Congrats to Lucy Regina!

My good friend and fellow author, Lucy Regina (this is a pen name), has finally republished her book, Seven Troubles!  I had the honor of being the editor and am very grateful to have been allowed to be a part of her publication.

To buy her book, click this link and follow the procedures: Buy Seven Troubles

To like her page and support her, click THIS link:  Lucy Regina's Facebook Page

Have a nice day!

~Katie

Demand Determinate Stories

In my Business Economics class, the teacher had us write paragraphs and use our vocab words.  She said that we could use them in a story...so of course, I did that.  It has two chapters and I am sharing them now.

Chapter One

In the kingdom of Demand lived a mighty king, who was constantly at war with the country of Supply.  King Demand issued a decree.  "We must rally together and demand more the Kingdom of Supply for less!"  This became known as "The Law of Demand".  

Queen Supply was not impressed and refused to lower her prices.  However, seeing as there were goods in the Kingdom of Demand that had knock-off brands, citizens of demand exercised what became known as the substitute effect.

The king suggested not buying as much of goods people could live without and those that participated demonstrated elastic demand.  Eventually, Queen Supply, who was the only one providing goods and King Demand came to an agreement and the citizens of each country were happy.

Chapter Two

Sadly, peace was not to last.  King Demand's Law of Demand remained, and though Queen Supply lowered her prices and also kept complements at decent prices, the Kingdom of Demand had several emergencies and their funds depleted.

Having no money, King Demand couldn't buy as much, because of his income.  This caused Demand to determine that he could only buy inferior goods for his country.  In the history books, they refer to it as a "Demand Determinant."  Eventually, the Kingdom of Demand got back on its feet and lived happily ever after.

~The End~

Fantastic News!

Great news!  I have finally finished my first author's edit of Sword of a Princess and have sent it off to the editor.  I eagerly await her completion.  In the meantime, I have four other books in dire need of editing.  The Division, No Man's Land, Adventure of a Lifetime and a still yet to be named book that I wrote during my first, and so far last, Nanowrimo.
~Katie

War Rant

So, today, I was hit with a book idea for yet another book in The Unnamed Chronicles series.  So far, I have The Unnamed Legend, Sword of a Princess, The Division, The Adopted, The Search, and this new book now, apparently!  The first three are in the correct order, but I'm unsure about the last three.  Sword of a Princess and The Division are finished, but for an author's edit, then sending to the editor, then another author read through to fix little things here and there.
Anyway, this book idea hit me and then a scene that is obviously near the middle of the book hit me even harder, so I frantically wrote it and yelled at people who were trying to get me to Skype, telling them they obviously did not love me, if they intended to make me quit writing while I was so extremely inspired...and...well...here it is:

            Axel grabbed Dalia in his arms and crushed her to himself, holding her tightly.

            “Axel….”  She said softly, and he let her pull back to look at his face.

            “What do you get out of this when you hold me like that?”

            He looked at her a moment, his dark eyes broken.  “Solidity.  Promise that what I’m doing is right.  Knowing what I’m fighting for, seeing who I’m fighting for.  I am fighting for you…for your mother…for a girl I don’t know…for little boys and girls who want their fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins to come home!”

            She lightly touched his black hair, “It seems so wrong though….”

            “Seems wrong?  It is wrong, Dalia!  It’s war!  War is wrong!  It is terrible!  Horrendous…gruesome…wrong…wrong…wrong...wrongwrongwrong!  I have seen things, Dalia!”  He grabbed her face and looked wildly into her eyes, “I have seen things no one, man, woman, girl, boy or animal should ever see!  I have done things no one should do!”

            He drew his dagger and held it before her, “I have taken this very weapon…and plunged it into the heart of a boy…maybe even younger than me….  Dalia…he has a family…he has a mother.  A father.  People who care about him.  And I killed him.  Why?  Because if I didn’t…he would kill me.

            “I see the horror in your eyes….  Do you know why I do this, Dalia?  Do you know why?”

            She shook her head, backing slightly away from him.

            “Because I want peace.”  He laughed bitterly, “Peace!  To get peace I have to kill or be killed!  But one thing I have learned since the beginning of this war…I will never get peace…but all I can hope is that by sacrificing my self peace…I can give peace to people like you…and your mother…and your children someday, because you will have children.  You will get married, you will have children…and hopefully they can be raised in a place that has peace.

            “Ulatora!  It’s known for its peace!  Anemonia?  Peaceful!  Gloris?  Peaceful!  Armitty?  Peaceful!  These places are all known for being peaceful!  Do you know what started this war, Dalia?  This thing that has taken both your father and mine, as well as my sanity?”

            Again, she shook her head.

            He laughed slightly, gritting his teeth.  “The Anemonian princess…daughter of Queen Luna and King Piar, Princess Angelina…she came to Ulatora one day, and met our dear Prince Antony, may he forever rest in peace.  They became great friends.  Very great.  And before she returned home, they slept together.”

            Dalia’s eyes widened, “But—”

            He held up a hand and continued, “They slept together and she became pregnant.  She was already betrothed to a knight in her country, imagine how that must have seemed!  Her brother, Prince Fredrik was so angry.  He wouldn’t listen to her when she said that it was as much her fault as Antony’s.  She tried to say that they could get married, and have an alliance in the kingdom.  No one listened to her.  Her brother came to Ulatora…peacefully and slit the throat of our prince.

            “Did he have a good reason?”  Axel shrugged, “I suppose it depends on who you ask.  All I know is that Prince Axel, for who I was named, was angry and demanded vengeance.  And that is what started this war.  Love or at least what two people thought was love, started a war fueled by hate.”  He laughed bitterly, “Ironic, isn’t it?”

            Dalia lightly touched his shoulder, “I’m sorry.”

            “Wanna know something else ironic?”

            “Um…sure.”

            “My name?  The name of our prince who started the fighting?  Our names mean ‘peace’.  Peace, Dalia!  Is this peace?  I joined the war to avenge my father!  I glorified the war.  I will never do so again.”

            Dalia wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close to her for a long time, as he clung to his piece of peace.

            When at last, they let go of each other, he desperately told her, “I just want the war to be over, Dalia.  I want to pursue the woman I love.  I want to start a family…in peace.  I don’t want my children to live in fear of their home being torched and burnt to the ground.  But unless this war ends…that will only be a dream…never a reality.

            “Dalia…the people we kill…they’re humans too.  Some of them feel the same way we do.  One Anemonian boy, we passed each other…and the way he looked at me mirrored the way my reflection does.  We paused a moment, then nodded and went on…neither one of us being injured by the other.

            “I wanted to be a poet and weave poems to make people cry with joy…poems to paint beauty and happiness…but now when I try to create poetry, it either falls flat or shows darkness, hate, pain, fire, blood…things I feel are a description of Hell….

            “I wanted to study under the masters.  I don’t think I could do that now, Dalia.”

            She pulled him back into an embrace once more.  “Once, an Anemonian woman came to visit…she was selling scarves and she told me about her god…and he seems good.  Sometimes I pray to him.  You should pray to him too…pray for him to give you peace.  I do that sometimes…and I always feel better.”

            “What’s her god’s name?”

            Dalia’s brow furrowed, “I asked that too.  She said that he has a lot of names, but you can just call him God.”

            “What are some of his names?”

            “Um…I think one was El Shaddai…something about God Almighty.  El Roi.  God Who Hears.  I don’t know.  There’s a lot.  And they mostly start with El.”

            “I’ll think about it.”  He told her, removing himself from her arms.  “I’m sorry for burdening you with my pain, Dalia…I don’t want you to know these horrors…I want you to always remain as your name says…gentle…which…”  he smiled a bit, “you’ve proven you can be a bit of a wild one, but you are always gentle with those you care for.  I want you to stay that way.  Not go charging out like I did and attempt revenge.”

            She nodded, and pushed his black hair out of his eyes.

            “I’m going to the woods for a bit, Dalia.  I love you.”

            Her mind kicked into overdrive as he walked away…he had never made any proclamations of love toward her before.  But quickly, she pushed those thoughts away, there was no reason to be having these thoughts during a war.

© 2015 Katie Holm

Journal of a Kitty

Completely unedited, enjoy.

So, today, I was just playing with my brothers and sisters while my mommy just watched from afar.  She doesn’t really play with us too much anymore, because we’re getting older and don’t need her as much.  I even eat more of the little round brown thingys than I used to and I don’t nurse as often!  But I still cuddle with her, so I’m okay with not nursing as much.

Something weird happened though.  Some new humans came over and there was this one human and she just picked me up and petted me.  I crawled on her shoulder and she laughed and called me a parrot.  Whatever.  I’m a cat.  But if she doesn’t know her animals, that’s not my fault.

She also held my brother, and she petted both of us.  A slightly bigger human held one of my other brothers and after awhile of this, the human holding me sat down on the couch, so of course I crawled onto the back of the couch.  She seemed kind of sad about it and kept picking me up to hold me.  Silly human, I want to explore!

Then the strangest thing about the entire evening happened!  She picked me up and carried me outside and got into a big strange looking thing.  She petted me and said soothing things, but I was too busy looking out of the windows of the weird thing we were both in.  I noticed that the bigger human I’d noticed before held one of my brothers.  He was more content to just sit and cuddle, but that’s okay.  I like exploring.

We got to this place I’d never been before and my brother and I got to play on the ground with new grass that we’d never seen before.  The human that held me kept saying something about a name and Poro and liking something called League and that’s why Poro.  I don’t know what all that’s about.

We met another cat there.  She was older than us and she was pretty, but she wasn’t very happy to see us, she kept hissing at us.  It scared me.  There was also a big black dog and he scared us a little bit too.

Then, the human that held me took both me and my brother upstairs and gave us food and water and showed us the litter box.  I wonder where humans pee and poop, because they don’t seem to have litter boxes….

~Little kitty, signing off.

©2015 Katie Holm

I've Made a Decision

I've decided to post some of my books, at least the unedited ones, at least some of the chapters on my blog.  I may or may not delete them or turn them to private after I've edited and published the book.  I just wanted to let you all know!
Thank you for your support!
~Katie

I Still Love Her

My stepdad has some nieces whose biological mother had Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome and when I looked it up to learn a bit more about it, I found out that the majority of children abused in this manner are preschool, though they are a few who are abused as old as 16.  So, I wrote a story about an older child going through this.  MBPS is when a caretaker of a child purposefully makes them sick.  And here's the story.

            I sat in the emergency room for the third time in two weeks.  My face and throat were swollen and it was hard for me to breathe.  I was sixteen at the time and my mother was at it again.  I’ve known since I was about thirteen that my mother suffers from Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome.  This means she makes me sick on purpose.  She’s done it ever since I was young.

            Why?  I honestly don’t know.  I know she had an abusive family and apparently that’s a common factor in most people with MBPS.  Why don’t I tell anyone?  It’s simple; I love my mother.  She loves me too.  I know she does.  She just doesn’t know how to show it.

            Once she slipped a little bit of bleach in my drink and when I was barfing it up at the emergency room I saw the look on her face.  Complete horror at what she’d done.  I also remember that when we got home she was crying and crying and saying, “I’m sorry, I’m so, so, sorry, Danny!”

            This time, she had given me a Nutella and peanut butter sandwich.  I’m allergic to peanut butter, which is why I always eat Nutella sandwiches.

            “Don’t tell!  Please, baby, just don’t tell!”  She pleaded with me, running her thin hands up and down my arm.  Her eyes were sunken deep into her eyes, her lips quivered and her thin frame shook.

            I had gotten to the point where I felt I had to tell someone.  Because of her MBPS, I was sickly and missed more days of school than I liked to, so, basically, I homeschooled myself.  It was kind of nice, because I’ve always been more introverted and when I was home alone, I could work ahead as much as I liked.  But I also wanted to make friends, which was something I couldn’t do at home puking out my guts.

            I was scared to tell anyone though.  She was basically abusing me, in fact, when I’d googled, ‘parents making children sick on purpose,’ I found out that it was a rare form of child abuse…and when parents abuse their children, these children are taken away and put in foster care, then the parents are put in prison.  I didn’t want foster care and I didn’t want my mother in prison.

            The pretty blonde nurse—my favorite—came and took me back to the room to give me the shot, shaking her head the entire time, “Mr. Bois, this is the third time in two weeks.  First you have trouble breathing, then that shellfish problem, and now you’ve eaten peanut butter.”  She continued shaking her head as I felt the swelling go down.  “How do you manage to do all this?”

            No, don’t ask me that!  I screamed.  Although I felt the need to tell someone what was going on, I wasn’t sure I actually wanted the option to tell on my mom.  I felt a sense of obligation to her.  She had fed me and clothed me since birth.  My father had been around for the first two years of my life, then bolted.  I have no memories of him.

            My hesitation made the nurse suspicious.  “Mr. Bois?  Are you alright?”

            “Do you know what Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome is?”

            She looked startled.  “I’ve heard of it, but I don’t remember what it is.  Why do you ask?  Do you know what it is?”

            “No, I just heard someone talking about it.”  The lie spilled from my lips before I had a chance to think about what I was saying.  I had become my mother.  She constantly lied to people.  Especially the ER.  There was one time she dropped my out a second story window, just I would break a bone, then said I’d leaned on the screen too hard and fallen out.

            “Oh?”  The nurse sat down on a stool and looked at me.  “Are you sure?”

            I shook my head slowly.

            “So you do know what it is?”  She raised her eyebrows at me and I nodded sheepishly.  “So, what is it?”

            “It’s a rare form of child abuse when the parent purposefully makes their child sick.”

            “Okay?”  She looked puzzled, until it registered what I had said, then her face registered shock.  “Oh.”  She lightly rested her hand on my arm, “How long has this been going on, Daniel?”

            I felt my forehead wrinkle as I tried to think about when it hadn’t been going on.  “I guess my whole life?”

            Her body went stiff and I worried I had upset her.  “Your whole life?”

            I nodded awkwardly and she got up and walked out.

            Crap.  Oh crap.  I thought.  She’s going to go ask my mom.  She won’t believe me.  I should have known better.  But instead she walked back in with a doctor, who asked me to repeat what I had already told the nurse.

            That night, I talked to several people.  Nurses, doctors, policemen…my mother.  There was a lot of crying going on, especially from my mother.  I just wanted to tell them to forget about it, that there was no reason to continue with this, my mother hadn’t done anything wrong, I made it all up for attention…but I didn’t.  I guess I was just sick of it all.  Sick of being sick for no reason.

            Of course, I was removed from my home.  I tried to tell them it would be okay, that I would be able to fend for myself, she wouldn’t make me sick on purpose again, but the cops didn’t believe me.  I honestly don’t blame them, because I didn’t believe myself either.

            “Daniel, how is your relationship with your mother?  Other than the MBPS?”  A friendly looking, red-haired, green eyed, policewoman had a legal pad open, pen poised, ready to write down anything I said.

            “I have the right to remain silent.”  I told her.  I didn’t want to incriminate my mother by accidentally saying something that would cause them to take me away for good.

            “Daniel,” the policewoman looked startled, “you aren’t the criminal here.”

            “Don’t call my mom that!”  I exploded.  “She’s not a bad person!  She just doesn’t know how to show her love, okay?  She does love me.  She’s a good mom.  She just has some flaws.”

            “Do you think good parents purposefully make their sons sick?”

            And of course, I hadn’t exercised my right to remain silent.  There was no way to answer her new question.

            “Have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome?”  She asked quietly.

            I narrowed my eyes at her.

            When she finally realized I wasn’t going to answer her, she flipped her legal pad shut and slipped her pen in her chest pocket.  “Stockholm Syndrome is—”

            “I know what it is.”  I interrupted her.

            “Oh?”

            “Yes.  It’s when someone who is captive feels feelings for their captor.  My mom loves me.  I know she does. I just know she doesn’t know exactly how to show it.  And she’s not my captor.  Don’t come in and act like you know all about my situation.  And don’t you dare write any of this down either.  If you expect me to talk to you about anything, all this needs to stay off of the records.”

            She sighed and sat down on a nearby bench.  “Alright.  I can do that.  On one condition?”

            “What’s that?”

            “Anything I tell you right now stays off of the records too.”

            I know I gave her a wary look before I gave a quick sharp nod of agreement.

            “I lost my virginity to my father when I was thirteen.”

            I gave her a startled look.

            “I know, my situation isn’t the same.  But I loved that man.  It wasn’t until two years later when I got pregnant with my own sibling and was forced to have an abortion, that I finally told someone.  I understand loving someone who abuses you, okay?  In that case, I was removed from my home and have had no communication with my father, who is now in prison since then.  I’m twenty-six.”

            “Where are you going with this?”  I asked suspiciously, concerned she was going to say I could never see my mother again.

            “In my case, being removed from my home and never seeing that man again was the best thing for me.  In your case, you will probably removed from the home for a short time and your mother will be taking psychological treatment.  I’ve spoken to your mother and she’s told me over and over that she loves you.  She seems to mean it.”

            “Then why can’t I just go home with her now?”

            “Because the fact remains the same—she abused you and we cannot take that lightly.  You will, however, most likely be placed back with her, providing the treatment she takes helps.”

            “I wish I’d never said anything.”  I muttered, scuffing the toe of my shoe on the concrete sidewalk.

            “I’m glad that you did.”  The policewoman put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed, “It will be okay, Daniel.”

            They let me see my mother before I was sent to my foster home and she wrapped her arms around me tightly in a hug.

            “I’m so sorry, Danny.  I’m so, so sorry.  Please forgive me, babe, please!”

            I squeezed her as tightly as I could, “I love you, Mama.  I love you.  Don’t worry about a thing.”

            I didn’t want to let go of her, but I finally did.  I sat in the back of a police car, and was escorted to an emergency foster care family.  The whole way there though, all I could think was, It’ll be okay, Mama, we’ll figure it out.  I’m so sorry, Mama.  Maybe she had abused me, but she was still my mom, and I still loved her.  I always had.  I always would.

©2015 Katie Holm