored with her northern dairy farm life. However, the winds of change still reached that deep into Vermont and brought change. She had thought things would just grind on as they were, and the expectation of her marrying and carrying on exactly the same would wear her life away.

Why was it so boring for her? She was the daughter of a former New York City well-to-do mother and a thriving dairy owner father. Her mother, a pious and austere woman, had certain ends in mind for her daughter. Yet, her son was free to rise in the ranks and go out into the world to do so. This did not set well with Emily, who was raised far more independently by a father who did not want his child to only aspire to marriage and family. His dairy, in the end, would likely go to her and her husband. She would need enough education to help that business continue to thrive. The man they had in mind would expand their lands, and make it a greater endeavor to deal with for both young people.

Emily did not see herself in that life. True to the Victorian Novel, she had aspirations of adventure and lives spent elsewhere. Fetching eggs from the coop each morning was not her fate. Up to the start of the book, that was where she was trapped. The change that came for her mingled with the plans that her parents painstakingly placed. They hired young women and girls to assist with the maintenance of the home. The girls, from neighboring farms and villages, would provide Emily with the knowledge of running a staff.

Although she wasn’t fetching eggs anymore, Emily’s life wasn’t exactly headed in the direction she wanted. The marriage portion was fast approaching. You see, the young man in mind was soon to graduate from West Point and, therefore, present an honorable match at last. He had land, rank, and standing, which would mean that he could take Mr. Conrad’s place as intended.

The pair were tight friends, but had no intentions of ever becoming lovers. If this came to pass, nothing would change for Emily. This also failed to mention her intended’s penchant for chasing women. Although he deeply cared for Emily and respected her, it was only a matter of time before his eye roved and with it his feet. No one would bat an eye at this, but this would betray Emily’s heart. She had expectations for her life aside from adventure, and a good match was necessary if she was to be forced into one at all.

Farm life and the drama of womanhood in the 1800s was pretty typical for Emily. Her brother and friend, however, faced far different lives. The young man alluded to above is Evan. He came from a smaller, far less wealthy farm. That said, his father had a lot of land, though he couldn’t afford to process it and make it produce for him. That would take paying wages and having equipment. While he could make enough to maintain the property as it was, and support his small family, they were saving to help their eldest son find a better position in life. Buying equipment to clear the land and paying hands would certainly benefit them in the long run, but they need an immediate solution.

Evan’s family also had the misfortune of a sickly child in their midst. Paying for medical care was taxing their income, making it far more difficult to make ends meet, and still reach their goal for their eldest. While their neighbors helped as they could, by sending Emily, who was very talented in the ways of medicine to assist, they still had to bring in doctors and buy medications.

Michael is Emily’s brother. He comes from greater privilege and it was easy for him to find his way into West Point. Their family thrived and so did their bank accounts. Evan was lucky to know the Conrads, who were a giving sort–even though it was spurred by ulterior motives. Their intentions saw to their aiding him into a seat at the Point ahead of their own son, just because it was necessary to the joining of the farms and the children. The arrangement was not on paper, which lended the wiggle room those young people needed to escape it.

The day to day for Evan was attending classes and training at the military academy. Comradery and order were his culture. Michael arrived sometime after, inspiring Evan with a plan to escape the arrangement he found himself bound to. A little finagling, and the war willing, he would be able to pull it off. After all, time off to visit family was expected.

In that time, travel by train, carriage, or horse was the norm. It took a lot longer to get anywhere. Letters took longer to travel, instead of instantly via internet. Determining one’s exact arrival time wasn’t as accurate either. You could give a couple days as an estimate, if all went well.

Another typical aspect of the time was the threat of disaster from current technology. Not only could trains wreck, carriages topple, or horses go lame–but a fire was really easy to start in any type of dwelling or structure. Because people used lamps (oil) or candles, and many items in the home were combustible (let’s not even get into wallpapers with arsenic), fires were quite frequent. There is a great series on YouTube that goes into the dangers of the Victorian Home, and I highly recommend it, even though it covers the British nation not the United States. Things were very similar.

So much could kill you at home, thus war was hardly a stretch of difference. For the men of Blue Honor, they spend a great deal of the book away on war campaigns. They’re cavalry soldiers, but marching is also part of their daily experience. The household tasks were conducted by lower ranks, while the upper ranks administered and executed the battles. The dangers of the home would be with them, even in the camps. Fire, poison, accidents, and disease were still top threats, but they also faced the addition of mortal wounding by lead bullets or bone shattering cannon shot.

Don’t let me leave you before mentioning the lives of the Maynard family. They play an important role in the changes that sweep Emily off the family dairy. Because Evan went to West Point, he met the Maynard’s son Joseph and became fast friends. The pair so hit it off that they remained inseparable and end up deployed together. Joseph also provided the exit strategy for Evan from an ill-fated marriage. Evan knew that this was the right man for his friend.

What was it about the Joseph that clued Evan in? The lives of the Maynards were closer on par with what the Conrads would ultimately want for their daughter. Emily deserved something better than running a farm that he knew bored her to tears. Though she loved the animals there, living marginally satisfied was not acceptable. She deserved to go out into the world, too. She had gifts that only Joseph would be able to support and shield from the conventions of the time. The Maynards lives had led them to be rather progressive–abolitionists and feminists!

Evan would be free to pursue his life as he saw fit, and hopefully not on a farm in the great north of the States. Boy did he relate to Emily’s need to get out of town!

Looking back on the setting of the Victorian times, I always see it with a dreamy, dusty veil filtering the images. The inference of that symbolism is clear, I think. A day in the life of my Victorian characters exists with many threats leading them to misery and death that the time is shadowy.

Let’s hop on over to the other author’s answers by clicking on their links below. Please subscribe to this blog and get an email on Friday’s to link you to the new installment.

That’s My Spot – Open Book Blog Hop #367

March 13, 2023 By Captain Maiel 4 Comments

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

Topic #367

What are your favorite vacation spots and do they ever show up in your books?

My favorite vacation spots are regarded sacrosanct. It isn’t that I don’t enjoy speaking about them, or sharing photographs I’ve taken there. Quite the opposite. What I’d like to avoid: tethering the places I go to feel good or better to my writing in any way.

Well that does sound a bit dark! I assure it is not. Writing, for me, is not just a pastime. I take it quite seriously and therefore as work. As you know, separating work from play requires some demarcations. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy the work. In past posts, I’ve been very clear how important and wonderful writing is in my life. Regardless, I still treat it as the office.

If I blurred the lines between time at the office and time away, I don’t think I’d every get a real vacation. My daughter would certainly be disappointed with that. Even before her, I respected the time and meaning of vacation and those who accompanied me. It’s was about getting away, exploring a new spot, having fun, and being with family in most cases. Dragging work along is so rude.

Don’t Work On Vacation

Of course, I cannot just shut off the writing muscles of my brain. In fact, feeling rested and happy tends to bring on the ideas more furiously. The thoughts come along when they will happy or sad. That said, it is important to be present in the moment and to take that downtime. We can’t do our best at the office if we’re not rested. You can guess that I am pretty thankful to have a smartphone that allows me to take notes, so I don’t have to scribble on paper or be disruptive to others trying to find one.

Oh, but smartphones are another issue! If I’m being cognizant of others and the need to rest and have fun during a vacation, how can I drag out the old-ball-and-chain? Well, it is my camera, too. It’s useful to have on you to locate members of your party that ran off to momentarily do something else (like grab a bite/drink, use the restroom, etc.) and are catching up. This happened a lot at Disney this past October. The phone was a great tool. I even used it to walk around the Downtown Disney area to find the shops I was looking for.

Jotting down a note or two isn’t very disruptive and it’s necessary, because the muse doesn’t wait to notify you of her ideas when you get back. She sends those little love notes any time of any day and anywhere (speaking of rude). By now, family and friends get it. 99% of my time is spent focused on the vacation, besides.

When I write, the locations come to me rather randomly. Not once have my ideas crossed into the spots I frequent for rest. I’d wager that this has to do with the fact that I regard those areas as respite and my works are not tranquil jaunts. The closest I have ever come to using a favorite spot in a book was setting Blue Honor largely in the hills of Vermont. That’s where I go to do some interesting shopping. It’s beautiful there. Still pristine. So many of the homes harken back to Victorian times. It makes sense that the history and countryside would inspire those portions of the work.

But, what about the rest of my work? Every other setting could be categorized as spots I’d love to visit, especially after all the work of researching them for a book. Think of Esztergom in Hungary and the important scenes there from Trailokya. I’d be ecstatic to see it with my own eyes and explore the basilica. You can bet, I won’t drag work along, however. Just me, geeking out.

That’s all for now! Hop through the links below to see how the other authors in the blog hop have answered this great question. Subscribe to the blog to have this series delivered to your email weekly and get to know our writers and their works first hand.

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

Keep Your Perspective – Open Book Blog Hop #366

March 6, 2023 By Captain Maiel 7 Comments

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

Topic #366
Do you have advice for changing perspective? For example, switching
from writing exclusively in third person and switching to first person?
Or do you have a reason for staying with the perspective you do?

Keeping perspective in a work is important, and sometimes hard work. Early on in my career, an agent wanted me to go through my first book to make sure that I kept my focus within the perspective of one character. She didn’t like the idea of me writing in third person at all. Clearly, that was not the agent for me. However, this criticism did teach me something necessary to even third person: head hopping isn’t a good thing.

Head hopping is when you jump around each character to get their ideas on the scene. For instance, if you’re writing a scene between two people, you tell everything going on in their heads, and sometimes within the same paragraph. Publishers hate this! Readers find it confusing. If you’re not writing first person, or second person either (the one where someone is telling you the story secondhand, you’re not fully in the heads of anyone. Showing, not telling, is going to keep you from what many agents and publishers call a rookie mistake.

Writers are going to do what they’re going to do, though–especially in the independent market. That said, if you want to avoid this because you want your work to be on par with the big leaguers, then listen up. What can stop you from head hopping? Show don’t tell. But, what does that even mean? Instead of saying, Ryan was angry, you’d write, Ryan glowered his eyes shining with an ugly light. His fists balled and his face reddened. Yeah, it does take longer to say. That said, you’ve stayed in one head: the narrator’s head. Whether or not they are omniscient will show in the details they share throughout the work.

Don’t worry if you head-hop in an early draft. Remember, you’re just trying to get your ideas out on paper. Go back and work it out later. You’ve got this!

Not every chapter or paragraph features a main character, so how do handle this clear change in perspective. Remember what I said up there? Stay in the narrator’s head. You’re showing the action happening. It doesn’t matter if your main protagonist is there or not. Just make sure that what you’re about to show is important to the story. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time. Go ahead and write this side-quest, you can always edit it out later and put important elements along the road elsewhere.

An omniscient narrator will be able share those side-quests that are important to the story, because they’re omniscient. If they’re limited, then they won’t know that those actions took place. So third person omniscient is able to take that camera to other scenes and other characters to show important to the plot items that first and second or limited narrators cannot.

Most of the books that I have loved growing up are third person and I favor this form of story telling. Don’t forget, you can show everything and give away the mystery, or you can hold it back and be willfully limited where it is needed. This can add suspense. Showing a rounded character witnessing another exiting a building in a notable way is one way to do this. They don’t know why this is important right now, but the narrator knows it matters for later.

Holding back information is a great way to build tension and suspense if you’re into that. Thus, being omniscient doesn’t have to be a tell-all narrator. Good story tellers know what to say and what to hold close to their chest. They know when the time is right to release a little information, like a trail of breadcrumbs leading the reader along the path.

All of this, don’t forget, comes in honing one’s craft, but also in drafting. Once you’ve crammed it all down in draft one, you can go back and start moving pieces around a bit. Maybe that incident you have happen in chapter one is better in three, or unpacking some stuff from that is great for chapter ten. Instead of hopping momentarily into the head of a side-character, another more rounded character comes along to see the thing happen. What if they don’t tell your protagonist right away about it? Maybe this information comes out later because it didn’t seem to matter much before?

Regardless, just get that draft written down. Come back later and worry about getting it all back into the same perspective. Trust the process and don’t rush. There’s no date stamp on finishing. Keep in mind that rushing a work can lead to a lot of mistakes that make you look an amateur. Whether you’re independent or not, that matters. You want your readers to like the work and come back for more, right?

Be sure to subscribe to this blog to have the Open Book Blog Hop delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Click on the links below to see how the other authors have answered this great question.

The Turmoil Within – Open Book Blog Hop #365

February 27, 2023 By Captain Maiel 7 Comments

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

Topic #365
Do you tackle current political turmoil in your stories or avoid it? Tell us why.

Write what you know. Isn’t that what they tell you works best for an author? Each of us has a perspective on the world in which we live. Sometimes, that vision is unique while other times it is communal. Either is effective in the world of writing. Whether you’re brining people together over something not pondered commonly or showing them the community of which they’re part, writing is important to the social order.

Art is expressive and carries a message whether intended or not. For writers, when we write, and we write what we know, I believe that avoiding the political is impossible. Have you ever heard the saying the personal is political? It means that whatever we experience in our lives, struggles and turmoil, success and joy, is related to the public and government affairs of the society in which we live. We cannot avoid this, unless we’ve managed to exist on a desert island in space. Even there, the junk is going to crash into our world.

Every aspect of our life is touched by the ripples of society and the choices made by others. This is why I laugh at the idea of free will. Consider this: can you truly ever choose without having been influenced in some manner to make that choice? What about the reality that the choice we’re presented with has limited responses, based upon the choices of others? We do not exist in a vacuum. Therefore, our art, our writing reflects those experiences–many of them shared by others in our communities.

Absolutely I write about issues. Many of those issues have been a human struggle for centuries, although we like to pretend that it was better back in whatever day. We’re still fighting about gender, race, language, ability, access, and the like. People are still experiencing all of that and it influences the choices they make, regardless of the awareness of it or even the struggle to rise beyond it.

Why not talk about it? Shying away or going to sleep on human turmoil has never made it better. That’s why calling people woke as an insult is so hilarious. Think about that. What is the opposite of woke? Uniformed. Asleep. Not paying attention. Why ever would we celebrate that we aren’t informed, paying attention, or even awake? I love to sleep, the dreams are great, but they’re only dreams, and there are people here and now that need me. Ignoring cancer, for instance, doesn’t cure it. It certainly doesn’t stop its progression. If you want to believe there is nothing wrong, you certainly can, but don’t get mad at those trying to make things better.

The insanity in ignoring the suffering of others, as if you have no skin in their outcomes is not just cold or egocentric, it’s a sickness of fear. Human suffering and turmoil aren’t pleasant experiences. However, gaslighting, silencing, attacking those who speak up to help or those needing help makes it so much worse. You don’t have to believe in anything in particular to know this. Communities do not thrive when individuals in them are cruel and isolationist. It makes everyone’s struggle that much more difficult–like putting a stick in the spokes of your own bicycle.

Writers are word artists. We have found a means to communicate our ideas and observations in story. This artform has lead humanity to greater empathy. Thus, writers hold a special, if not sacred, role in the fabric of society. If we don’t discuss the turmoil and questions our species has, we cannot grow. The human mind thrives on this communication, as it is a communal one.

"Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else." - Leonardo da Vinci - Getting Published

I keep circling back to the community idea because that is the hub on which we spin. Connection is integral to all humanity. There’s no one who has accomplished anything they’ve done all on their own. Their lives, work, everything has been touched by others. To ignore that is to embrace a cognitive dissonance that supplants community with self.

Why bother writing if you don’t want to connect? Why read if you don’t seek the same? The exercise of writing or reading is deeply tied to the search for connection and connection on the experiences of our lives. Even escapist material has the components that feed the need for that connection. It is inescapable.

Ask yourself: why are symbols so important to people? Why do humans seek to see something deeper in banal occurrences? It is that need to connect to something greater, to belong, to have purpose.

Speaking of connecting… Click on the links below to see how the other authors have answered this question, and subscribe to my blog to get the hop delivered to your email every Friday!