Kaia Bennett's Blog
June 2, 2024
A Quick Update on “When Dying Is Done�
For anyone still lurking around here and missed the FB updates:
First, I will definitely get to any comments here that I missed as I clean up and update the site. Thanks for your patience over the last few years.
Second, YES, I’m still writing! And have made a big dent in the final draft of “When Dying Is Done�. It’s hard to check in sometimes with just a roundabout “I promise it’s coming, promise I’m still around� kind of deal. And I don’t make promises about timelines because life is fickle and art even more so. But July is when I plan to have the final draft done and start the editing process. So there is, finally, good news to share about my pace for this book. It’s a big world I’ve created, and some very demanding characters and arcs in this story alone (why did I do this to myself?????).
The end of a story is always going to be the most demanding for me, as well. Sometimes the biggest issue is choosing a path among many to walk down when writing, one that feels real enough to let all the other options go without regrets. I’m on the chosen path, it’s just sharing the footsteps with you in chapter form. I’m ready to embrace the ending and let these characters go.
And I got the juice. lol. God, it feels good to have energy and have fun with writing again. It takes so much work that it needs to be fun, too.
I’ll be more active starting in June, I’ve got some admin stuff to clean up, comments and emails to catch up on. I do feel bad for falling off while some of you have been so kind about checking in and giving me such wonderful feedback about my work. Thank you for still being here, for buying, reviewing and sharing, and just generally being amazing. I am doing my best to thank you with a story that is worth the wait, and I hope to have the finished product out to you soon. I’ll be back with some music and inspiration for my current monster baby lol.
Much love to you all!
KB
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September 15, 2022
A Tentative Return
I looked up and years passed. Seems like the last decade has been been peppered with this pattern, though I have to admit this last time I figured I was done for good, in spite of the promises I made to myself and all of you to continue to write and share my work. How I managed to write even one book let alone several is a mystery to me sometimes�
It wasn’t the plan to disappear again, of course, but things and people took sinister turns I didn’t expect and I found myself no longer invested in the publishing world. I didn’t � or maybe couldn’t � write, unless it was for work, and I didn’t check social media. I actively avoided it, in fact.
Honestly, it just became a reminder of the things that would never be the same, and the faith many of us have probably lost for people and institutions that don’t have our best interests at heart. Learning to let go when you realize you’ve been witnessing a lie � like we have this year when it comes to the right to choose, or when seeing the abysmal response to people suffering from the pandemic, even today � is hard. Finding things and people that are authentic in the face of all that loss and hardship is harder still.
And I, personally, felt inauthentic as I struggled to produce something that maybe was technically good, but didn’t feel *right*, just so I could say I completed it and put it out there. Kudos to those who managed to thrive creatively the last few years. I suspect it hasn’t been easy for any of us regardless of whether we’re thriving or not.
I mourned some losses and allowed space for some disillusion about this business, about art, about people, and about the state of the world. Things changed. I changed, definitely for the better. Change is the only constant, and I hope that I continue that pattern of getting better, at least. Getting better, becoming more savvy even as I become more optimistic. That’s what I’m grateful for most, that I’m here and learning and growing in my craft and as a person.
So, change. And quiet. And day to day. And then, I woke up a few weeks ago and I was thinking about my work again. Jesse and Evie kept popping up. I spoke with a fellow writer friend about spirituality and witchcraft and editing and politics, and I found myself mulling over years worth of world building and lore again. I have ideas again. I listen to music and get inspired in quiet moments again. I go to concerts and travel and cook and laugh, and in between those moments, my characters pop up to say a proverbial “hello� and let me know they’re waiting to see what happens to them next, just like all of you have been.I thought I was done, but now I think I was just done chasing an idea of the story instead of writing it. I’ve lived a lot of life and now I wonder how I can put that in writing. I’d like to finish Evie’s story. I’d like to see what happens next, too.
It may have taken me a much longer time to get “When Dying Is Done� out than I thought, and a lot of heartbreak as I struggled to let the story and myself transition in ways that made sense � but the struggle gave way to movement. I’m working on it and I won’t make promises about when it will come out. Just that I believe it will at some point. I don’t think we will see another 2 years pass without it. Hopefully it will be worth the wait. I’m ready to close out that story, and that chapter of my life, and see what’s next.
I won’t be on social media a lot. In fact, I plan to transition away from it and focus on my blog when I have the time. It’s better for how I work and the life I’m living now to check in for updates and musings, and then go back to my adventures offline. But I will endeavor to be forthcoming about my progress and to eventually answer emails and messages and comments. I’ll find a balance again and let my creativity take me where it takes me. I’ll try not to shut down and shut out those of you who have been so kind, gracious and patient because you love my stories.
I look forward to glancing up one day and having something to share, just for the love of sharing it. I hope when I do share, it’s work that makes you think, makes you feel, and gives you a journey you don’t easily forget� and perhaps return to with fondness.
That would be nice, and more than enough.
Much love, gratitude, and health to you all,
KB
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July 29, 2018
Virtue, Vice, and A Nearly Done Draft
Virtue, vice, and everything nice in the form of a nearly done draft. We’re not there yet, but I’ve stopped scrapping whole scenes. I’ve stopped doubting my trajectory and feeling like I’m wasting time. More days than not I smile because maybe When Dying Is Done could be something beautiful. I can finally hand it off to my editor in August.
Sometimes writing feels like a vice when there is so much going on in the world, so many other responsibilities and realities competing for time and focus. Unless you’re one of the lucky few who can afford to do this full-time, you can sometimes find yourself asking what the point is. Why bother? I always find the answer to that question in the work. I bother because I’m compelled to, because I’m a writer no matter what. Even if it can’t sustain me on it’s own just yet, this is my chosen profession.
A couple of days ago I saw this tweet and man did it come at the right time.
It’s something every writer learns eventually. No matter what you do, no matter how well you think you walk the tightrope, the work put into characterization, research, editing, laying trails and tightening threads, the only constant is miscommunication. Why bother when some just won’t get what you were trying to do? Why bother when the book can’t be as perfect as your imagination? Because you’re compelled to write. Because you understand what you’re trying to do, and it’s practice to do even better next time. To get it right in a way that feels right to you, even if you fall a bit short, is better than never trying at all. If you don’t quit, there’s always another chance to ask the question, “Why do I even bother?� and answer it during the journey that is your next piece.
Translating what’s in your mind onto the page means some things will get lost along the way. Go figure. It’s an art dedicated to communicating, to illuminating our thoughts. But what is communicated and illuminated once the text is out there depends on the reader. They won’t always understand or see where you’re going� but I think that’s the beauty of it. It’s not a given. Some will see where you were going and what you tried to do. Some will see things you didn’t see yourself as you were writing the story.
I’m fine with any of these outcomes for the reader. I’m more interested in controlling myself than the responses to my work. What vexes me now is time, patience, keeping the secrets I’ve been holding close to my chest. You see, aside from The Fifth Day, Shivers and Sins is the only story I’ve published to date that hasn’t been written as a free serial for an audience first. The longest I’ve had to wait for people to see me play my hand before this was a few months, and that includes writers block when I was writing what would be the final book of Loose Ends. The benefit is that I can take my time and do this right before anyone ever sets eyes on it. The excerpts are unedited and so subject to change. It’s a bit harder to edit when the story is set in stone, though. There are things I might have done differently with my previous works if they weren’t already set in readers� minds as free serials.
Patience is a virtue, but I’m writing about sin, lol. Some days they don’t really mix. Yet, when you’re writing a book like When Dying Is Done, they at least have to be acquainted. The longer it takes to smooth out the rough edges of this book, the more I have to channel the virtue I’ve been at war with my whole life. My mom will tell you, patience is not my virtue. There’s a lot I want to fit into this book, and yes, it will be long. It’ll be long in part because I have to end this arc solidly, and it’ll be long in part because it has to set up new stories going forward in this series.
Sometimes the hardest part is staying the course in the face of reader expectations. Or rather, in spite of them. Some people think they have Jesse pegged for example, because he spent Doing It To Death cursed and navigating his world and his life through the lens of that curse. It’s the same for Die By the Drop. Some thought it was all misery with no discernible destination. Sex, violence, death, rape, torture, death, road trip. A few twists and turns. The end. That was just the beginning for me.
Patience.
So if you’re out there writing and you’re trying to figure out what the hell you’re doing, you’re not alone. Give yourself time to answer your own question. Because there are days when writing feels like rubbing a cheese grater against my brain. There are days when I’m blocked and have to journal myself out of a hole, which takes time. There are days when it’s all flowing so smooth I wanna name my WIP Butter. There are days when I want to scream, “I have a brilliant fucking idea!� to the world, but instead I just gotta write it down. And oh, how it hurts when I hit that high and the next day the high is gone. It’s like seeing sunlight in the eye of a storm. I know just what I’m missing as I’m driven back into chaos.
This time last year I was spinning my wheels. Today I know for a fact that the story I’m writing will be better than I ever thought possible. There are just some things I would not have stumbled upon if it was done months ago like I planned. Threads I didn’t know I’d laid in the first two books are staring me in the face now. But I needed time to get here. I needed to trust myself, and think it was pointless some days, and then say “fuck that noise� and write a scene.
I’m about a three-quarters of the way through this draft. I’m writing an Evie and a Jesse that are true to the vision I had for this series about life, death, pain, and transformation. I’m writing characters that I don’t think anyone knows, including myself, because they are unraveling in front of me. My goal is to finish what I started and start again. Not to make you understand. That’s just a hope of mine, a wish.
So. August. That’s when the draft gets done and turned over to my editor. From there she’ll let me know if it’s shit, lol. The last few days I’ve drifted between thinking it’s gonna be magic to thinking, “Why the fuck do I bother?� But I’ll figure it out with a bit of patience and some understanding. The answer is in The End.
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July 1, 2018
When Dying Is Done Excerpt #2
Welp, it’s been a while so I figured a decent sized excerpt was in order. This is unedited, so please excuse any typos. I’ll try and catch them if I see them after I hit publish.
Writing is going reallly well! I’d like to keep you guys in the loop more this month and hopefully I’ll have good news soon about my progress. Thanks and hope you enjoy!
***
My dreams and memories, the hidden spaces in my mind� something delicate, like several thin fingers, rifled through those secrets like a filing cabinet. Like a bandit in a hurry before a security guard caught onto the theft.
Distraction. I need to distract whatever it is that’s rummaging through my head. This is my dream.
Mine!
I slapped Jesse’s frozen face.
The shower shifted, morphing into the old fashioned one we’d used in the hidden apartment in the New York library. And with that realization came all the intensity of the moment we’d shared. His thigh spread my legs as I thrust my pussy against the corded muscles there, straining for release. I moaned and the sound parted my lips, lips already bruised from kissing him.
But you hate him. He killed you. He raped you. How can you�
“E?�
As if waking from a deep sleep Jesse pulled away from our kiss and opened his eyes. He blinked several times before his human eyes gained focus. A slight tilt of his head, his gaze running back and forth over my face.
This wasn’t the memory of him now. Somehow the real him had emerged from the dream. He’d been taken from me, surrendered himself for my crime. And yet here and now, he stood before me in defiance of that separation.
This isn’t just a dream after all. What is this place? How can he be here?
Jesse could see me and feel me, and I could sense him waking to the truth hidden within the dream. My empathy sweetened the moment for us, freeing him from being the frozen thing that had halted my escape from this place. I grinned so wide my lips hurt, and then I pressed that smile against his frowning mouth, pulling him closer, wrapping my arms around him and sliding my tongue deep into his mouth.
Real. As real as a dream could be, as real as when we found ourselves face to face with his witch mother centuries before. Dreams for a witch could be strange after all. Maybe this was the power of our bond stretching across time and space to reunite us.
“Evie…� He returned my kiss with a groan of relief and hunger. Finally, finally, wrapped his arms around me. He crushed my body against his and took what I gave. His hold hurt, but I felt anchored by the pain and savored the bruising intensity even as I winced.
My fangs lengthened and I tasted blood, his and mine. I tasted venom. I reached down between our bodies and grasped his cock in my hand. His answering growl almost made me come.
I had him in my arms. His towering height, his solid muscle. The curtain of his long, dark hair clung to me like his smell. I dug my nails into his arms when he drove his fangs into my throat, clawed his back through the silken strands. The air filled with the sweet perfume of his blood. When I opened my eyes to blink away the tears, a mist of red had replaced the clear water of the shower. Blood soaked passion had replaced the cool, clean escape.
I’ll never be clean. I’ll always be the mess you made�
How can you love him?
His body tense against mine, and I knew he’d heard the voice too. Not mine, but the stranger, the one who couldn’t understand how I could’ve chosen such a beast as a mate. The one who questioned if I’d really chosen at all.
Jesse growled against my throat and pulled free. No trace of passion or hunger now. He’d loosed a predator’s growl for the benefit of an enemy I couldn’t see, only sense.
He shoved me and I hissed when my back connected with the opposite wall of the shower. As if catapulting into glass, I felt a piece of the dream shatter against my spine. Somewhere beyond this strange mental trap, the throb of real pain, my real body, beckoned.
My mate’s eyes, black with vampiric hunger, stared at me with confusion. His brow furrowed and his chest heaved. He wrung his hard cock with one hand the way he did when trying to ease the ache. His stare covered the length of my naked body and he squeezed himself with a sharp inhale. Still, he didn’t approach. He didn’t motion for me to come closer.
He bared his fangs at me instead. Like I’d become the kill.
“You’re not real.� The sneer he leveled at me made my shoulders fold in on themselves.
This is just a dream.
I tried to reassure myself. The last time he’d looked at me, at anyone like this, he’d been planning how to break them before killing them.
I felt like I’d emotionally regressed. Time rewound and I’d become the girl in that first motel again. All that fear, all that anguish. Staring into the face of a killer and knowing I’d be the thing he killed if I didn’t figure out how to survive.
How can you love him?
Yes. How could I love him? I stared down at the bottom of the tub and saw blood rising around my ankles.
He forced you to watch while his brothers raped and killed an innocent girl.
I slammed my eyes shut, trying to shake the images of that first night from my mind.
He made you come for him while you witnessed the horror. While you felt everything. He said you were powerless. You were his. And he proved it over and over.
How can you love him, Evie?
Show me�
The sinister command in that toneless voice rattled me. I felt whatever control I had of this dream slip through my fingers, bleed like wine on white cloth. Bleed into Jesse the way my thoughts used to bleed into his. Only this wasn’t an accident. This had to be the stranger tugging me further and further away from escape.
Jesse lifted his head as if he could see a sky beyond the celling of the shower. Gray mists loomed above us. Blood rose up to my knees. My thighs.
“I know she’s not real you fucking bitch!� The boom of his voice echoed off the shower walls and sent me scrambling for the corner. I slid to the floor, wrapping my arms around my knees and sank under the rising tide of blood to hide�
Only to find myself in a white room splashed with red. Blood painted the walls, blood covered my naked body. A torture chamber. Or a mating chamber for a vampire queen and the heir to an empire.
“That the best you can do!� Jesse paced before me and stared up at the ceiling, still talking to the stranger controlling this world. Naked and covered in wounds from the torture he’d endured for my sake. We made quite the matching pair, streaked in blood and trapped in a white room.
Vaughn wasn’t here to terrorize me this time. Nor Altani. Nothing driving us apart, and yet I couldn’t get him to see me anymore. We weren’t in this together.
No� that’s not true. There’s something tying you together, alright�
The voice startled Jesse and I at the same time. Jesse’s eyes darted to me. To the area obscured by my drawn in knees.
My belly.
Before I could even think about the conflicting emotions our child conjured in me, Jesse sprinted and closed the distance between us.
He snatched me up by neck. I screamed as he held me against the wall, my feet dangling well above the floor. The glint of something shiny captured my peripheral vision.
Knife.
“No! Jesse, please!�
I gasped at the pain as he stabbed me in the womb, digging and twisting the knife as if rooting out a seed buried in the earth.
“S-stop!� I could only croak out the words as he stabbed me again. And again.
He released me and I collapsed into a heap at his feet cradling my stomach and sobbing.
“Ah. I see now.�
Jesse’s voice. But something sounded off.
None of Jesse’s panic came through in the calm, measured tones. Something behind the richness of his baritone made my blood curdle. “That’s the answer I was looking for.�
I looked up just as Jesse crouched in front of me. Our gazes were level as I sat up and scooted into yet another corner.
The thing wearing Jesse’s skin assessed me for a moment, then turned his attention to the bloody knife in his hand. “Sometimes in dreams, up is down. Sometimes left is right. And sometimes, we attack what we want to protect the most…�
He twisted the handle between thumb and fingers, sniffed the blade and then licked the length.
“You’re not Jesse.�
The creature wearing my mate’s form stared at me. Like a kaleidoscope, Jesse’s onyx eyes melted into glittering white, from the corners to the center, burying any semblance of my mate’s true gaze. The effect made me shudder. Someone watched him through his eyes, someone else. Something else.
A voice answered my question through Jesse’s, echoing just under his rich baritone. “He is him and I am me.� The stranger tipped the knife to their left and then to their right, pantomiming the separation.
This blade wasn’t like the shiny thing I’d glimpsed before he stabbed me, a knife that had been reminiscent of Vaughn’s favorite toy. This knife had an obsidian blade, like the one Masilda had used in the first rite at Allamuchy. Even in my tortured state, I could admire the beauty, the symmetry, the sheen of the weapon. So unlike that primordial knife Masilda had used in her ceremony. Perhaps this knife didn’t vibrate with as much power and history as Masilda’s, but that didn’t stop me from shaking with fear. I’d felt the bite of that blade and it didn’t tickle.
“How could you love a thing like him?� The stranger spun the knife around by the base of the handle using the tips of his fingers. Slowly. “How could he love something he’s bred to kill? It didn’t make sense until I took a step back and let you both touch the threads. A baby. You’re pretending to love each other because of a bond and series of perfect accidents. Threads connecting. A pretty lie.�
I might as well have been in another room. The stranger seemed to be talking to himself now, puzzling out pieces of the story he’d gathered from my joint dream with Jesse.
No. It’s not a lie. It’s real.
“A lovely abomination is what you two are.� I stared at Jesse, hoping to find the real him within the possession. I thought maybe I saw something swimming in the depths of his gaze. “Nature’s perfect ruse.�
“It’s not a lie.� I swiped away tears at the stranger’s words.
Fear stirred my insides like a straw and not for the first time I wondered if the stranger’s words were true. My mate bond. This baby. My life. From childhood to now, my life had been a series of painful mistakes I’d tried to right, messes I’d never be able to scrub clean.
I only wanted to make the best of the worst life had to offer.
A lie could help me see everything in a prettier light. A lie could help me believe I loved Jesse, that I wanted this baby, that if I found him we could have something like happiness together. That I could keep my family safe.
I could be more than a killer.
Yes. A brutal, bloody happiness built on cruelty and the suffering of others. I always have been selfish after all. Why not breed and bring another killer into the world and put the cherry on top. And to think, Masilda said I could still be a good person.
My dream body processed the sting of something lost, something I’d been clinging to. But when I looked down the wounds to my belly had disappeared. Instead I saw a silken thread, so thin and iridescent I might have imagined the thing. The length trembled from my womb to the knife the stranger held with Jesse’s large hand. Spinning the knife. Drawing the thread tauter with each measured turned. The thread seemed to disappear into thin air at times, only to shimmer again where the light touched, like dashes written in the sky with glittering ink.
“Who are you?�
Something sinister hidden inside his body smiled with Jesse’s lips. “You shouldn’t be able to see me unless I want you to. But I think we’re well past what should and shouldn’t be possible. I want to meet you. In the real world, where I have your mate. He’s waiting for you, Evie. He wants to see you. Will you leave him to face his punishment alone? Or will you come and offer up something they want more?�
Leverage. Whoever you are, you want leverage.
The baby.
I shuddered. And Jesse’s eyes widened and turned black in an instant. He broke the intruders hold, then jerked the knife hard, until the thread snapped, no longer stretching from my womb to the blade. The clatter of obsidian on the white tile of the floor echoed like a clock chiming midnight.
Jesse shoved his palms into his eyes so quickly I startled. Groaning he shook his head.
“Don’t say another word! Don’t tell me where you are and don’t let me see you go. You have to leave!�
“Jesse, what’s going on? Where are you? Tell me where you are so I can find you—�
Jesse reached one hand out, his eyes still jammed shut, and covered my mouth to silence me. Between us, I saw the faintest, thinnest string buried inside his hand, rising up just like the thread that had extended from the intruder’s blade. Taut and stretching into the sky, the string disappeared into mists swirling above our heads. I couldn’t see where the string led, but I thought of marionettes. I thought of insects buzzing, trapped on the sticky gossamer lines of a web.
“Don’t come here, Evie. Whatever you do, don’t come here! I can’t protect you and she knows too much now.�
Before I could ask another question, Jesse shoved me and I propelled away from him, floating out of the white room, out into the pitch black endlessness I’d arrived in at the start of my dream. Jesse seemed to be at the end of a long corridor, growing farther away by the second. Only the white light of the room, straining thinner and thinner, connected us.
I reached out for Jesse. I called out for him. He turned his back to me and the hallway disappeared as a door of solid shadow slammed shut. A ring of light surround the door, a symbol that our bond hadn’t been extinguished. But I no longer had access to him. He’d blocked me out of his mind again. I floated alone in the abyss, cut off from him. But also cut off from the sinister presence that had infiltrated his mind, his dreams.
A witch. I know she’s a witch.
A witch unlike any I’d every seen before. She played with dreams like putty.
But she’s not infallible. Jesse, wherever he is, was able to fight her at least a little.
“J.�
My spine crashed against a wall of water and I sank into a vertical ocean. Drowning, spiraling. Down became up. Water, my nemesis and savior, cradled me even as my lungs flooded with death.
I have to wake up now. I have to wake up.
Sunlight beamed down on me as I floated up to the surface of the water. Light so bright that gold had been replaced by blistering white heat.
I shielded my eyes with a forearm as the brightness intensified. Nearly blind, nearly to the surface. I squinted, and all around me saw the glistening gossamer threads of a spider’s web covering the surface of the water. I swiped them away, thinking of the strange witch and Jesse’s warning. I lashed out wildly, struggling to break through the dream, to stop drowning in this prison of the mind, and as I did a surge of excruciating pain vibrated from my shoulder.
My wounded shoulder. That’s right. My real body, the fight�
Goodbye, Evie. I look forward to meeting you.
Reality finally claimed me before I had time to worry that the witch had followed me there.
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May 22, 2018
Drama: I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means
If you’ve been around indie publishing as a reader or an author for longer than a minute, you’ve seen the phrase “drama llama� with accompanying picture of a poor, defenseless animal who didn’t ask to be drawn into our human nonsense, okay?
Ahem.
To me, the phrase and the abuse of the word “drama� has less to do with the subjects and people labeled “dramatic�, and more to do with weaponizing the word against legitimate complaints � and the marginalized people who lodge them.
At one point in my life I was an actress. I learned how to leverage emotions for the purposes of spectacle and entertainment. I learned the beats of speech, when to pause, and when to give a word the full weight of my voice.
And I learned that often Comedy is the same animal as Tragedy from another angle. The intertwined masks of crying and smiling faces symbolize this duality in theatre. Joy and pain are just surfaces of the same coin, a coin used to show an audience universal truths hidden in plain sight.
Part of what makes those truths so powerful is that we are seeing them within the context of a lie. Safe from the spotlight that is turned on us in life, we take a break from musing on our own shortcomings and center others for a few hours.
Drama is powerful. But like most powerful things in life, when people don’t understand it they can twist that power around until it’s a shadow of its former self.
In those situations, silence isn’t the consensual hush that befalls an audience, but a cage that shushes complaints.
It’s an effective way to gaslight someone, too. Tell the person you’re trying to shut up that they’re being dramatic. If they’re insecure, this may do the trick. What was an outward expression now becomes an internal debate that the shamer can excise themselves from. “Am I dramatic? Am I making a big deal of nothing?� Maybe. Or maybe you have a valid complaint the other person doesn’t want to examine closely. The mileage varies. But the effect of drama shaming is that we often don’t get to evaluate on a case by case basis. Instead, we fear becoming labeled a certain word and do the work of silencing ourselves for the offending party. We’ve been conditioned to see emotions, intuition, and our own conflicting ideas about ourselves as the enemy, and not silence.
Which brings me to the point of this post.
“Drama� as it is used now, is not a rug you can sweep legitimate complaints under. Some shit is serious and requires thought. And discussion. Memes can only get you so far. Peace and love and safe spaces are wonderful. But sometimes confrontation is what you need. Sometimes it’s not about centering your own comfort, but about turning the spotlight around and seeing things from another angle.
Yeah, that’s right. I said it. Confrontation can be healthy. Good for us even. Especially in an industry like indie publishing, which evolved out of a need to no longer be silenced by the mainstream.
We have to stop patting ourselves on the back for avoiding drama, like it’s some cookie we opted out of eating in favor of kale.
This isn’t about fiction either. I respect the art of bending issues into narratives for the purpose of entertainment, and I fully support people who don’t want to go to the dark spaces fiction can illuminate. But when we close the book and turn off the movie, we should be able to engage critically and empathetically with real live human beings, rather than avoid them and their troubles.
This year I’ve seen “drama� leveraged at:
1.
The Parkland shooting victims, with opponents of common sense gun laws going so far as to label the teenage advocates “crisis actors�. Never mind that these were proven victims of gun violence, and that our emotions should be manipulated to the point of discomfort when children are dying because of our inaction. Discomfort is code for change, after all. So rather than feel, advocates for the status quo point to the lights and the cameras and call this “drama� instead. Until another shooting happens, like it did at the end of last week. Each one is met with performative and muted responses by our government, the NRA, and their supporters. Each time, there’s an appeal to logic. Admonishments for politicizing tragedy. And a call to hold off on debate until we’re all being just a little less� well. You know.
2.
Cockygate was at first dismissed as just another romance publishing issue until the layers were peeled back. Once publishing at large realized how bad trademarking the word “cocky� could be for everyone in every genre � and not just who Faleena Hopkins targeted with her fraudulent trademark complete with � it became a threat to words as we know them. . Legitimacy was granted with the involvement of heavyweight publishing organizations like Romance Writers of America (RWA), who got their legal departments involved to head off any threats to their business interests. Once men like called for widespread attention, it was impossible to ignore.
The of this was a typically sexist blunder the likes of which romance authors are all too accustomed to.
But some got it right:
Two thoroughly researched articles out today that tell the story of what it was like for some people getting these notices. First from at Slate, with interviews of , , and yours truly:
� Kevin Kneupper (@kneupperwriter)
The embarrassment of the outside world casting light on this stage caused this issue to be seen asan infringement on our rights, as human beings and artists, rather than one of “bullying� and “drama� � which are often dismissed as infantile, catty, or feminine, making it all too easy for the mainstream to dismiss. A very real issue that threatened people’s livelihoods was treated as gossip at best, and as a road block to readers enjoying books at worst, until enough people kicked up a storm and refused to be quiet.
And yet some Facebook blogs and Facebook groups predicated on helping indie authors navigate the rigors of publishing, enforced silence so as not to get involved in the “drama�. Silence imposed to keep the status quo in check.
3.
Any time publishing is forced to face the implications of racism (such as with the recent debate regarding RWA and the lack of black authors acknowledged for their contributions), the effected parties are accused of stirring the pot and making everything about race. “Drama� is what racism is called. And when verifiable proof is offered that racism in publishing exists, this strange Groundhog Day-level shock sets in, and much ado is made about how to fix it without actually having to change anything about ourselves. Like our spending habits, our ideas about race, where we put our marketing dollars, or how we approach reading as a pleasurable medium for entertainment at the expense of the knowledge, discomfort, and pain art can provide as a tool for growth.
Yes. It is racist. The whole Western world is navigating the disease that colonization and chattel slavery left behind. Not to mention sexism and sparse LGBTQ+ representation. But what now? And how will we combat this truth in the little but meaningful ways that fix this for future generations?
4.
Last but certainly not least on my mind, are the exploitative authors looking for quick cash and fame at the expensive of their peers and beleaguered audiences. This is the genesis of Cockygate, the issue with Kindle Unlimited being scammed out of millions of dollars by book-stuffers, and an assortment of other scams meant to make people feel like big name writers without doing the hard work of writing compelling stories. The hunt for bestseller as a business badge, rather than just a thing that can happen if you sell a lot of books, has crippled the market and helped lead the way for Amazon’s eventual monopoly over indie publishing. But to those looking for short term gains at the expense of other writers and dissatisfied readers, they’d rather we call these complaints drama. It must be jealousy, or a desire to bend the industry to one group’s whim, rather than a long and arduous trek towards inclusion, fair play, and better books.
Logic has long been touted as a masculine and thus more reliable trait. Drama is shamed for strumming emotions in us, because intense feeling can sometimes be the precursor to action. So what I see more and more is a call for passivity. A call for logic, a call to “grow up�, to stop inciting the “d� word, and to even pretend we don’t see things that are plainly cast in bright lights, lest we be shunned.
And yet we use drama to hear and be heard, to see and be seen, especially as artists.
How then, has this become a word used to shun people who effectively draw attention to important issues? And how has the word been bastardized to the point where we use it to silence dissension in favor of a false peace?
I don’t discount we all overreact from time to time, that while our feelings are valid they can also be subjective. Sometimes we need the mirror of other human beings to look in, the same way Comedy needs Tragedy. Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously, blow things out of proportion, and become performative for attention. Sometimes we think we’re the victim and we’re the abuser. Those are valid issues that need to be addressed, because they are manipulative and cause harm in their own ways. But you don’t come to those realizations in a vacuum. You come to them through discussion, through engagement with other ideas and people, and through consuming art that in some cases shows you where you can be the hero, and where you’ve definitely been the villain.
I’d like to think that at some point, everyone will grow so tired of the concept of drama = bad and insincere. I hope we’ll stop waiting until someone with more clout repeats what we already know, and instead listen even when the actor performing the latest “drama� is just a bit player. I hope one day we’ll do a helluva lot better, as people and as artists.
I have an optimistic streak, after all. Just the one streak though, that’s why I wasn’t in musical theatre. That and my weak jazz hands�
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April 1, 2018
Easter Reflections and Nunchucks (A Food Lion Parking Lot Story)
First, the reflections:
I’m not a religious person in the strictest sense. I believe in God. I’ve gone to church several times in my life. I pray when times are hard and thank God when times are good. I’m the cliché, the agnostic “spiritual� one.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve had the urge to examine the stories we tell each other as Christians, and what someone non-denominational like me can glean from them. Not just in my writing, but in life. What can someone like me get from a day of Easter bunnies, painted eggs, and vague mental pictures of a cave door left open while Jesus rises into the heavens?
Today, what I see is a story about a man who showed people who he was. He was honest. He didn’t just say he cared for others. He let his actions be his testimony. You know how the quote goes by Maya Angelou. Some variation of:
Well, it stands to reason that people prone to duplicity and lies wouldn’t believe someone who lived his life as journey of empathy and compassion. It makes sense that they would be threatened, that they would lash out and punish someone for making them examine the poison within.
We all know what happens from there. The torture, the beatings, the crucifixion. The desperate attempt from the man on the cross to understand why he was abandoned and left to suffer. Why he was chosen to suffer because of who he was born to, in the same way so many of us are chosen for suffering because of how we look, how we’re born.
But perhaps the most important thing I’ve gleaned from this story today is this: even a deity can bleed, cry, rage, and hurt. Even a deity can question the world God created. Even a deity can ask why humanity chooses to ignore love and embrace suffering, especially when inflicting it on others.
I remembered that even a deity took some time to heal from those wounds, and that no one got to rush him out of the cave so they could see his wonderful transformation on their schedule. He died, he forgave. But that didn’t mean he jumped off the cross ready to roll. He still had a journey to go through in the underworld, as most of our spiritual heroes do, regardless of religion or mythology.
I think a lot about all religions, about our chosen heroes and our modern mythologies. The Civil Rights movement. Me Too. Never Again. The one constant seems to be that our modern heroes, much like our ancient ones, showed us not just who they were. They showed us that if we’re willing to do the work, they are who we can become. They weren’t perfect. But that wasn’t an excuse not to try and make themselves � and the world around them � better.
But first, we have to go deep, deep into the dark. We have to reflect and learn, and yes, we have to heal. Even the son of a God needs to nurse his wounds before he can rise again. But he can rise. We can too. When we’re ready.
And� God forgive me. But I never let this day go by without watching the modern classic: Kung Fu Grandpa in the Food Lion Parking Lot. So much action! So much drama! So much humanity!
“Jesus gone rise up, I’ma whoop the devil.�
Amen.
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March 17, 2018
Sweating Bullets: A Dark Contemporary Erotic Short
Hi Everyone! Hope you’re doing well!
Here’s a story I worked on for submission a few months back. I hope it’s a short and dirty treat while you wait for more news on When Dying Is Done (Shivers and Sins Volume 3). Please be aware that this is a dark erotic short with thriller and non-consent elements.
Subscribe to my newsletter to get the password and read the story in its entirety!
Thanks to Eden Connor for the edits.
Also here’s some tunes that helped me during the writing process. Hope you enjoy!
Worriedaboutsatan � Baychimo
Banks � Brain
The Weeknd � High For This
***
Sweating Bullets
By Kaia Bennett
I swiped sweat from the nape of my neck and turned left onto the bumpy back road that led to my late father’s cabin. Blistering cold air-conditioning fanned my face and the damp trail between my breasts, but anxiety took the place of Jacksonville’s August heat. Couldn’t stop sweating. Couldn’t cool down with the devil waiting ten miles ahead to collect his due.
In the gloom beyond my headlights, the cabin came into view, and so did the man waiting on my porch. He leaned against a post, hands stuffed casually in his jean’s pockets. His white wife-beater T-shirt glowed gold in my headlights, his tan skin painted in shadows as dark as his close-cropped hair. Thick muscle corded his arms, swelled his chest, and chiseled a path down his lean stomach. I’d taken my bastard of a confidential informant to enough fast food joints while gathering up information on his boss to know he ate like a first string quarterback.
Now he was eating up my time and my sanity. Standing on my porch like he owned the place. Like he owned me.
His smile spread slow, cool as summer wind. If not for the sheen of sweat forcing his shirt to cling to his abs, I’d have thought he couldn’t feel anything but my fear. I gulped and turned off the ignition. Clenching my jaw, I swung open the door and stepped into the sweltering night. Cicadas chirped duets with bullfrogs. The Spanish moss barely swayed on their branches, and humidity licked my skin like an insistent tongue.
“Nice place you got here.�
“It is.� I adjusted the badge on my belt and strode forward, itching to reach for my holster. “How the fuck did you find out about it, Eli?�
“Followed you one night a few months back.� His angled eyes turned into half moons as his smile grew broader. A trickle of sweat slithered between my breasts�.
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January 14, 2018
Holidays, Heartbreaks, and Hummingbirds
When I was a little girl, I visited my grandparents in Virginia every summer. I loved those months of quiet and endless green, of stories about the past. I loved making my grandparents laugh and seeing my parents reunited with them. It was a whole other part of me and our family that came alive a few months every year.
I remember seeing a hummingbird for the first time there. I remember tasting honeysuckle for the first time. I think it was when other relatives visited because someone � probably another young cousin � showed me how to pull out the stem and taste the bead of nectar hidden within. I know I was really young, probably in the first years of elementary school.
So much of memory for me is like telling myself my own myths. I’m not great with dates or the ages when some things occurred. But I’m great with colors, with smells, with taste and touch. My mind paints vivid pictures, uses extreme closeups for those little moments that somehow manage to have a big impact later on.
Over a decade later, I made the decision to write a scene in that served as almost a little love note to my grandmother, as well as that innocent moment in time. Flynn and Gia, who have started growing closer, discuss tattoos and their families. Gia mentions her beloved aunt, who died of breast cancer, and her love of hummingbirds.
My grandmother died of breast cancer, not my aunt, but that’s where that moment came from for Gia. My grandmother was one the most beloved people in my life, one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. I gave Gia the same kind of love for someone in her life and tied it to hummingbirds, perhaps for emotional distance. I didn’t love hummingbirds like Gia did, or see them with as much frequency in my childhood. I’m not Gia, even with our similarities. But it was the first time that I realized I, like the bird in question, dive into the flowers of my memories, the things that make me who I am, and I pluck out the nectar to put into my work. I gave these characters pieces of me, and hummingbirds were a more important piece than I’d realized. They became something unexpectedly beautiful and meaningful to me personally, through that character.
I realized all of this because a good friend of mine sent me a present for Christmas. A necklace and earrings in the shape of hummingbirds. And it made me so happy and nostalgic. I was beyond touched by the gesture because it showed just how far I’d come in the years since I was that little girl, and then that 20-something writing my first real book.
When I republished Sunday, I decided to redo the cover and get an author logo. The choice to use a hummingbird was so organic and easy, it’s almost like the it chose me. Hummingbirds reminded me of someone I loved as much as Gia loved her aunt. They reminded me of my younger self and the promise of the future. It also made me think of my own mercurial nature as an artist. I want to flit from genre to genre, to be versatile. I want my characters to be as diverse and colorful as those jewel toned feathers that catch our eye. I want to dig deep for something powerful and pure and share that with others. To find something sweet even in the darkest recesses of the stories I tell.
That gift reminded me that I am doing that, and I still have so much more work to do. There are as many stories as there are honeysuckles out there. And I need to be that hummingbird who tastes as many as I can in the limited time I have on this planet.
For those of you who have read Sunday, you know just how hummingbirds factor into the story. For the rest, here’s a an excerpt from Sunday. Short and sweet. To read the rest and find out just what happens to these two, click the banner�. the one with the hummingbird over my name. 
January 1, 2018
When Dying Is Done Excerpt #1
Happy New Year Everyone!!
I wanted to ring in 2018 on a nice note, so I thought I’d share an unedited excerpt from When Dying Is Done (Shivers and Sins Volume 3). We’re picking up right where we left off with Volume 2, so if you haven’t read it, go do that!
If you have read Volumes 1 and 2, just know that Evie wasn’t too keen on leaving a special someone behind. And the coven wasn’t too keen on letting an angry, near feral bond witch inside its protections. Chaos ensues. Hope you enjoy.
***
“A!�
Jaws clamped down on my shoulder and dragged me away from Josh’s shadow. The crunch of my collarbone as a wolf shook me in his jaws nearly drowned out my ear-splitting shrieks. I reached up behind me hard and fast, and buried my hand into the guardian’s neck. Growls turned to howls and whimpers of pain. But the wolf didn’t release me. He only bit down with sharp persistence and wrenched bone from skin and muscle.
Even under the excruciating pain, something else hummed. Something sinister, but not as foreign as I’d hoped. The stirrings of the beast in my blood, the yawn and crack as she stretched into awakening. She’d abandoned me to weakness when I failed to kill Jesse, instead letting him into my heart. Now she returned, licking her chops at a good kill. My conscience seemed farther away than ever. The squish of flesh over my hand, the hot blood lapping against my forearm like a river. The beast wanted this. She missed this.
God, I relished the feeling, the give of vital life flowing away from my opponent and into me. I could hurt something where moments ago I’d only been able to register my own pain. I closed my hand like a metal claw around a prize and snatched bone, severing a throat from meat and fur.
Killing a sacred wolf.
His death cry shuddered through me like a gong, right down to my marrow. Then the sound stopped abruptly. His limp form collapsed. But silence didn’t prevail. Other wolves felt his last breath and took up a mournful howl that tapered into pure rage at their lost pack member.
Now I had no choice. I had to escape the coven, because killing a guardian was a death sentence. The second one of these creatures could get to me they’d avenge their brother.
Over top of me, Josh’s protective form growled and buckled. His back was strewn with smaller, snapping wolves. The pack ripped and tore, clawed through him trying to get to me. Blood splattered my face. The sweet scent of wolf, the muted tang of my own bond witch flavor. I curled in on my side, spotting my escape through a haze of red. I could barely hear my own thoughts through the unceasing barks of the pack on the hunt for blood.
ճ�
Between the splayed legs of my tail-less wolfman, the mists churned in warning. A wolf snapped its jaws just in front of my face, distracting me. The wolf missed the front of my skull by a hair, but Josh shoved her head into the hard ground and hunkered just a bit lower.
Now!
I curled into a tighter ball, dug the hand of my uninjured arm deep into the soil. This earth had once cradled part of me as a witch in training. Now the ground soaked up my vampire blood as the price for my sacrilege.
I pushed off with my good arm as hard as I could, kicked out my legs to give me more momentum. I shoved myself through the gap in my friend’s legs like a rocket.
My friend. My protector.
Deep down, where my heart still beat with the cadence of a good woman’s, I mourned for Josh, for us. Seemed like just moments ago we were in a tent, the smell of breakfast in the air.
Seemed like just moments ago he’d kneeled in front of me, sniffing at my belly, caressing a sliver of my bare skin with the point of his nose before raising his perfect blue gaze to mine.
He’d been the first to know about my child. He’d been the one to tell me the impossible had happened, but that everything would be alright. He always had been.
And this is how I repay him? Leaving him here to die as he protects me? For a murdering rapist, a parasite I’ll finally be free of if I just let him die for Altani?
I killed the vampire queen, not Jesse.
Considering everything he’s done, taking the fall for Altani is the least he can do, the beast cooed.
Using the momentum from the shove I lurched forward onto my knees and then stumbled up to my feet.
I dared a glance at Josh as I hurtled away from him and into the beginning coils of mist. Tears stung my eyes as the world went a gauzy gray. I heard his whimper caged in a roar of frustration. He redoubled his efforts, leaping behind the spot where he’d once shielded my body. He knew I’d escaped.
Evie, come back! I can protect you. I can hold them off. We’ll explain. Let me help you!
Despair made me stumble more than blood loss or the pain in my slow-healing shoulder.
He’ll be better off without me. They may yet let him live if I’m not there setting off the wards.
The lie, even though I hadn’t spoken aloud, coated my tongue with ashes.
I would throw away every moment of tenderness between us just to run, bleeding and wounded, back into the cold world beyond the mists. All to fight for the vampire Josh had once tried to safeguard me from.
Can’t think about that now. I can’t.
I cradled my injured arm. The flesh dangled, numb and useless as the tendons and bone crawled back together. Damn near detached. The wolf I killed had left me quite the present before his death.
A few minutes ago, I’d barely been able to hold down human food. Now my body screamed for blood the way my mind screamed for Jesse. I gritted my teeth against the agonizing slow-ness of the healing and sprinted into the mists. I called out in my mind for Jesse, hoping the closer I got to the exit the more I’d be able to hear his voice in return.
The first inklings of panic tapped along my spine like raindrops on a windowpane. The mists thickened, so deep that I couldn’t see any farther than a hand’s length from my face, even with enhanced sight. My heart thudded in my chest, disorientation causing me to stumble.
Something’s wrong. Something’s� what direction am I in?
Against my own instincts, I spun hoping to see a thinning grayness behind me. I saw nothing but a cocoon of death closing in. No left or right, no up or down. Clamping my teeth in determination, I spun in the opposite direction and lunged forward, whatever forward meant.
The blow to my chest was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Even the catapult into asphalt months ago in Tennessee, when Jesse had stopped my escape car with his bare hands and sent me through the windshield, only loomed as a shadowy comparison to this moment. An arm like a tree trunk had slammed into my sternum, crushing bone and puncturing organs in the process. I fought to inhale and failed as I flew into the air, wind whistling past me, a gray world whipping away me as I soared towards the direction I’d come. Away from freedom.
Back to the death sentence. The beast licked her teeth. She’d rather die fighting than lost and starving in the mists.
Back to Josh’s body. He’s probably dead by now. Because of me. Because of me!
Jesse. That poor pack wolf. Even fucking Vaughn, the lunatic. All dead because of me.
I landed with a thud and a pathetic wheeze just as a rust and gray wolfman lunged through the mists from the outside world, eyes glowing amber with supernatural sight. With fury.
I didn’t try to lift myself up, but he didn’t trust me to stay put. His massive hand-paw stamped me into the ground. I cried out, my voice so weak even I could barely hear the squeak. Tears rushed like rivers from the corners of my eyes at the pain. A stomping sound to my left drew my attention. I’d been pinned at the base of the fight Joshua Stark had lost. My guardian lay flat on his belly, clawing at the ground with blood in his eyes. Still when he turned his head in my direction, I knew he saw me. I knew because he bared his teeth and forced his back to arch skyward. Pulling away from the ground. Still fighting.
I had the vivid sense of his nose against my belly, smelling life. His mind recalling one of he reasons he fought. His mind recalling the smell of me, of my hair. The taste of my sweat as he licked my palm. The scent of my blood, and the feel of my body against his when he held me close.
The rust and gray wolfman snapped my attention back to him as he lifted his giant maw to the overcast sky, and loosed a roar so powerful, my spine wanted to crawl out of my skin like a frightened worm.
The roar had been a call for silence, for the fighting to cease and the wolves obeyed. At least, the ones who were still conscious after Josh’s thrashing. The pack stopped tearing chunks of flesh from Josh’s massive body, stopped digging canines into his vital veins, and scratching organs free of his thick hide with massive fore paws.
The wolves whimpered and scampered away from Josh, and he collapsed, the fight siphoned out of him like his blood. Barely any of his slate gray fur remained visible under the flood of violent red. Only the faintest whisper of breath from his unconscious form revealed life. He still lived. Though for how much longer, I couldn’t say. That went for both of us.
I shuddered as the great monster turned his gaze to me once more. He titled his head, observing me with a sentience that scared me, as if his beastly face were only a mask he would soon peel off to reveal the man underneath. Then he snarled, lifted his giant fist into the air, and buried the hammer in my face.
I didn’t have time to feel shock before the world snapped off like a light.
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July 9, 2017
“I Wanna Be A Female Monster.�
I wanted to share the origins of the quote “I wanna be a female monster,� and what it had me thinking of as I buckle down to draft several new stories.
I watched I Love Dick this past week on a whim. When I saw commercials a few months back, I guffawed and raised an eyebrow in curiosity. It seemed just weird enough for my sensibilities, but it hadn’t aired yet. I forgot about the show.
This is where synchronicity � that strange feeling of unrelated events connecting beyond mere coincidence � popped up.
Last weekend I watched American Honey, a film directed by Andrea Arnold. She also directed Fish Tank.
She has a knack for really intimate films that are lauded as promoting the “female gaze� rather than subjecting her protagonists to the “male gaze�. The girls and women in these films aren’t likeable or pristine. They often come from poor backgrounds and are on the cusp of womanhood. There is beauty to them, but it’s not of the conventional sort. It’s the beauty of the outcast, the outsider longing silently to belong, and yet raging outwardly to mask that longing. They’re not “nice�. Which makes their moments of vulnerability all the more poignant. It’s immersive filmmaking, maybe even indulgent, but I like the vibe.
Arnold also directed several episodes of I Love Dick, many of my favorites anyway, though props go to each director on this show, from Jill Soloway, to Kimberly Peirce and Jim Frohna. It’s got some great music and gorgeous cinematography, too. There’s a wonderful scene in the end of the first ep. that uses Mal Devisa’s song Fire. Sexy and subtle and damn near beautiful. I knew I’d watch the rest of the series after hearing it in conjunction with that scene:
The show wasn’t suggested to me that I can recall. I had no idea (consciously anyway) that the aforementioned movies and I Love Dick were connected by a common artist in Arnold. I hadn’t seen Soloway’s show Trasnsparent either. So really I had no reason to watch I Love Dick but whim.
I loved it, though. Even when it didn’t work for me, I liked its ambition. It’s weird as fuck, sexual, unapologetic, hilarious and embarrassing. God, is it embarrassing. But more than that, it has a protagonist who is both messy and sexual. Sure some of the sex is embarrassing, but unlike, say, Girls, or the far superior Chewing Gum, the point is not to embarrass, but rather to show desire and obsession can be humiliating or downright silly even when played straight. Still hot though. Still human. The protagonist is still monstrous in her selfishness and destructiveness.
This review kinda sums up why you should check it out:
Not since I was finishing up the draft of The Loose Ends series, did I get the sense that I was on the right track with a theme. Back then I was getting bombarded with all this music perfect for the story. I was strangely drawn to bringing rocker Meredith Rowe to life at that point, perhaps my first female monster. Now I’m finding movies and shows that remind me womanhood is not a perfect formula. Shows like Insecure on HBO and I Love Dick are doing that for comedy. But I want more of that, with women at the helm both as protagonists and in the writers room. I want them behind the camera and I want inclusion, so we can all see our wonderful, messy selves, regardless of race, size, gender politics, or sexuality.
Evie is a female monster in . Gia in and Nicole in have elements of this. Their unapologetic sexuality was the crack in the door for me. But Evie is the first woman I’ve written who confronts carnage, sex, and violence as both victim and perpetrator. She has empathy and heart, she’s messy and sexual. If she were the star of a film she’d be caught in the lingering camera lens of an Arnold-like director, a lens that wouldn’t shy away from the blood on her teeth as she gives into rage, the tremor in her fingers as she processes guilt over a kill, the furrow in her brow as she gives into orgasm.
I wrote a female monster because I am a female monster in some ways. I want more of them to turn over in my hands. I want to shake them and put them up to my ear to hear what’s inside.
I think the cool thing about this is that I’ve seen so many examples crossing genres and skin colors and continents in the last year, and that shows me I’m not alone here. Some of my fave films are a call back to that quote, like Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden and Stoker, David Fincher’s Gone Girl (which I love in part because Gillian Flynn wrote it and one of my fave books, Sharp Objects), Atom Egoyan’s Chloe, Paweł Pawlikowski, and Paul Pavlikovsky’s My Summer of Love. But I Love Dick reminded me that for a long time I’ve been seeing these characters in a visual medium directed by men. That I’ve been drawn to writing them because I think there’s work to be done to show that if women don’t all act a certain way, they don’t all look a certain way either. There’s still a lot of work to be done so that a girl like Evie can join the ranks of some of the women who inspired and continue to inspire her creator.
It’s not always about carnage. Sometimes these stories are about selfishness, desperation, the ugliness that can come with being a woman or feminine. The physicality of it. The blood and guts, and the grit under the girl. Sometimes it’s nice to see a woman explore that and present it for other women.
I am a female monster. And I want to write more of them for you. It’s nice to see in this current landscape that I’m not the only one.
What about you? Who are some of your favorite female monsters?
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