Tag Archives: artist

Prelim Insights on Book Creation…

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There is always more than enough to do with house, yard, my trusty schnauzer – Clover, correspondence, watching and interacting with my nine great-nieces and nephews, etc.

I’m between a major project (book writing) and next major project (book edit) – and it is a book heavy on my mind. Although it will probably be out Spring of 2013, I wanted to share my preliminary thoughts on this book.

It is titled Careful Flowers. I began writing it a couple years ago, and it is a story very dear to my heart. All an author’s writing becomes important, if not – how can it be important to the reader? As most writers know books of fiction become personal – and we think of them as family. Selecting a favorite is difficult. I’ve come to conclude that each of my endeavors is most loved when I’m writing or rereading it.

When the growing of CF began blossoming in my mind, I felt it was something very important that needed writing. As it began blooming, it took on its own meaning and messages. Uncertain if it would be of interest to my publishers, I wrote only fifty thousand words. But more was needed to be said.

I am so blessed! Blue Feather Books courageously takes chances on controversial material. With my last book, AWAS, Blue Feather Books published a romance about a senior Sapphic woman.

After submitting CF, I was encouraged by Blue Feather Books to write an additional fifteen-thousand words, expanding on my universal messages. They are bravely willing to publish controversy.

Fleur Hamilton is a botanist, is in a relationship, and finds crossroads before her. Life isn’t as simple as she had believed before she entered her fourth decade. For me, her story was written through my own obsession to detect and relay historical truths. Love, hatred, kindness, evil, and the decency of both forgiveness, and remembrance, became my starting point.

A manuscript that means so much to me was expanded to allow the flowering of my completed fictional treatise. Interweaved with the main character’s emotional journey, a tour of history is included. It takes her on an odyssey to discover both her personal past, as well as her unique humanity.

She locates her true past as she glances back into the unwrapping of her parent’s Hippie Era. She more importantly uncovers her beloved aunt’s understanding of both love and hatred, as the world of a Holocaust survivor unfolds. And as these two worlds converge, Fleur Hamilton locates herself.

________________________________________________________________________

If you’re interested in romantic fiction, please check out Appointment with a Smile by Kieran York. Books are available through www.bluefeatherbooks.com. Or order through Bella Books distribution for books or e-books. Books and Kindle e-books are also available through Amazon.

Please check out some of my other poetry in a collection called Wet Violets, Sappho’s Corner Poetry Series, Volume 2. Edited by Beth Mitchum. Books are available through http://www.ultravioletlove.com and Amazon.

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LOVER WOMAN

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I preface this poem with a message. “Lover Woman” is about someone in my past. 

I think it takes viewing the early days of a poet, to understand the updated version of poems. And so, I’m inserting a days-gone-by poem. I have also written another poem to this woman, which was included in Wet Violets, Sappho’s Corner Poetry Series, Volume 2. Edited by Beth Mitchum. The poem in Wet Violets is titled “Bluejean’s Youth Blues.”

It is one of many poems I’ve written for her over the years. It was self-delusional to have lent my heart to a Sapphic butterfly. Perhaps it better prepared me for understanding the relationship in which I am happily involved. .

The book I refer to in the final lines of this poem, is a book written, yet not published. I hope one day it will be. For knowing BlueJean, as with every brushing touch of life, impacted me. She is someone every woman who loves butterflies should know. She is indeed a lover woman.

I have been blessed in my lifetime to have known many wonderous women. In my past, yes.  And I’ve never been more blessed than I am at this very moment. 

For now, regressing –

LOVER WOMAN

BlueJean extracted my vow.
I was to write poetry by taking a direct line
through my heart and soul.
Then, I was to dedicate that trek to her.
The heart is a muscle
and the soul is perhaps softer than air.
What path was it through my beating sack of a heart?
What trail leads across my mystical, compartmentalized soul?
My lover woman’s description defied explanation, or excuses.
I’d witnessed some of her casualties with grumbles on their lips.
She’d left sad women in her wake.
Those poor left-behinds warned me with garbled, static messages.
Warnings told me to beware.
Rational inquiry didn’t help irrational decision.
There was the passion of her.
Her smiles deflected my doubt.
Caresses were not platonic.
We’d both maneuvered away from love’s clutch.
So taking a chance on a bad bet was a two-way gamble.
Answers came in mildly adequate proportions.
Depth, width, breath, and mystery were all visible.
Audible were her words, philosophies, and hidden gazes.
We pointed toward the skies and swore on constellations
we would remain within one another’s hemisphere.
Communication was from her skin to her soul.
She’d unlocked; then I unlocked.
Belonging was an exploration into sensory paradise.
We were both blatant transgressors in the land of love.
She taught me nothing is absolute.
We undressed; we occupied one another’s loneliness.
I’d believed in inertia.
We were saturated with our garbled thought’s best promise.
We believed, at least until morning when our star-ride ceased.
My Lover Woman’s previous Love Stats had come and gone.
That was little consolation for either of us.
However, I later wrote a book about her.
It was a love story of BlueJean and when I was part of a 1970s band.
The promised poetry would come later.
COPYRIGHT Kieran York
From BlueJean’s Sonnet

Please check out some of my other poetry in a collection called Wet Violets, Sappho’s’ Corner Poetry Series, Volume 2. Edited by Beth Mitchum. Books are available through http://.ultravioletlove.com and Amazon.

If you’re interested in romantic fiction, please check out Appointment with a Smile by Kieran York. Books are available through www.bluefeatherbooks.com. Or order through Bella Books distribution for books or e-books. Books and Kindle e-books are also available through amazon.

Writing Appointment with a Smile: First Glimmer – Senior Sapphic Sensual!

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Recently I received a review of my latest book, Appointment with a Smile. It made me consider my good fortune. All my reviews have been wonderfully supportive of my writing a romance about mature senior Sapphics.

Some writers are very nonchalant about reviews. I am no such thing. Are you kidding me? I devour them, memorize them. Absolutely. Good or bad, they’ve enlightened me, and assisted in forming my direction. And I appreciate each of them. Appointment with a Smile reviews were welcomed and embraced.

Earlier this week one review published, was written by Sage 320. And it beautifully encapsulated my message about women of a certain age. Love transcends increments of time. It just does.

So from where did my story about wrinklies (as my Brit friends would say), in their dotage years emanate? Well, I looked around at my own vibrant, intellectual, passionate friends. They have been enhanced by age, experience, and their zest for life.

Yet general fiction does not reflect them, nor does it cater to their quest to read about themselves. In fact, the aging Sapphic topic is shunned – as if  irrelevantly hidden.

The message is If you’re between fifty and death, get over the emotional lift of love. If you want to read about yourself in a romance book, locating one is tough. You’ll find empty bookshelves filled with nope. We aren’t sex in the city, or anywhere else. Our aisle in the bookstore is relegated to menopausal reading. How to identify, how to cope, how to – everything.

What about the equation of love? That other facet of our being?

Within my first glimmer was the desire to write about a woman of age, falling in love. My main character, Danielle O’Hara, is passionate about her art, yet stagnating in both painting and romance. Her own passion shriveled at the side of the road – like lost heart songs unsung by those of us over fifty.

My novel explores love’s remembrances, as well as the igniting of romance within Danielle’s aged soul. Is that so impossible to imagine?

For me, writing Appointment with a Smile was a compelling journey that required I take it. Mature adult, Sapphic romance category? Previously vacant, or nearly so – but I would add one more voice.

I began with the premise that the book must honestly concern itself with the myriad of events culminating a life’s span. Years, emotions, joys, losses, gather into each of our lifetimes. Some events overlap, some are deleted, but all have constructed the wonder of us.

I didn’t want to ignore, or minimize the obvious. Through the decades, losses become reminders. As life pulls aside of us, we may lose our sculpted goddess bodies, and perhaps youth’s glib attitude. But replacing that loss is the ability to dabble in new and exciting wonder, with a fresh perspective.

Age offers the magnificence of reexamination. It shows the overview. Affords a glance back. There is a subtle nudge to make sense of our life’s relevance. Achievements are glory. Mistakes are life’s tuition.

Writing Appointment with a Smile was cathartic. That was a bonus. My objective was to capture an artist’s soul. I wanted to spotlight the topic of Sapphic ageing . And the importance of love. And I hope with all my heart I did that. I want to believe this unusual love story will matter to the golden, matured Sapphic.

Perhaps women in other age brackets will read it. They might want to imagine the existence of romantic love in their futures. The expedition of love beyond fifty, sixty, and on, awaits.

Encountering romance – well, that miracle simply is ageless. Being receptive to love’s possibility – beyond priceless.

“Appointment with a Smile is not just for older readers. There are points here that can appeal to many ages. However, it was nice to read about life from a different perspective.” – Review by Lynn Pierce. Amazon. You can read the thoughtful review in it’s entirety here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2WWZMWV1ROXB0/ref=cm_cr_rev_detup_redir?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx7D6LJ16ZFVD4&cdPage=1&asin=1935627864&store=books&cdThread=Tx8JQCEPEAS7AN&newContentID=Mx82F67CN2HDDQ#Mx82F67CN2HDDQ