Ruby Standing Deer

Ruby: I read your novella, Dead Men and Cats, recently. I loved the suspense and the way you kept the reader guessing until the end. You have a real style, a special way of writing that keeps the reader wanting more. I found it hard to put it down and read it until I finished it.

Here are some inspiring blurbs on the reviews!

Review by: Beth Garcia on May 13, 2013 :
I enjoyed this well-written story. The characters are believable, and you get a feel for them right away. I am in awe of how the author developed such a good mystery in so few words. That is a sign of a very talented writer. I will be anxiously awaiting the next one!

Review by: K R Morrison on May 10, 2013 :
Shadow Island is such a peaceful place to live. Not on the regular tourist routes, it is a safe, quiet place for its denizens to live and love as they wish.
Until the hate crimes start.

” This is a brilliantly-written story. I loved the characters; they were so very real. Their relationships, cast in such warm, caring light by the author, was such a wonderful counterbalance to the terrible crimes that were committed.”
~~~~~~

So, tell us about yourself. Who is Aya Walksfar, and where did she come from?

Aya: Well, Ruby, I grew up on the rougher side of a big city, and as soon as I was able to hold a pencil in my hand, I began creating alternate realities. Sometimes it beat the reality outside of my home, and at other times it helped me to make sense of the outside world. I spent a lot of time in the Carnegie Library. Wonderful place. After I left home, I lived on the road for a number of years and worked non-traditional jobs. With that background, I feel that I have a unique perspective on life.

Currently, I live on a 12-acre wildlife habitat with my wife of 25 years, Deva, our four German Shepherds, three Papillons and two horses. Everyone lives in the house, except for the horses. They complain that we keep it too warm.

Ruby: Do you have any upcoming books?

Aya: Yes, I do. In July, Mountain Springs House will be releasing the second edition of Good Intentions.

Ruby: Can you tell us a little about Good Intentions?

Aya: It’s a different kind of coming-of-age story. The young protagonist, Bev Ransom, is grief stricken when her older friend and employer, Rene Lawson, suddenly dies. Unable to let go, Bev is determined to learn more about Rene’s life. Along the way, Bev discovers a secret that changes her life forever.

Ruby: That sounds interesting. Do you have any other upcoming books?

Aya: (Smile) Yes, and I am really excited. Sketch of a Murder is Book One of the Special Crimes Team series, featuring Sergeant Nita Slowater.

Ruby: What can you share with us about Sketch of a Murder?

Aya: The gruesome murders of wealthy, prominent men forces the governor to create the Special Crimes Teams. It is a unit composed of misfits and loners, all good cops who have pissed somebody off and consequently, have been exiled to the Siberia of law enforcement. That would be bad enough, except the unit was formed exclusively to take the heat for the murders.

Sergeant Nita Slowater wound up assigned to the team when she knocked a reporter on his skinny, white ass. Now, she has to find a way to work with her superior, Lieutenant Michael Williams who, in her opinion, is in permanent PMS.

The only thing that makes it bearable is when Nita befriends a homeless, black artist, Molly the Pack Lady. When Molly dies, she wills all of her belongings to Nita. What Nita doesn’t realize is the key to the killer’s identity lies within Molly’s artwork.

Ruby: That sounds very intriguing. When is it due out?

Aya: In August.

Ruby: With so many characters to choose from, which character is your favorite, and why?

Aya: I have to admit I have a special affinity with Sergeant Nita Slowater in Sketch of a Murder. She’s a woman with attitude, but willing to learn and to change.

Ruby: Nita Slowater, that name is quite different. How do you name your characters?

Aya: Each character’s name is meant to reflect some part of their personality, some part of who they are. I use several different naming books, and, of course, go online to do research once I have a general feeling for my character. I have been known to realize halfway through a story that one of the characters is improperly named, and then I have to go back through the book and change it. (Smile)

Ruby: Are your characters’ experiences taken from your life, or the life of someone you know?

Aya: No, not exactly. What I mean is that everyone I’ve met, everyone I know, has given me insights that I use to develop my characters.

Ruby: Was there a special person who influenced you to become a writer?

Aya: My mother and my grandmother. Both of them were oral storytellers, and they encouraged me from a very young age to read, and to write poems, stories, whatever. Then they’d listen to me read them. Poor Mom and Grandma! LOL!

Ruby: What do you like to do when you aren’t busy writing?

Aya: I manage and design our wildlife habitat, train our dogs, ride the horses, hike and listen to music and read—A LOT! (Big Smile)

Ruby: Where can your readers find you?

Aya: I have a blog at http://www.ayawalksfar.com And I love facebook, it is such an interactive media. http://www.facebook.com/ayawalksfar is my profile, but they can also find me on my author’s page at http://www.facebook.com/AyaWalksfarAuthor or tweet to me on twitter.

Ruby: Thank you for being with us today, Aya. I’ll look forward to reading more of your exciting work! You have a real talent and I hope to see much more.

I woke to read in a REAL newspaper that people over 40 are becoming more of a bother now. Our ‘old ways’ mean little. I used to work for the number one Newspaper in Colorado. Used to. Greed killed it, that and a man filled with jealously because his newspaper was not as popular. He got his dirty mangled claws into it and ripped it to shreds sending hundreds of people, mostly the over 40 crowd into the gutter.

Apparently, if you were of our generation who stood tall, demanded our rights, and were willing to work labor jobs and actually sweat on the job, we now mean nothing and simply melt into oblivion because no one cares. Our lives now meaningless and our talents now in death throes, we are supposed to step aside and politely die off.

Our knowledge is no longer needed. Our wisdom, what life taught us no longer matters. My elders were respected, yes even revered for their knowledge and what they could pass onto the next generation. Advice, it appears is not necessary. You see, we are old and our wisdom is antiquated and belongs in some dusty hall in a museum no one walks through anymore. Much like a library.

We followed our parents and grandparents advice and made our lives better for it—once we got past the hormone stage, and grew up enough to listen. Each generation goes through this, yes, but we all grew up and LISTENED to our elders. Respected them. Loved them. We will not be around in 50 years to see if any of what we tried to teach the next group will remain.

Everything falls by the way—such as newspapers where real people went out on the street and found real news to report.

Pressmen, late at night, shoved rolls of newsprint in presses so you could have you paper and donuts too.

Farmers earned the right to come home after a day of sweat from working on the farm, (food, by the way does come from farms, not grocery stores with magic wands)

While you sleep, someone is out there working on roads. Waiting on tables getting crap for pay.

Making bread.

Someone is taking the endless trash that we all put out at the curb. Human Hands DO all these things.

Taking the night shift at so many jobs you never head of and may never know ever existed as they are eliminated, and sent to China so some big business can offer their CEO’s their 30th luxury car to park in a huge dark garage and collect dust.

It will not be long before they will not know what to do with all the old useless people who have some ignored right to hold a job because somewhere it says age discrimination is illegal.

SO many are homeless. WHO cares? Ignore them and they do not exist. Ignore the elders too. After all, what do we have to contribute? Wisdom is a thing of the past. Who need it anyway?

Spring cleaning brings to mind uncluttering closets, cleaning the mess from under the bed and getting rid of “stuff.” It calls for more than simply dusting off the surface and addressing appearances. We need to get to the underbelly to clear away what is not aligned with what we want and where we are headed.

Are there relationships holding you back, with trade-offs damaging to your soul? Does the accumulation of things in your surroundings create distraction or bring you joy? We can get lost in the clutter of our thoughts by way of judgments, patterns and limiting beliefs. Possessions can control our lives as we seek the best or latest or newest.

It can be scary to let go, to open doors and allow the light. Light needs space to radiate.

Letting go is the first step. Clear the way. Relish the deliciousness of empty space. You don’t need to fill it. Space allows for something to emerge from within. Where can you let go, creating that opening?

Take a breath. Release it. Take another. Devote some dedicated time of concentration/meditation. It doesn’t need to be hours of quiet, perhaps only 15 minutes. Then allow the question to simmer within you through the weekend. Let responses bubble up into your awareness. Notice new ways of thinking, of images or ideas that arise spontaneously. Pay attention to your dreams. Let it happen. Be aware. See where it leads you next. Let yourself savor this process of receiving from yourself. Don’t judge whatever comes up, just receive it. Make notes.

On Monday you may want to share something from this process. Sharing can be an important way to anchor an insight in your body. It can lead you to deeper insight. It can stimulate action. Feel free to use this arena to share whatever moves you. Conversations are happening on the website Friday Focus question from the Baca Journey and on The Baca Journey Facebook Page.

I have more beads than brains. I had to have every color of every style of bead made. I started collecting them twenty years ago. Yes, I do bead work, but not as much as I did in my thirties. Still, I have enough beads, thread,needles, bone beads and everything that goes with them to fill our two spare bedrooms.

I used to be quite thin and had many hippies clothes. I still have them. Nice skirts and tops I could never fit into again unless I went on a starvation diet. Swirling skirts, embroidered tops… and more beads.

My walls are covered is beaded belts, hatbands, even beaded pictures. I have a crazy plant which has taken over two walls weaving through the Nature pictures and beaded items and now makes it way though my book shelves… and my beads.

I have magazines worth probably nothing to anyone, yet I pull out the True West, Old West, Frontier West, Wild West, Native Magazines, and still read them. I have many, many notebooks of over seven-hundred magazines my grandmother gave me that I have to look at. Am I a hoarder? or a collector? Is there a difference?

My story includes many sentences that sound incorrect to today’s ear. In the early to mid 1800′s, several hundred years later than my own story, many dialects mingled, and in many cases, some of it sounded Shakespearean. I have book from the 1800′s and some are hard to understand. My writing may confuse some, but has also delighted others. They told me so.