truth Archives - Author K. Williams

I’ve Got A Secret – Open Book Blog Hop #175

May 27, 2019 By Captain Maiel 3 Comments

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

Topic #175

Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?

Welcome back to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop! If you’re new to the series, the authors included are grateful for your reads and 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. Be prepared to become a regular reader.

The act of writing is about undressing secrets in an intricate striptease–whatever those secrets are—be they character details, social struggles, the author’s private thoughts, psychology, and drama. Write what you know is the adage of all creative writing classes. It’s a keystone. It causes authors to have to research topics that sound insane, because writing what you don’t know shows. So we look it up to maintain authenticity.

philm1310, Pixabay.com

Not all authors are hung up on researching, or valuing what information they do find, for many reasons, including that it upsets their beliefs (cognitive dissonance). If that works for their writing, they shouldn’t just go and upset the apple cart for the sake of some instructor in a cw class. As much as that pains me to say, because I value research and facts, an author is entitled to make their art by their own means. That’s a secret that is written into every book.

A writer cannot avoid writing themselves onto the page.

When you write what you know, a good portion of your life will end up on the page, even if it is unrecognizable in this new form. You’d have to know a person intimately to piece it back together. Often what happens is the details that reveal the author are scattered, like tossed pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Not everything is needed at every moment or in every character. The puzzle is shared across that tapestry, and in exciting ways.

The release of my book series, The Trailokya Trilogy, came with posts highlighting the many interesting details of the words contained in the pages. The thread running throughout is about the connection to my personal life, both what I have learned and experienced. There are details that I will discuss, and then there are others that I am reluctant to explore outside of what I put into the pages.

I urge readers to take a look at the books before asking me what are my secrets in the pages. If I told, the experience wouldn’t be as interesting, and the discovery not nearly so satisfying. Much of it, also, would lack context.

One secret I will leave you with is that the series exposes the experience of a domestic violence victim and how that abuse is ongoing through a lifetime, regardless of the abusers presence. It illustrates the leveraging of others to commit violence against a target. Toxic behavior is dragged into the light, but not before it unpacks the ways that society and individuals passively work to entrap victims.

The repercussions of abuse extend out for a lifetime. Survivors are never the same again.

Let’s hop on over to find out what secrets the other authors are revealing in their work…

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K Through The Looking Glass – Open Book Blog Hop #140

September 17, 2018 By Captain Maiel 5 Comments

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

Topic #140

How do you see yourself versus how you think other people see you?

Welcome back to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop! If you’re new to the series, the authors included are grateful for your reads and 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. Be prepared to become a regular reader.

Ever since I was a child, I’ve thought about the person I wish to be, and how I would like to be perceived by others. There is no control over the way we are perceived by others, because people will make up their own minds, regardless of who you are. That is something I struggled with far more than with who I was. I’ve been true to myself, and always kept a firm grip on honesty and integrity. It matters. Thus, I know who I am: a loving human being, who expects honesty and integrity in return, and knows that others are capable, but often choose to be dishonest. I’m a daughter, sister, mother, friend. I’m a dog lover, a photographer, a bit of a comedian. I’m a progressive liberal agnostic. An artist. A writer. A cook/baker. I’m a fan girl and a geek. I’m a hardworking professional with years of education. But let’s explore a little deeper than that…

My mantra has always been: Truth will out. Meaning, that the truth will always rise to the surface. The truth has never failed me, and I am generally patient, so I can wait for her to reveal herself. Others have tried to smear me for their own ends, but my integrity has always risen above. I also refuse to engage rumors and lies. Let folks talk. Truth will out. I’m also not the woman to use saccharine niceties to gain favor in a crowd.

As you’d guess by my love of honesty and integrity, I have high respect for education and low respect for ignorance. I don’t accept opinions when facts oppose them. In the face of those who refuse to admit their opinions are problematic, I am often unforgiving. My high expectations of others are born of my high expectations of myself. Do what you will, harm none. But. I will verbally hammer folks for (pardon my language) shitty opinions that uphold a social attitude that harms others by maintaining institutionalized isms. I’m not going to be patient with anyone who harms others (directly or indirectly). That’s right, I don’t take any guff.

Honesty and integrity, along with my education, has also made me quite intuitive. I sense things like a psychic, such as when people are lying, when they’re boastful, when they’re dangerous, when they’re genuine. People don’t like that about me. I’m sure it makes them feel bare. It’s unsettling when someone looks through you. However, when you have nothing to be ashamed of, such clear seeing shouldn’t bother you. Right? When people get upset about this skill, it has turned out that they are often sociopaths, sometimes narcissists, sometimes both. Those types of people thrive on anonymity for their modus operandi. Likewise for those who wish to put forward an image that isn’t true, so that there is a disingenuous element to them, and the cognitive dissonance in which they swim can make them feel very uncomfortable as they’re forced to take a long, good look.

I do not see these things as a problem. I wouldn’t continue forward if I did. My focus is improving the world, my small part of it, not sucking what I can off of the world until I die. I’ve always wanted to make a difference, and I’ve always wanted to be a genuine person. Who I am is not a put on. The labels above are descriptive of my facets. Yet, there are other descriptors I don’t use to describe myself, which have been used by others…

The way others see me isn’t lost on me. I’ve had people attempt to paint me as belligerent, argumentative, ignorant, unread, too young, too this and too that. Quite often, I am dismissed because of how young I look. My education is poo-pooed by those who cannot reconcile that I’m not twenty, and want to preserve their mask (on the world and themselves). When I don’t fit the narrative people have made up to define me, and stuffing me in their boxes doesn’t stick, I’m certainly not the belligerent or argumentative one.

Oddly enough, since having my daughter, the attitude that I’m a foolish girl has ebbed. I didn’t realize that women needed to have children in order to be seen as smart. Yet, doesn’t that sort of connect up all the things that women keep saying about the world in which they live? How they’re expected to marry and have children, make homes, not careers (maybe jobs but not full-fledged careers)? And, if they do become the wife/mother/homemaker, they’re infantilized (even by other women)?

I guess my choice to pursue IVF and the way in which I’ve chronicled my journey as a mother both humanized by revealed my maturity and drive as a person. I can assure you that after putting four of my six-plus books out in publication has not provided that kind of respect. It should have. My educational degrees should have, too. The way I communicate, also should have. But no. I was considered young, foolish, over emotional… All those things used to deny women respect. The fact that I had no problem calling it out added to the pushback: You’re angry. So, seeing me smile and play with my little one, be loving, honest, fun, and full of respect toward her and my parenting has forced others to view me in a different light. Now my passion for where the world is going has a ready face, because before, simply caring about others in general isn’t enough. People expect more selfish reasons, because maybe that’s how they operate, so they look for themselves in others. When they don’t find their self in others, they reject them, maybe even with hate.

But not everyone perceives of me negatively. I have a lot of friends, and my family loves me dearly. Those things I put out into the world were seen by them. They reciprocate. They encourage. And, I am thankful for them. Their love is the energy that keeps me going when I am out saving the world. The haters are just gonna hate this. “)

Let’s hop on over to see how the other authors answered this question…

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9 Misconceptions About Creative Writing

September 7, 2018 By Captain Maiel 2 Comments

No matter where you are in your writing career, there always seems to be the same questions from those we meet in our daily lives. That and plenty of terrible advice. Certainly the general stranger doesn’t mean any harm, but in many cases they don’t really know what it takes to make it as a writer. They just think that they do. Whether television and movies, or even books, gave them their ideas about writing, people in general have created their own picture of what it means. And, you know what, many writers have these misconceptions, too.

9. It’s easy.

If I had a dime for every person who believed this, I’d be pretty rich. I’ve even come to the defense of other authors on social media when family insulted them for not working, and that writing wasn’t a job. Except, writing is a job. A lot of people are hired by a lot of industries and businesses because of their writing. Many of those same employers have whole departments that do writing (advertising, for instance).

Don’t worry. That person said she wasn’t meaning me, because I had a day job, so I was doing the right thing. No, I’m not alone in getting a job to pay bills while I wait for those royalty checks to pay the bills. Many authors only write, and rely on assistance to make sure ends meet month to month. It is not my place to be judge here. I only do what I feel is right for me, part of that is allowing others their choices in life.

The rest of the list will outline many of the reasons why writing isn’t easy. In addition to that list, I’d include marketing and self management with the public Late hours refining, or just getting the words to paper creates hardship, too. Cultivating ideas and massaging the words into proper form isn’t effortless by any means. Good writers just make it look easy. 99% of what goes on is unseen by the public.

8. You don’t need to go to school for it.

You can go right ahead and skip college for writing if you feel that you’re capable of giving yourself criticism and structure, which will result in the improvement of your work. Some believe that reading alone is capable. I don’t think that is at all true. You can read all day long every day, but never understand why those books were chosen for publication over others. Really bad writing sticks out. Good writing is far more than the mechanics. If you’ve never written a best seller, and you’ve read a million of them, you aren’t guaranteed to produce a best seller when you finally do sit down.

Going to school to learn to write, writer better, and expand your brain is imperative to a writer’s growth. Not all authors have a degree, but they do all have habits that exhibit college studies parameters. I’m sorry, but if you want to get better at the skill of writing, you will need to study, and with good teachers of the craft. If you want to improve your art (voice, ideas, and execution), you will need to expand your knowledge base. Higher education is the best bet with which to do all of it, and effectively. Let’s face it. We aren’t very good at criticizing ourselves with the necessary details to fix our flaws.

7. No research.

That is just laughable. The general public, and probably some writers too, think writers just sit about all day making things up. Sure, a good portion of writing creative fiction is making up things. The rest, that which anchors it in belief suspending euphoria, is researched. This is the stuff that you don’t see. Research goes on behind the scenes, long before a work is done.

When writing a book, you will come across the damndest things that you don’t know, and suddenly need to know, so you can keep on writing. Blame the characters, but then get Google fired up to start the process. Research takes many forms, but starting online is a legitimate choice. Not everything you find online is accurate, but it can lead you down the path to accuracy (such as Wikipedia source lists on articles about your topic—you’re welcome).

Not everything in fiction is made up, and not everything should be. You can really destroy your credibility by refusing to research and just putting down what you think you know or make up about a topic. Readers aren’t fools. They will pick up on it, and they’re going to react negatively.

6. Writing isn’t art. It’s just a skill.

Writing is a skill, but writing fiction creatively is art. Neither art nor the subset of writing get the respect deserved. It is in this misconception that others will justify pirating your work instead of paying you the couple bucks to download it. If they won’t pay $3 for an eBook, then they aren’t coming with a $20 for the paperback. Giveaways and the like encourage this idea.

Writing is art. It is painting pictures with words. It’s magick.

The reason a lot people don’t respect fiction is because they didn’t learn how to absorb it and process it properly. For many, reading is a legitimate struggle, either due to traumatic injury or developmental issues. We aren’t talking about them. I am talking about the average human being without barriers who chooses to hide from fiction, instead of challenging themselves. It’s much easier for them to malign writing as useless than to admit they lack strength in a necessary skill. Thus, the focus is on writing as a skill, and not as art.

5. It’s a relatively useless skill.

There really are people who believe that writing is a useless past time. It’s all well and good for those who do it professionally, but not for people they know in real life still trying to get a name for themselves. There is a belief lying around that writing is a soft skill for secretaries. Yup. That’s both elitist and sexist. But, most of anti-whatever language is coded that way. It’s meant to minimize the target.

Let’s clear this up. Writing is used in every single industry and business on the planet. Whether the people know it or not, they need to know how to read and write. They also need communication, which is, in many cases, written down. Someone has to do that. In a moment, I’ll talk about the gender component that suggests men shouldn’t bother with such tasks, as it’s a woman’s skill. Directives, instructions, emails, policy, etc., are all written and all genders make use of the written word. The better someone is at writing the more beneficial that skill is to their career.

Good writing can elevate you in the workplace.

4. Writers are addicts.

This stems from spending too much time trying to get young people interested in reading, and thus telling them about all the shitty things writers got up to in their day. I remember sitting in class, in college, and the professor discussing this with the students. What the actual hell did this matter? But there was knowing chuckling passed around, suggesting that this subculture would be the connection piece for students.

Knowing if someone had such proclivities can inform the reading (give a window into what is meant by the writing). That said, don’t assign the addict label to every author. We are not all substance abusers.

3. Women write romance, men do not.

Let’s shut this down right now. Both men and women write in every genre that exists. There are also non-binary people. This is just another way to minimize what writers do. Remember, generally speaking, society has assigned the feminine as less than. Don’t you know only men can be great writers of literature? Or, only women write steamy romance? I happen to know of some manly men writing in romance. So…. (also, here is a list of queer romance writers, because they need to be seen more.)

2. Once you write your best you have nothing more to learn.

I struggled a bit for the best way to write this misconception out. It’s both about thinking you’re an amazing writer already, and thinking that you can crest the hill of greatness, and carry on without professional development. All too often this happens very early on in some author’s careers (well before they get anywhere).

You always have a great deal more to learn, regardless of what. For instance, I keep learning how to be a good mom. I brush up my dog training skills every time I encounter a new puppy to train. Tasks at work change, and you need training. Tastes change in readers as well as authors, and you may need to learn a whole new genre. Whatever it is, you can always use a refresher, to make sure your skills are up to snuff, and new training to up your game.

If you think you’re the top of your game, and can sit back, you’ve only fooled yourself. Get off that horse before you kill your career.

1. You’re not a writer until you’ve been published by a big name publisher, magazine or paper.

Anyone who writes is a writer. One of my fabulous undergraduate professors told my creative writing class this. It was an important message. Readers and writers alike get caught up in the gatekeeping. It only helps big publishers to maintain their stranglehold on the industry, narrowing the field of authors and thus limiting our art. Do you really want someone else choosing who you will read for you?

This is one of those areas where we start to see that we aren’t as free as we’d like to think that we are.

The only thing that becoming a published author changes is that you can say you had your work published by (insert flashy name here to impress others with), and have another arbitrary credential at your disposal. It’s not a bad thing, but if you aren’t published by gatekeepers, you’re still a writer, so long as you are still writing.

What are some of the misconceptions you’ve come across in creative writing? Drop an answer in the comments below.

What I Know To Be True – Open Book Blog Hop #53

June 20, 2016 By Captain Maiel 7 Comments

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

Topic #53

What I Know To Be True

Welcome back to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop! If you’re new to the series, the authors included are grateful for your reads and 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. Be prepared to become a regular reader.

It’s easy to say that what you know is true is subjective, but truth isn’t subjective. It is truth. Truth is an absolute. We don’t have to like it. It doesn’t have feelings. It’s a universal concept, not an entity or what not.

When I saw the writing prompt at the beginning of last week, I agreed to write on it, hoping that I would be able to come up with something in the meantime. It goes without saying that I’m as busy as a writer can be and the level of output I do is not lessening anytime soon. There simply is a lot of work to do as a writer. But, I don’t want to write about that. I don’t want to write on philosophical things either. Certainly, I don’t want to discuss the political in this particular article.

Philosophically, finding the truth and claiming to know truth are very touchy things. Does experience in life give you a vantage point from which to view and understand whatever you’re examining and arrive at some truth?

In some cases, I think that it does. Neither do you have to be a certain age or creed. The realization of truth comes upon you at any time. For instance, when I was a girl, I was on summer vacation, maybe about 10 or 12 years old. Laying on the couch, between dreamland and waking, I watched Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (1951). This animation is my favorite to this day (along with Cinderella, 1950). The artistry still moves me, as well as the stories.

While I watched, I was rather suddenly taken with the idea that one day, I would be dead—gone. I remember the initial panic threading through my heart at the thought. It felt like someone pulled a shroud over me from that moment forward. I regarded life with a fairly different lens, a darker lens.

The truth that we all die is about the only thing of which I am absolutely certain, regardless of how science seeks ways to make the inevitable a question mark. Even if science developed a therapy, it would not become available to average persons, and, the other truth I learned over the years, humanity would commit terrible crimes to keep things this way. As absolute as death is, humanity’s cruelty is also a given. No, the actions do not have to be committed by every human or even the majority to make this statement true. There will always be someone who wants to abuse other people, and then there will always be those they stir up to help them.

The awareness of a shrinking time table, or expiration date, on my life affected me in interesting ways. Not all are healthy, for sure. I am very driven to complete tasks in short order. This drive is a double-edged sword: keeping me on task but a great source for stress. Burning the proverbial candle at both ends has been written about quite frequently, so I don’t think I need to talk much about the repercussions there. It is enough to state that I’m probably stealing away time from myself by running at full throttle all the time.

Another affect: I suck down knowledge like alcoholics suck down beer. Hey, if there is a hereafter, your mind is all that is going with you, so I plan to pack it full. The research of the esoteric and occult are favorite hobbies of mine. Am I looking for answers to defy death? Not at all. Instead, I want to learn more about what it means—what comes next. I’m both skeptical of religion and skeptical of the idea it is an ultimate end. The complexity of the universe, the existence of our minds, and some other things tell me there is far more to our reality than we know.

That is fascinating to me! It may read a bit dark to others, but I rather think it’s put me in an interesting frame of mind from which to write. And, it really explains my Trailokya Trilogy.

Let’s hop on over and see what the other authors have to say on the topic of truth…

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Where Did Trailokya Come From? Open Book Blog Hop # 36

January 25, 2016 By Captain Maiel 8 Comments

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

Topic #36

Backstory from Your Novel: Why you wrote it. How did you settle on this story? How’d you come up with the main characters? Why did you choose the setting you did? What research did you have to do before you could start writing?

Where do I even begin. Let’s scratch the surface on my third, fourth and fifth books…The Trailokya Trilogy.

Trailokya has such an odd story behind it. Before I get started, it should be known that I am not a deeply religious person, and often consider myself an atheist or agnostic. That said, spirituality has been more attractive to me than any form of belief and keeps me in the camp of agnosticism most days. My rational mind, besides, demands that I don’t make up my mind that there is absolutely nothing simply because I have slim evidence to the contrary. I also do not trust human beings to be altruistic, but instead, as they have historically proven, conniving and fearful monsters, who make up things to leverage power and safety.

Since I can remember, I have always been a lucid dreamer. I don’t just have dreams, I have adventures. Most nights I go to sleep and the things I see put our amazing world to shame—a black and white film, albeit a great one, but still not the technicolor amazeballs adventure wonderland I see when I sleep. So, of course I am paying close attention. It’s what feeds my art and keeps me going through the workday.

Where Did Trailokya Come From? Open Book Blog Hop # 36

The Three Doors mock up detail.

As a child, I had my first encounter with what I call The Three Doors. Hold onto your assumptions. This wasn’t pick a prize, or choice between. Oh, no. They are so much more than that. They were gates to some other place, away from whatever bad turn the dream I was having took me. I’d run. Run into a classroom that harkened back to the first half of the 20th century. The dutch-doors would only half close, and the trove of little monsters trying to chew my limbs were close behind. Spotting another door, I made my way through. The hall became more modern. It went on forever, gray with a gray carpet flecked in blue and red and yellow, industrial carpet tiles you see in public buildings. I ran. The windows high on the wall, squares upon squares, let in a white light and the sounds of those impish pursuers grew distant, but persisted. They were still coming. At the end of the hall, there were the doors. I stared, but the sounds behind spurred me in a panic to the blue door. Always, it was the blue door.

The red door, concept art, featured on Book 1, The Shadow Soul.

Behind the blue door, rife with symbolism that I would only understand in coming years, lay a child’s bedroom. The key to escaping this half nightmare—read the poem on the desk: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Why that poem? I have no idea, still. I just new that if I recited it, I would wake up safe and sound at home and it was the only way back. Maybe there was some magic in the cadence. Someday, I am sure it will dawn on me what that means.

Years later, I’m a grown woman. I’ve had that dream at least five times before. I become lucid in another dream and I’m screwing around.

Nothing is chasing me, but I recognize the path of the dream, regardless. I excitedly tell my friends to come with me, so I can show them. My best friend is there, she’s been versed in my uncanny dreams, so this makes sense: I am telling people about this strange phenomena I experience. Leading them through the corridor, the classroom, to the doors. This time, I hold my breath. In past dreams the first door has always inspired the deepest trepidation. I know I am not yet prepared for all it holds for me, and the energy of that door is strong. I cannot just enter there and survive. It could destroy me if I force myself through. So, I eye the other doors. Oh, Blue door, my familiar lovely thing. But, in my heart, I know I have to move on

Argus and Shee, old dream friends. I have always loved canines.

from the safety you provided in years gone by. I try the green. The warm farmed hills scene beckons. Door #2. I try the knob, which was locked previously (yes, I tried it). And it opens. I find myself inside of a galley kitchen, and the wall at the back is incomplete, a white opening to something else about a foot high. I lie on the floor and peer through. It’s my old Junior High School. Disappointment washes over me as I panic. I know what this means. I’ve spent years taking these dreams seriously. After all the brain is quite capable of counseling itself. I was telling myself, or so I thought, that the way forward was going backward for a time. The panic crushed me as I accepted this fate in the dream. At the time, time was everything to me. I was in such a panic about time, like the white rabbit, careening blindly through the garden—I’m late, I’m late, I’m late. But my heartbreak and desire, my need to beat time, that was not going to win the day.

To this day, I have not arrived at the first door, the red door with flames in the window. The duality of meanings leave me unsettled. Could it be passion and energy and success; or would it be hell and destruction and loss? I have no idea what is behind it. I have no doubts I will visit this dream again when the time comes. It has been a long time since I have seen the doors.

In the time since starting the dreams and now, I have determined that the doors represent not only stages of life, but also correspond in meaning to chakras and states of being. I put that understanding of their symbolism to effective use in the third book and on the covers of all three (you’ll have to wait for summer 2016 and 2017 for books two and three). In fact, I use a lot of symbolism, so come prepared for some deep reading.

The Maps of Jahannam and Zion.

This is what I came to call a wraith. Oh, was that a fun dream about Me (as Maiel) and her brother Zach, connected to a series of ‘mission’ dreams.

These dreams and so many others helped frame my curiosity about our world. The brain is such a powerful machine. They helped me realize so many things: religion is a form of control put upon us by others and to reach any higher plane of existence, you have to move beyond this material and base desire. Buddhism was the only thing that welcomed dreaming, well, that and Native or Pagan faiths. But, unlike the latter two, Buddhism doesn’t bog you down with rigid lines of you must do this and that, or you’re a bad (insert faith name here), and the retribution of titan gods for not doing as told. Boy does humanity have a daddy complex!

I have a dragon tattoo on my root chakra to symbolize my journey from dogma the of man to enlightenment of the self. If you’ve ever seen the film Stigmata (1999), you’ll get what I mean here: the Kingdom of God is inside you, and all around you, not in mansions of wood and stone. Split a piece of wood…and I am there, lift a stone…and you will find me. Abandoning man’s church was one of the most freeing things I have done. God is a just an easy term to throw around to embody the higher something that likely catalyzed this whole thing we call life. Perhaps, we are it, and it is us, like so many philosophies propose. Yet, the separateness pervades in the realization: No. That’s not quite it. Is it?

You might ask why I abandoned the church (I was baptized Episcopalian, which is actually quite a reasonable church, despite being formed to provide Henry VIII with a divorce instead of letting him behead yet another wife)? I honestly believe that if evil lives anywhere on this earth that it is in the Church and other seats of power that men create. It shows in the way that individuals try to control other people. But, I digress. This journey is what helped to inform the meat of Trailokya. So many questions about the here, and if there is a hereafter what that is. I studied so many different theologies. I wanted answers about the dreams. The sense of there is more too it than my brain playing psychologist, just kept pushing. I soaked up topic after topic, wound them around and examined and tested them. They became a Rubik’s Cube. Of course I also think I have very nearly solved the puzzle, too! Oh, the arrogance of the human mind. At least I am not using this to claim power over others, like another might.

The tech of Trailokya uses nanotech and theory. For instance the penannular (pictured above) house the armor of duta when they’re not on duty.

What I had come up with was what framed the world of the Trailokya Trilogy. It remains quite personal, though it is out in the world. The work I present is only entertainment, though it might inspire deep thinking. Do what you will with it, because meanings will be different to each, though there may be similarities throughout.

With the frame set, I set about the details. My dreaming had continued, so the details in them are what populated the stories. At the time, as I was going through (I am still going through) all this dreaming and thinking and philosophy building, I didn’t think there was going to be a trilogy coming of it. Now, when I dream, and for a very long time I have realized in hindsight, I am Maiel. She’s the main character of the books. To be here is so comforting—she’s strong, nearly invincible, self assured—all the things I try to emulate in life. Yes, I dreamed her family as well. I dreamed of all the things you see in the books: the worlds and their people and how things actually are. It is a million times greater than the film we call life. But, I have always dreamed epic things that make the waking world quite plain.

Did you know OP-DEC: Operation Deceit started as a dream?

The Seven Planes. Click the image to learn more about these places.

Do I believe this is real? Who am I to say what is real and what is not. But I am not a lunatic. I won’t claim that I will be sprouting wings anytime soon, or that I am the hand of God sent her to punish mankind. Good lord, that would be ridiculous.

However, Philosophy, not mine, but accepted taught philosophy, teaches that our perspectives are quite limited, and our arrogance to think we know everything and that only what is visible and measurable and touchable is real—that limits our reality. The science of perception is an intriguing one, which goes into great detail of how little we actually perceive of the world around us, and that the brain constructs it and we don’t actually know what our world really looks like. Now, recently, Physicists are theorizing that our world is a hologram. Have you ever look at theoretical physics? It’s fascinating. For instance, Higgs Boson was supposed to be the God Particle. Well, it appears there is yet another particle beyond that. It seems we drill up or down and it’s infinite. But what does that mean? Hell if I know, but if we’re creating our own perception in the brain and reality is actually a hologram—whoa. Right? Most of what I’ve had to say mirrors the discoveries and science just keeps running along the edge of my story, which fascinates me. It also makes the story I’ve written quite powerful. I often feel that it came about by its own will, though no one has really put it all together in such a way before.

Check out the Trailokya Trilogy Soundtrack on Spotify and YouTube.

What are they called again? Duta?

What your body is in the Trailokya universe…A bio interface machine.

Having sensed a pattern, I wrote this story about Ultraterrestrials (beings that live in a parallel universe) and the interplay of our worlds to make sense of a lifetime of bizarre dreams that have been interconnected. The science that exists behind it (yes, it’s a science fiction fantasy), just keeps getting stronger—well, until one day when it blows it out of the water as a fairy tale. That said, my background in intertext and the various subjects of science, history and literature, etc, have fed something a lot larger than I ever imagined. I think that strengthens the story, that not all of this just came out of my mind alone. It was a melding of past and present ideas into some kind of workable form. For me, at least, it makes a hell of lot more sense than anything I have yet seen used to control the hearts and minds of others. And, why not? Those things are just literature, and the ramblings of men and women trying to make sense of a world they know has meaning beyond what is readily perceived by the senses of our mortal bodies. And they peppered it with a good dose of selfish leveraging. That part, I left out.

The First Twelve Pages of Trailokya explained in one easy diagram.

I like the idea of asking the questions, not being so set that you think you know all the answers. When you become so assured of what you know, then you stop looking. Being an atheist or a deeply religious person is the end story—where you believe that x, y and z frame the reality and there is nothing else. Yes, believe. That word isn’t owned by religion. Proofs, whatever we claim those are, make us believe something is true. Proof isn’t solely owned by science either. Belief and proof are nouns with shades of ideas—like truth. What is truth? Truth is what you believe based on what you claim is proof.

See, when the truth doesn’t bend, it breaks. Trailokya bends like elastic. The loose ties don’t bind every aspect of the creation, allowing for the anomalies that are inevitable. Science itself teaches us that it depends. A great many factors must be in a certain order or presence for certain results. Now, take probability and the infinite number of things and try to make orderly sense of all that can be and is. Good luck. What the hell is facts and truth in the face of insurmountable mountains of it depends?

We humans have only just scratched the surface of knowledge, barely even understanding ourselves. I laugh when someone tells me they know for certain what is what. Okay, have your way, it makes you comfortable. Sure, it is a fact under the parameters set—I won’t change them on you and throw a wrench in your security blanket.

Trailokya is an exercise in personal ideas and connections that resulted in one hell of a story. I hope to continue the series with other worlds and other tales in the future. Dogma will never be its heart. It is an adventure in the infinite probability of one person’s perception of disreality. I look forward to seeing more artwork inspired by my work.

“There is no doubt that fiction makes a better job of the truth.” – Doris Lessing

Let’s check out what some of the other authors have to say about their books. As you scroll down, please learn more about the wonderful British Author, Stevie Turner…

Stevie Turner hails from East Anglia, UK, and attributes the countryside of her home with giving her the inspiration to write. She has found her unique voice writing the kind of novels women like to read. To date she has self-published seven books, mainly dealing with the darker side of relationships and always a bit of humor. You can find details of her books on the website:

http://www.stevie-turner-author.co.uk/

Stevie is married, with two sons and three grandchildren. If she isn’t writing or working, then you’ll find her walking around her pretty country village.

Return to Stevie’s Blog.