Author: Martha Mims

Marvelina Chapter 10 Part 4


The women in WilderWood had remained in separate groups from the men, as a matter of preference and survival. But Shavana recognizes that it is time for them to work together for a common cause.

"A Rebel doesn't wear medals like an ST or SSF does. A Rebel walks with honor, because he has sought freedom. May we bring about revolutionary peace." She held her cup up in a salute to the circle of men and then drank it down in one gulp. The men followed suit. "But being a Rebel, being free, is also a responsibility," she continued. "You men have survived in WilderWood, and we women too. We might think that we have been doing it on our own, but the time has come for us to recognize that we are connected and will need each other."

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Marvelina Chapter 10 Part 1


Joe has to struggle with the fact that he was educated by his masters to serve a purpose. His genius and natural curiosity had been used to accomplish devious deeds that he didn’t want to know about.

….He had told himself that the women weren't conscious in their condition anyway. But there was one woman who desired to live, even after everything she'd been subjected to. He knew that he had seen it in her eyes. When her final file was placed in his inbox his hand had trembled. He duly noted from the autopsy, the final measurements of her ovaries. He cried. He sneezed to create a cover for his tears. It was at that moment that he admitted to himself that it was unconscionable…

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Marvelina Chapter 9 Part 2


King Square wants to believe that he controls everything in his dominion. Of course, that is the anxiety producing desire of every King, and never truly attainable…

…His throne resembled more closely a well-used leather swivel chair than a symbol of dominion. His broad shoulders were hunched forward as if pulled by a magnetic force sucking him into his task. He scanned the information on multiple screens and zoomed in on the video feeds of Square Plaza when he noticed the two men. They passed by a faux marble statue of the King holding high a square fist to the Universe. "Where has that slick slob been?" King Square said, annoyed.

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Marvelina Chapter 8 Part 2


Most of us have abilities that we are unaware of because we have not been taught to recognize what we sense and feel as real. Marvelina is slowly becoming more aware of her senses and abilities.

What Marvelina saw looked so real to her that she wanted to test her perception. She reached out with her left hand to touch the Duke and watched her hand pass right through him. She closed her eyes again, gripping the metal, and heard the Duke's shrill laughter. Her hatred of him rose up like bile in her throat. Then she heard a low growling and let go of the wing suddenly when she realized that the growl was real.

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Hear I Am

Planning to unveil new plans in the New Year… Hear I Am South Carolina… in the spirit of Steve Cannon’s example, and all my experiences with A Gathering of the Tribes while I was a New Yorker, and everything I learned at WBAI Radio, and publishing Listen & Be Heard on the West Coast. I will be looking for local collaborators, writers, editors, podcasters, printers, sponsors…to reveal alternative reality where we are …

Dying and Buying Real Estate

There's Never Been A Better Time To Buy Die by Bernard Meisler
Available at Amazon.com

If you are thinking of buying a house in Mill Valley or anywhere in the bay area of California, I would recommend that you read Bernard Meisler’s book There’s Never Been A Better Time To Buy Die before you spend a dime. If you’re not looking to buy, or already know that you can’t afford those prices anyway, then I recommend that you read the book for a good laugh. It is a page turner, not so much for the mystery that will keep you guessing, but because of the biting commentary of the real estate agent who is the anti-hero of the story.

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Marvelina Chapter 5 Part 2


Shavana escaped from Square Headquarters with her fellow courtesans when they were teenagers. They grew up together in WilderWood without being discovered. But, when Marvelina showed up everything changed…

They had all struggled and learned and grown together in WilderWood. She had seen Lake Freedom's many guises too, calm, choppy, muddy, clear. Tonight, she saw diamonds of light sparkling on ripples in the water created by a gentle breeze along a path lit by the waning moon. A fish jumped out of the water and flopped back. She felt the pleasure of fleeting beauty and sensed something slipping away, their solitude interrupted, a vibration in a spider web that had awakened the spinner. Read the entire episode on Wattpad https://www.wattpad.com/story/204609196-marvelina

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Marvelina Chapter 5 Part 1


Shavana is both a legend and a real woman. Her escape from Square City, along with her fellow courtesans, has fueled rumors of revolution for a couple decades. She has learned to pay attention both when awake, and when dreaming…

…She saw the interstices of an ethereal web and sought to inhabit the imminent change of circumstances augured by the high frequency of the vibrations in its silky strings. She saw a spider web that looked like a suspended bridge shimmering in the moonlight, joining WilderWood to Square City. A large black spider was suspended above the clearing between city and forest, where STs were pointing at a young naked woman running for cover. Her only adornment was an emerald necklace. The white light of a crescent moon reflected an aquamarine beam back to heaven. The STs ran after the naked woman, on a reckless hunt among the towering trees. Read the entire episode on Wattpad https://www.wattpad.com/story/204609196-marvelina

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Marvelina Chapter Four Part One

…Queen Square was lying on her back in her four-poster bed, her mouth wide open. Her long curly blonde wig was arranged around her shoulders. She was wearing a red silk night gown that was spread out in a circle around her. Her dainty feathered slippers had fallen from her feet to the white carpeted floor…

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There was a ship

There was a ship at sea in a storm. There was a ship. It was at sea. A storm whipped its sails. There was a captain of the ship at the wheel of the ship at sea in a storm. He was yelling back into an angry wind. He was angry, yelling into the wind, carrying a load, a heavy load. There was creaking wood. There was a load, churning below, bound and bedded. There was a load below. There was a ship. There was a storm.
 
Stay True. Stay True she said. Stay True she said to the ship. She could see out to sea. She could see the wide sea in the storm. Stay True she said to the ship, even if the captain curses the Goddess of the Sea so bitterly. Stay TRUE to the course. Stay True she said to herself. Stay True she said to the ship. Stay True to me too she said. Look out to Sea. Freedom or Death. Stay True. Be True.

Why am I posting Marvelina on Wattpad?

Marvelina has been a labor of love ever since I created the radio drama for WBAI Radio decades ago. I could never let the story go, but I didn’t find the time again until several years ago to recreate the story, and move it far beyond the radio drama, in the form of a novel. The difficult truth is that I have been knocking on doors for years now that I have not been opened to me and I feel discouraged. It’s hard to get anyone to even read the book let alone talk about publishing it.

I know creative people are trying all kinds of platforms on the Web. One of the reasons I chose Wattpad is because it’s exclusively for readers and writers. If you don’t want to read then you’re not going to go to Wattpad. I like that idea, that I’m posting for readers and not people who like to like pictures. Also, there are mostly new adults hanging around there, and I believe that that is the target audience for Marvelina, although I could be wrong about that. I’m not so up on the whole marketing thing either, honestly. Why can’t a writer just write?

I’m not sure if the fact that most of what’s on Wattpad is fan fiction, and a lot of it is mediocre, is a negative for me or not. Since my novel is not fan fiction maybe it has more of a chance to stand out. I have found that a lot of women post there and some of it is very interesting. And as I suspected, my book is relevant as women’s literature. At this particular moment it is ranked 196 out of 10.8k under the tag #women. They call that my most impressive ranking.

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Listening and Being Heard

Kards1 works on the wall at Listen & Be Heard Poetry Cafe in Vallejo, CA Jan. 27, 2005

I am almost at the end of a writing journal that has taken me a couple of years to fill. I was looking back through it this morning and came across this entry. I was taking a first stab at writing a story about my experiences with Listen & Be Heard both in New York in the nineties and California after that. Maybe I still will, but I thought I would share this for a change of pace from all my notes…

Listen to the unexpected and unforeseeable words of a stranger who shows up for open mic. Be heard by the same people who show up because they want you to listen to them. It seemed catchy and simple to me, Listen & Be Heard. It occurred to me while walking alone at night on 8th Avenue, heading for the subway back to the East Village. I didn’t get a shivery feeling, more like a lightbulb feeling. I didn’t say it aloud to anyone when it came to me, cuz like I said, I was alone.

I didn’t like being alone. Really I wasn’t alone, alone cuz my little girl was still a little girl. But I felt lonely. And, it had finally dawned on my unreasonable optimism by then that some of my choices had created obstacles for us that I might never surmount in this lifetime.

Some things are deceptively simple, like ‘just be honest.’ That sounds simple enough. That’s all I want to be with you, honest. But we all know how hard that can be sometimes. So if you ever think I’m not being honest, just stop me. Cuz I might be tempted to try to make myself look good. And really none of us are good because we all have trash swirling around in a dead zone in an ocean somewhere on this planet.

Listen and be heard. That’s straightforward and simple. You listen. You are listened to. But most people want to be heard. The listeners only come in a couple varieties. I know I’ve tuned out when I shouldn’t have. You can’t always be listening. But there’s plenty of people who don’t hear anything even when they are listening.

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