Fat Chance: Lament of a Transplanted Single

Before moving here, I never had to worry about what my friends thought of me. They knew me. Sometimes for 10 or 20 years--a few of them longer than that. And I was in relationships usually. Serial monogamist. So I didn't have to worry about the impression I made, or if I was going to get laid anytime soon, or whether there was someone to confide in, play with...now, it's all new. New State, new city, new people, and SINGLE, though not NEWLY SINGLE. Aside from a five month relationship, I've been single for what? 4 or 5 years? Add to this paradigm, the difficulties of being a small percentage of the population in several Identity markers, and being older, and it's a recipe for angst. Dating was never something I did much of, because I was always either in a relationship or leaving one to go into another.

I'm still puzzled by the dynamics of dating. Women will tell you things that aren't true--either because they think it's what you want to hear, or because they're not self-actualized enough to know what the truth is. And then they punish you later for behaving according to the information they gave. (like having a profile that portrays them as ready and open to finding love, going on 4 dates, saying point-blank they are attracted to you, postponing going out in favor of a kissfest in front of the fireplace, and then suddenly disappearing, only to pop back up with a Dear Jane note that they are simply not ready to date or have a relationship, like they thought). Or the shorter variation of that: they will behave as though they like you and they are enjoying a rapport with you and then just evaporate, like you were someone they just chatted with at a bus stop.

I had to start looking at how * I* responded to women in order to get some insight about why THEY respond in certain ways to me. I wanted to understand what they might be thinking. The edification wasn't always complete. But this is what happens for me. When I meet women. I might not be attracted physically, or not attracted personality- wise, or there's some other deal breaker. Or any combination of the three. Or,  rarely, I will meet a woman I am actually attracted to. Like a little giddy-crush-type attracted. Like being distracted by their lips when they talk, and wondering what it would be like to kiss them, sort of attracted. This is something new for me since moving here. i just can't recall the last time I met someone in my previous life I was actually chemically attracted to--strongly. Attractions were always predicated on concessions. "Ok, not attracted to her voice, but she has a nice smile" or "hate the way she's so butch, but she's sweet." or "She's got a drinking problem, but she makes me laugh." Stuff like that. When I say really attracted to, I mean, voice, lips, eyes, diction, hair, dress, personality, ethics, worldview, etc--the whole nine.

But when that happens, then the stressors begin--does she like me too? is she attracted to me? if she seems to like me, is she just pretending? Is she losing interest because I talk about writing too much? Because I have too much to say about too many things? Because she can sense my need for sex and intimacy and, ultimately a partner? Or is it just because I'm fat? I say fat, because that's how it feels. I am "overweight." But to me, it's fat. I don't have Body Dysmorphic Disorder.  When I look in the mirror I don't plunge into a depression and stick my finger down my throat or carve FAT in my arm with a pickle fork. I can appreciate when I look good aside from the weight. Sometimes I might say, "Oh, I'm having a good face day." And a few times, after checking my appearance in the mirror before a date, I'd say. "Okay. I'd date me." And I know if I ever could get the extra tonnage off, I'd be the first one to parade around in my underwear, or have no qualms about getting naked with a hottie, while the lights were still on in the room.

But fat is ugly. I don't like it on me, and I'm not attracted to it on others. Though, I must digress here and qualify that with this: I am also not attracted to skinny women. I like curves, softness. I don't want to feel like I need to wear a Michelin Man suit to keep from being impaled by a hip bone. And I could still be attracted to an overweight woman--and HAVE, more than once. I guess it's just about how she carries it and dresses, and whether she has other qualities that intrigue or attract me.  But I am disgusted by my own naked reflection, and that's not going to change until the reflection does.

I hear some people saying, "You should love yourself as you are, you're beautiful on the inside." bullshit. No one will ever see how beautiful you are on the inside until they can get past the outside. That's just how it works. it's a rare person who does not see or respond to the attraction-factor. it's hard-wired into the human brain. An evolutionary fact. Those who can be attracted to anyone might have an advantage when it comes to finding dates and partners, but then again, i wonder if that's actually a DEFECT...and besides, if I am with someone who can be attracted to anyone they like on "The inside", no matter what they look like, how does that make me feel special? "I love being with you Jae...or that crack whore over there. Either one, doesn't matter."

So, while I was too dense to appreciate the body I had when I was younger, I care that I don't have the body I want now --because I think that maybe that woman I've just met and enjoyed coffee or a glass of wine with is thinking "She's nice enough, but I'm not attracted to fat girls." 

And then I get mad and feel persecuted on some esoteric level because it took so many years for me to even be able to WALK again. (One previous girlfriend during one of those particularly trying disability binges even said she was embarrassed to be seen with me on those forearm crutches. I guess if you're going to be a Jerry's Kid, you better be really cute, and a KID. Her comment has never left my head, and I can still recall the profound anger and pain it caused me to be rejected for being disabled). 

So--the fat-thing-- It's not like I just sit in front of the TV 24/7 eating Twinkies and Chic-o-sticks. (though I love TV, Twinkies and Chic-o-sticks. One of my favorite meals is also biscuits and gravy, but I've had that once in the last two years.) I have done everything within my power to get all this extra weight off, to include dieting, food science, portion control, drinking gallons of water, and consuming any number of other supplements and pills and potions. But since I couldn't exercise for so many years due to injury andpain, I just could not lose weight. period. And even though I have a great deal of mobility and don't LOOK like I have limitations, I still do. Eating less never works for me. I just stay at one weight. (Overeating, though, will make me gain. Yay). I have one of those metabolisms that doesn't respond to starving or eating less.

 Looking back at my weight in the Army and when I was younger, I can see that the problem for me is, I don't get enough exercise as I did during those times--or enough of the right exercise. Because, while I can do way more than I used to, I can only do certain things without risking re-injury.  And I hate that with the red hot burning passion of a thousand suns. 

I went on a full-fledged exercise binge when I discovered i could play racquetball again. And then I started working out everyday on the Gazelle and lifting light hand weights, too. Then POP! Blew a disc. Cervical disc rupture. Herniated Disco --and it took 8 weeks of special treatments, pain meds, and being in bed 99% of the time, to heal that. And I had to do it all by myself with no one to help me. 

So, now, I do a lot of walking. I'm thrilled that I can walk 2 or 3 miles at a time, when not so many years ago, I couldn't walk 2 or 3 yards. Preferable to the Crutches, and the scooter before that, and the wheelchair before that, I assure you. Yet, all this walking doesn't seem to change my weight.

The upshot is, no one knows or cares about your physiological history or your challenges in the past, when they meet you for the first time. They only see the packaging. And while I try to make the package as attractive as possible, there's only so much I can do with this extra blubber and the effects of aging. I quit smoking tobacco and now use electronic (vapor) cigs; I use Apple Cider vinegar on my skin because it gives it a vibrant and healthy glow; I use a Derma-Wand device on it too--it's a home face-lift type thing; I take mega-vitamins and supplements in a shake everyday. I tan, I use coconut oil as a lotion, because it's natural and beneficial in many ways to skin and system; I wear makeup when I go out in public and always fix my hair, and wear nice jewelry. I always try to dress attractively too--especially if I'm meeting anyone for the first time.  As the saying goes, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. And while I don't consider myself a sow's ear, I still only have so much to work with. 

What I want--crave--is to find someone who will not only be attracted to me, but to whom I will also be attracted, and that we will enjoy a harmonious lifetime commitment filled with love and laughter and hope and purpose. 

And the voice in my head grunts, FAT chance.

Fat Chance: Lament of a Transplanted Single

The DNA of DNA

After completing a novel, I always arrive in this abstract place where I can't focus on anything right away. Some might construe this to be a type of recovery, a vacation from thinking; but in my case that wouldn't be accurate. I am unfamiliar with the experience of not thinking. And Recovery implies that something has been negatively altered in you. Writing always alters me in a positive way. 

What happens for me, is more like this: I have created something wonderful that took a long time, was sometimes difficult and even painful, but which has produced something beautiful. It's very much like childbirth. But then, there is the afterbirth (pardon the image). But there is a big mess to clean up. Things need to be wiped down, put back where they go and the room tidied up again. Except all this takes place in my head.

So I ruminate about that book, and several others, think about how it felt, wonder what might be the next thing I do from scratch, consider the possibilities of marketing, that I might want to read someone else's book now, and generally organize the scattered thoughts in my head into a functioning unit again. Once that happens, I can begin anew, to create something else.


~ DNA ~

At the heart of any novel, is the stuff of life. The details are what gives it its uniqueness. Often, the hardest parts about writing a full-length novel are those maddening details.

In my most recently completed book, Also Known As DNA, there was another level, in that it was a sequel. These were characters who already existed in my fictional world. I had to take them through another series of challenges, but also keep track of the facts that existed in the first book, to make sure it remained consistent in the second one. When you write a sequel, there is an amazing amount of detail that has to be recalled or accessed. You have to juggle those details together, and yet be able to separate them and not confuse them with each other.

There is also the usual attention to detail in the plot and character developments that are unfolding in the book you're writing.
Examples:

• That destroyed or lost cell phone in one chapter, cannot magically appear five chapters later.
• The camera someone has cannot have magically been transported into the hands of another character.They have to have made the exchange at some point. 
• That character who had three guns--they have to be accounted for later, when guns are being used.
• That character could not have been at Point A, when she was just at Point B a few minutes ago.

There are other myriad considerations as well. One of them has to do with the psychology of characters. For instance, the villains. There's a hair-thin line between creating sympathy for a character and creating understanding, while still loathing them. I was worried about that one. I wanted to show a theme throughout the story--how everyone can have bad parents and some people will deal with it well, and some people will become psychos, and this result depends on what's organically/ psychologically in place in that person, to begin with.

I don't want to excuse the bad behavior--but I do still explain how, if they were already unstable--experiences can be responded to understandably, but still in a messed up way --(in Character A) or the experiences distorted until the lie becomes the truth in their minds (in character B). 

Kahlil Gibran said, “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” My friend Emily C Jones said, "the rest of the quote is And the remaining 98% of sufferers are either dead or traumatized - hard to tell which is which from the massive amounts of scarring.  

[laughing] Fair enough.

~ HOW I BEGIN ~

When writing a new book, I will often start with whatever scene inspired me to write it in the first place. Then I will begin to write dialogue between the characters until I get a feel for them (or in the case of this sequel, until the reader gets a feel for them, since I already understand who they are. New characters, excepted). The story becomes largely a running dialogue, with very little description, unless it's some scene that comes to me later. I believe wholeheartedly in the ability of characters to tell you their story. I am often as surprised as a reader would be when a character says something. But what they choose to say, often guides the plot.

I will also use bits and pieces of notes I've taken about people and places, and filed away. One of these scenes I used in this book. I shared it with another writer-friend at the time i wrote that odd scene, and she said,"Who is that guy and why is he chasing her?"
"I don't know," I said.
"Well, what's the point of her climbing through that window?"
"I'm not sure," I answered.
"Then how do you know what you're writing about?"
"I don't."
That's the point. I knew that scene would be useful at some point in one of my books. 

I write organically, and I want to experience the story as it unfolds, so that I can enjoy it just as a reader would. That way, I have a clear idea of how it might affect the reader, by knowing how it is affecting me. And this method also insures that I will never tire of the process, or get bored with the story because I don't really know what's going to happen, or where it's all going to end. This doesn't mean i don't clean it up and make everything work in concert later, but I just save that for one of the editing passes.

On this book, I initially jumped ahead to a halfway point and wrote a few chapters and then ahead again, to the end. I actually got to the end of the book. I usually don't like that, because, as I said, I don't want to know what happens that quickly (though, having finished the book, the ending took place elsewhere and was slightly different, so it was still quite satisfying, even though i had an idea of what would happen. For this story, it was more about the journey than the end).

Writing to the end gave me only around 100 pages, and naturally that's not enough to make it a book--and it's tempting to say "maybe this is just a long story...or at best, a novella." But I know from experience that it only indicates I have not fleshed it out enough, haven't done the hard work. The story will fill out after I find all the right components to make that happen. I research and I use details about places and people that are largely authentic, as much as possible. In those researched details, more ideas usually emerge. For instance, I found a location, that quite by accident, had the same name as a meaningful word in the previous book. What I call a Happy Accident. And I used it, allowing the character to notice that synchronicity. I wrote about using Google maps when I write my books. There's a reason for that. I can get all the details I need for moving my characters around, and in the process, I gain grist for the creative mill. I trust that process because I've done it so many times.

So--the initial problem, after that first 100 pages, was that the first-person point of view was limiting the story. Somehow it worked for the first book, but this one seemed different. I still did not want to lose that POV, though, because it was such a integral part of the first book--that voice. That main character. So I used first-person with that main character, and when I needed to show the other characters without her in the scene, I would tell their story in third person omniscient, always cuing the reader by using a different chapter each time I did that. That opened the story up immensely, and solved the problem.

Then, I had to start looking for several things:

• were there enough characters to fill out the story? Did I need to add a few new ones? Yes. And I did.
• where are the gaps of time? When that character spoke of the two weeks that had gone by, I had to ask, what did she do during that time?
• How did the new characters interact with the main character, and what's their backstory?
• Can there be an unexpected alliance between two characters? What's that dynamic like?
• are there any Happy Accidents in the text just straining to be explored?

This is, of course, not the complete picture of what goes on in the process, but it is a portion of it.

~ AFTERGLOW ~
So, after I have completed a book, I am beset with a sensation of afterglow. I feel I have just had sex. Good sex. So far, I've copulated 15 times.

The DNA of DNA

Mystery Post-it

I've lamented my handwriting before. But it does tend to be a reappearing issue in decidedly aggravating ways. Like yesterday, i jotted down a note while i was talking to someone on the phone, because it was really important. Now, i don't know what that note says. I can read the number, and yes, i could call that number and try to jog my memory by listening to how they answer the phone, but I'm always afraid i'll call, and I'll just get Hello? And there I'll be: not knowing what to say, because i don't know who I'm calling, or why. All because of a coalition between my Swiss cheese memory and poor penwomanship. 

 
It would go something like this: 


"Hello?" the mystery number answers.
"Um...who is this?"
"Who is THIS?" he counters.
"I asked you first."
"Bob."
"Bob?" I say. "The guy in the commercials?"
"What?"
"Never mind."


Now sure, at that point, I could just opt for honesty, like I always do about nearly everything, but by then, I've embarrassed myself. And I wouldn't know how pertinent that would be, because I wouldn't know who this person was supposed to be to me--yet.



ADDENDUM (added later)
Sherlock that I am, i looked at my daybook again, and there, on the other side of the pen, was the clue. "Julie's Mechanic"--now, granted, it took me a moment to decipher the handwriting for THAT, too. But it reminded me what that number was. And then I could make out the text above the number as Chet's Automotive. --and the the word below, which was Broadway. The street it was on. Problem solved. But it will happen again, because no matter how many times i try to improve my handwriting, those muscles have just atrophied with the advent of the much faster and more legible keyboard.

Mystery Post-it

"Which one is your favorite?"

 

Whenever i come across someone new who finds out I'm an author, and they decide they want to read one of my novels, I ask them which one.  They inevitably respond with, "Well, which one is your favorite?"

This is a question that has no answer. My books are sort of like children--except for the fact that they don't get in trouble or embarrass me in Wal-Mart--but they are special and loved in their own way. I created them, I went through a process of "raising" them; struggle, joy, challenge, frustration, laughter....So if you ask me which is my favorite, I can't choose. I love them all equally for different reasons.

This situation also might have something to do with the fact that I don't write formula fiction, or one genre of fiction (Unless you count that there is always some mystery or unanswered question afoot in the story--but most stories have that or they wouldn't hold our interest). Genre specific writers like Koontz and King might not have this issue, because they generally stay within the parameters of one type of story (i.e., Horror, thriller, suspense). But i write in 14 genres. (Not that I have 14 different novels in 14 different genres, but this is to say that I write in many forms when I write). So I would have no idea what a person might like unless I know them well. And even then, it's a crap shoot. A potential reader, asking me this question would have to tell me what other authors they read, or what other genres or themes they enjoy most. Then, I can suggest one of mine.

They want mainstream, contemporary fiction with medical and/or legal content, with perhaps a killer on the loose? I would suggest Achilles Forjan. 

Mainstream contemporary fiction about families and relationships and secrets and struggle? Baggage.

A lesbian love story mixed in with a mystery and a female sleuth? Armchair Detective.

A quirky, humorous Southern Gothic kind of story with lesbians? Plethora.

A lesbian romance with a suspenseful edge? As You Were.

A highly erotic lesbian story of discovery and trust, that also has a plot and characters you can care about? Random Act of Blindness.

Yes, I have more stories about lesbians than I do about anything else, because, as they say, you write about what you know (though I often break that rule, because I want to learn something and so I learn it in order to write about it). But I also know that people are people and even straight people will find themselves or someone they know in those stories. If they don't, maybe they should get out more. And I do have a few other mainstream books on the way. So before long, there should be something for everyone. 

Just don't ask me which one is my favorite.

"Which one is your favorite?"

Sand Animation

We often hear people say "that's amazing" but this epitomizes the word. That something as simple as sand and light and human hands can create art so profound and breathtaking and emotive--it just defies description. You must treat yourself to this 8 minutes. It will be well spent.

Sand Animation

Jae, Singular, in Need of Plural

Being a full time writer has its advantages. 

I can work in my pajamas. 

I can eat when I want, go for a walk when I want, sleep when I want. 

But don't be fooled by this alleged freedom. There's always a trade-off in life. For me, the concessions are:

*a social life that flounders and dies if I don't keep after it, 

*a sometimes overwhelming loneliness, 

*a constant struggle to have enough money to do the things i really want to do, 

*a pervasive sense of unease when i put my work out there, but often don't know how it's being received. I am therefore grateful for the feedback I do get from my loyal readers. It's like manna.
*and I've found that potential romantic interests are intimidated by the fact that I've written 14 books, and decide they don't want to be involved with a writer, because of the stigma that writers are somehow depressed or insane.

Early on in this writing career of mine, when I was dealing with only one or two books, it was a snap. But now that I have written 14 books, I feel I am not only performing the job of 5 people, but taking on their workloads as well.  I have fallen behind on some things.

For instance, I finally have 10 of my books on Amazon, but four more that need a final proof and approval from me to join them--Strictly Academic, Crossing Paths,  Wear a Helmet, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being UNBEARABLE...

Then I've got to give some attention to marketing and posting articles on different sites to drum up traffic to my own sites. And there's the 5 or 6 or 7 other books I am working on, in various degrees of completion and attention.

Also Known As DNA, the sequel to Armchair Detective, is coming along nicely, now that I solved the POV issue and used both first-person and third-person to tell the story. I have about 274 pages on that one. Then I have to do an unknown number of line edits and other specific edits i do which requires me to go from start to finish each time. How many other people read the same book 50 times?

SIDEBAR: (okay MIDDLEBAR):: I think there's a major misconception about writers, in that the reading public imagines them typing and typing and then finally reaching the end, doing some revision and rewriting, and viola! They have written a book. I can't speak for other authors, but that's about as likely for me as drowning in the Caspian Sea while being sodomized by dolphins. (I apologize right now to all dolphins. I truly believe you are loving creatures who would never violate me in such a way, unless i asked.) My process involves quite a lot of reading the book front to back, because otherwise, you lose the flow and miss important things. More on my process later in another blog. But just suffice to say, writing a book is laborious and requires great dedication,if it's to be done correctly.

So, AKA-DNA will also need beefing up and several more passes of my attention, before sending the manuscript for printing the proof copy, which i will edit, and so will my Primary Proofer, Tanya Penny Gotcher. Then the revisions and corrections will be sent in again, and in another week or two, go live on Amazon.  I'm glad I'm sitting down--just talking about that makes me tired.

And then I have to decide which book is next. Maybe Somewhere Else...or Is It Just Me? (collaborative with Tanya)...or Another Justice....or Falling Through the Cracks...or Quintessence....or maybe FINALLY deciding how I'm going to handle my magnum opus, Supernatural Hypocrisy. That 600 page behemoth has to be tamed somehow.

I genuinely wish I could clone myself. I'd get SO MUCH done. And what could be better than the enjoyment of writing 5 or 6 books at once? I mean, using clones. I'm already writing 5 or 6 books at once, just little old singular me. Just Jae, singular, in need of Plural. And to make matters worse, I'm considering (again) starting a small press of my own. I have been doing all that anyway.

Jae, Singular, in Need of Plural

Excerpt from Somewhere Else

(book in progress)

~The Color of Confusion ~

Cornelius paused with vermilion loaded up on his brush, about to make a bold swath across the canvas, when he noticed Daelah. Placing the laden brush in his teeth, he reached down and readjusted the position of his wheelchair so he could see her better.
      At the end of the long corridor leading to the kitchen, she stood at the foot of the stairs, looking up at the ceiling, and down at her hands, and touching her own face.
      Cornelius frowned, a drop of vermilion free falling from the end of his brush onto a dried spot of cobalt blue on his sweats.
      A tapping grew louder and he twisted toward the back hallway leading out of the living room as Jubal made his way toward Cornelius, seated at his easel. Jubal moved the white-tipped cane back and forth in front of him. Tap. Tap. Tap, Tap.
     Cornelius took the brush from his mouth and caught his attention. "Psst!"
      Jubal paused, one hand on the saxophone dangling from a cord around his chalky neck, the other on the cane. His lifting of eyebrows at the sound made his wraparound sunglasses bob upward on his nose. "What?" he whispered back.
      Keeping his voice in a whisper, still, he said, "Have you noticed anything strange about Daelah today?"
"How would I notice anything about Daelah?" The blind man smirked.
      He swiped a hand down his face, to smooth his Van Dyke style goatee. "You know what I mean."
      "Well, yes. . ." He took a few steps forward, sliding the tip of the cane along the wood floor in front of him. "She smells different."
      "Smells different?"
      "Yeah."
      "New perfume?"
      "Nope. Individual, natural scent is different."
      "Okay, weirdness." Cornelius turned back to watch Daelah who was now reaching toward the ceiling, stretching like a cat, and moaning with pleasure.
      Jubal cocked his head toward her sounds. "What the hell is she doing? Playing with herself?"
      "Just stretching. . .but weird, like she's never stretched before. She seems to be enjoying it too much."
      Jubal took measured steps forward, made a left face, and then moved quietly down the hall, holding his cane against his chest. He paused not three feet behind her, and put the saxophone to his lips, blowing a rude honk at her.
      She jumped, stumbled against the wall and stared at him
      Feigning ignorance, he said, "Oh, is someone there?" He lifted his cane and swept it side to side, comically searching for her.
      In the living room threshold, Cornelius let out a humorous huff. His friend Jubal enjoyed playing the sightless eccentric all the way to the bone. He had embraced his disability with unusual flair.Daelah looked at the tall, angular blind man. Almost-flawless skin, paled from a lack of sunshine. She knew better than to say, who are you? She was aware of several things she suspected she should know at this point, but precisely who this blind man was, she wasn't sure about. "You scared me," she offered instead.
      "Oh. Sorry." He lowered the cane.
      "How can you sneak up like that when—"
      He knew she meant to add, when you're blind. "I have sonar like a dolphin. I can sense the walls and obstacles. . .I can feel the ions in the air, parting for my passage."
      "Right," came the snide remark a short distance behind Jubal.
      Cornelius rolled down the hall toward them and watched  Daelah lean out to see past Jubal toward the approaching wheelchair.
      Jubal cocked his head. "Are you okay, Daelah? You smell funny."
      "What?"
      "Huh?" he responded, just as confused about her misunderstanding as she was about his statement. She knew he had a keen sense of smell. The subject had come up many times before. She knew he noticed the minutiae most people missed.
      Daelah frowned again as the man in the wheelchair stopped beside the blind man. Jubal released his hold on the saxophone to sweep his hand at waist level, toward Cornelius, catching him in the face. "Oh, there you are," Jubal said.
      "Stop it!" Cornelius reprimanded him, slapping his hand away. His antics could be so aggravating.
      Addressing the still-baffled looking woman in front of him, Cornelius said, "You seem weird today, Daelah."
      "I do?"
      "Yes."
      "I. . ." She glanced to her right, up the staircase. "I think I'll go up and lie down for awhile." She turned and climbed the steps, showing interest in the photos on the stairway wall, and glancing back at them as if they were friendly house-spiders, but spiders, just the same.
      As she disappeared around the landing, the two men waited in silence for a moment, then Cornelius spun his chair and rolled back down the hallway toward the living room, the vermilion-loaded brush in his teeth again.
      Jubal followed him, and took a seat in a chair to play his sax.


      Upstairs, Daelah sank down on the edge of the bed. She rubbed her eyes and considered her own confusion.
      For the last few minutes, she had been trying to assimilate the volumes of information that had seemingly been downloaded into her brain. Everything from how to tie her shoes, to the relative merits of clean underwear.
      She was Daelah Murdock. She felt like herself. But something had changed. That much was clear, if only by the reaction of these two housemates. The blind man and the cripple. They seemed familiar, but she didn't know them, as odd as that contradiction was.
      Then, she recalled the dream that had played out in her mind just before she emerged from nocturnal bliss that morning.
      A glowing white essence, shaped somewhat like an elongated teardrop, had told her, telepathically, "Thank you." Daelah had no way of knowing what she, herself, looked like in the dream, but sensed she was also a glowing essence.  She had reached out to grasp the wrist that emerged from the glowing essence—a human wrist, that clenched her own in farewell.
      When the Teardrop Essence vanished, her dreamself noticed a tattoo on her inner forearm of a strange  symbol. Then she woke, and the tattoo was not on her skin, and she sat up to draw the symbol on the pad of paper on the nightstand. Then she had found the bathroom and hurried to look in the mirror, and was stunned by the sensation that the face looking back at her in the glass was not her own. Then she had not recognized the room, and had gone downstairs to look around.
      Now, frowning down at the paper, she sensed that the symbol was important, but wasn't quite sure why. The shape resembled an ankh, the universal symbol of eternal life, but it was like a blending of two ankhs, one upright, the other upside down, and joined at the stems.
      Daelah spent the next few hours roaming around the bedroom, seeking clues to her befuddlement. The bedspread was an aggravating shade of pink, and there was a pink dust ruffle made of lace around the bed. She hated it. Likewise, the matching horridly pink lampshade on the nightstand, had engendered more repulsion. Though the walls were a standard eggshell color, they were festooned with all things pink.
      This could not possibly be her own room, though she had awakened here. Peering down at herself, she  noticed she was wearing a hideous pink nightgown with lace around the collar. She pulled it off her like it was on fire, and hurried to the closet.
      Inside the wardrobe nook, her efforts to find more agreeable attire had met with a nightmarish array of pink, salmon, lavender, and fuchsia. The singular exception was a black T-Shirt, banished to the far end of the clothes rod. She turned it toward her to look at it. A depiction of a bread-like ring bejeweled with fruit and nuts graced the front, and below it in white letters was the word Fruitcake. No doubt this was a gift from someone with a sense of humor who was making a veiled suggestion about the pink-woman's mental status.
The Pink Woman. She had framed it as though the pink woman was not her. But it wasn't her. Yet here she was, being her.
      As she pulled the black fruitcake T-Shirt over her head, snatched a pair of jeans and pulled them on, and added some atrocious pink sneakers to her–no surprise—pink socks, she felt a little more like herself. Whoever that was.
      Emerging from the closet, she stood in the middle of the room and thought about it all. She wasn't herself. Couldn't be. What did that mean?
      Her trip downstairs a few minutes ago, did not garner her much information. The house was like a familiar place from long ago, yet almost erased from her memory. When the blind man and the cripple appeared,  things became even more confusing.
      Sitting back down on the bed, she listened for a moment to the blind man playing saxophone downstairs. She recognized the tune as Patsy Cline's "Crazy." It was a little crazy that she recognized the song, but not the guy who played it—a guy who obviously lived in her house. . .or she in his.
      She picked up the wretched pink purse, and pulled out the aggravating pink wallet. The driver's license read,

Daelah Murdock

72 North Tapioca

Cedar City, Utah.

Tapioca? Who the hell would live on a street called Tapioca? Was Pudding Circle all full-up? Daelah perused the license again. She was apparently female, and 36 years old.

  About the book:
A non-physical soul makes an agreement with another incarnated soul to take over her body. The Walk-in, perhaps too fearless, and too hungry for the pleasures of the flesh, discovers she has inherited the life of Daelah Murdock, a Mormon goody-two -shoes with a pathological attachment to the color pink. As a live-in caregiver for two men--one blind, the other wheelchair bound--Daelah's life seems bland and puerile. Yet someone is trying to kill her.
_____________________________________
Somewhere Else,  (c)Kelli Jae Baeli

Excerpt from Somewhere Else

New Review of my book RAOB

Review of Random Act of Blindness on weRead:

"I didn't want to put this book down, the characters had me hooked from the start, the erotica so real, I wanted to be there. Its not often I find a book that has me enthralled from beginning to end, Random Act of Blindness is one of the few. I am so looking forward to my next novel by Kelli Jae Baeli." 
~ Joanne Cincotta, Australia



Excerpts:
EXCERPTS:

Never, in all her days, had she imagined herself in a position like this. Vivid fantasies aside, Rachel had never considered acting on the impulses that invaded her thoughts throughout the day. They were private affairs stored only in some scurrilous recess of her mind. Yet her mind interacted with other minds, and often, there were fragments of information to be had in decidedly ironic ways. Doctor Bass, for instance, listened to her confession of the scandalous gearshift penetration mirage, and fantasy bondage scenarios and produced a copy of the bondage magazine. While not something Professor Rachel Leeds believed would qualify as a "literary device," it was nonetheless pivotal in the events in which she was now participating. Namely, being on her way to a hardware store to find something to use as a whip on the girl who lay naked and bound in hotel room number 66, the Mark-of-the-Almost-Beast.

Faith. To believe in things not yet seen, they say. Patrice was faithful a long time ago. Then she communed with the faithless, and their cloying demands. She needed evidence because it made her feel foolish. And faith was lost. But the bitterness left her cold, barefoot, detached from the warmth of love and connection. Then she discovered a different faith. One born of her own power, left untapped for eons, swirling, ebullient, joyful. And now, coming full circle, she found herself wholly unqualified, still, to manifest from faith alone. Yet, perfectly accustomed to crying alone, wishing alone. Hope did not float. It sat on the bottom, weighted by its own lie.

New Review of my book RAOB

Review of Achilles Forjan on Amazon

 

Fantastic review of one of my books on Amazon. 
Thank you Tanya Gotcher!!
click to see review
  

or if you want to stay on this page, read it here, at the bottom.


Author's note from Achilles Forjan:

This is my first attempt at a mainstream novel, and although I thought the challenge would lie in writing about only straight characters, I discovered that whether characters are straight or gay, they essentially live the same lives, face the same challenges, and have the same fears, joys and affections. The challenge was one of juggling details in what became a multi-genre work. This book taught me how to be a better writer.

Back Cover blurb:

A psychological exercise in suspense and mystery that captivates the reader with dynamic characters and sleight-of-hand clues covering a gamut of genres." ~Justice Harlow
Author of The Recipe, & Shall We Consummate?

Burlington, Vermont was a city known for its near-nonexistent murder rate. So when bodies begin to appear along with a mysterious note and a humiliating gesture from the killer, local authorities scramble to discover who is responsible.

A complicated series of events points to Amy Jane Spenser as the prime suspect. She is troubled by sleep deprivation and frequent memory lapses. Her job as a paramedic feeds her compulsion to help people, but ultimately only renders her a crippled witness to the human condition. Amy struggles with doubt over her own mysterious behavior, and is left with no alibi for any of the murders.

Her friend, Karma, uses her degree in Criminal Psychology and a gift for psychometry to search for clues to Amy's innocence, in spite of a persistent detective. The suspense builds as lives intertwine, and destinies dangle precariously over an abyss of secrets and suppositions, until nothing can ever be the same again.

Another great book by Kelli Jae Baeli!

This is the third of Ms. Baeli's books I've read and I plan to read more of them. She is an absolute MASTER of characterization! After I read her books, I catch myself wondering about the characters as if they were real people. And, no, this is not a sign I need to be in a mental ward somewhere; rather, it is a testament to how authentic her characters are. This authenticity extends to her plots as well. I can especially speak to the authenticity of the plot and characters in this particular book because I work in the emergency services field myself. This book in it's entirety, down to the smallest of details, is real enough to be based on people whom I know and work with daily.

One final big plus!... more often than not, I can guess "who done it" before the ending of a murder mystery and that just ruins the whole book for me. I also view it as a weakness in the writer's talent. However, not so in this gem of a psycho-thriller/murder mystery! I was totally and happily surprised! Reading this one was time well spent!

~Tanya Gotcher,
Little Rock, AR

Review of Achilles Forjan on Amazon