Author, A. J. Llewellyn

Current mood:  determined
Category: Life

My author buddy Stephani Hecht and I have become obsessed with the TV show “Hoarders.” It is my one guilty pleasure along with “American Idol” that I allow myself each week. I’ve mostly given up TV to accommodate my deadline crunch so when I do watch, I’m like a happy little kid playing hooky. I can’t even tear myself away from the endless TV ads (is it just me or do they go on and bloody on?).
Steph and I always say the show makes us feel normal. It’s also nudged me into cleaning up cluttered corners – do I really need those old copies of “Viz” comic?
Last week, my friend Cate decided to watch “Hoarders” on my recommendation and called me to confess that she realizes she suffers from this problem. She said she was ashamed of it and was relieved to find it’s an actual sickness and that she’s not the only one (according to the show’s stats, millions of Americans are hoarders).
I was very surprised to hear this since she is always immaculate in her grooming and the front of her house is a Japanese zen garden.
“Inside,” she assured me, “It’s a different story. It’s a catastrophe.”
I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to respond.
Cate is an employed TV writer and a woman of means. She immediately found a feng-shui expert who for the whopping charge of $400 arrived at her door and almost (according to Cate) fell over.
The expert said Cate needed to de-junk the house before she could help her with the necessary feng-shui ‘remedies’.
Along came the cleaning crew.
And yours truly.
I arrived this morning and found my normally efficient, hilarious friend in hysterical tears over a box of wire coat hangers she simply has to keep.
I knew she collected stuff. We both do.
I collect old typewriters and books and yes, there a few piles of books in my home office but Cate has piles everywhere. I was stunned by what I saw. She has thousands of newspapers piled up from years ago. She’s never opened any of them. Many are still in their plastic delivery bags with sample packs of toothpaste, shampoo and cereal boxes attached to them.
I spotted a five-year old LA Times and felt a pang of nostalgia when I saw the “Outdoor” section long dropped from the paper.
“Oh, this is bad feng-shui,” the expert kept muttering. She charges a bomb and like some demented Queen Bee, took charge but didn’t actually lift a finger to help.
Cate’s husband, who moved out last year and lives in the guest house in back of the property told me that he filed for a new home owner’s insurance policy several months ago. The insurer insisted on a home inspection. Cate’s husband waited until she went on location for her TV show and emptied the entire house, taking photos of every single room first.
He had the house cleaned and it looked fantastic for the inspection.
As soon as it was over and the paperwork signed, he put all the rubbish back.
In spite of his careful replacement, she knew stuff had been moved – but not to what extent.
She won’t throw out anything. Cate collects…well…anything.
Teapots, mirrors, picture frames…I am guilty of collecting 50s Hawaiiana that perhaps isn’t considered useful or even tasteful but in fact, I use my trays and tiki glasses.
She has a house full of bolts of fabrics, hundreds of boxes of cereal out of date and crowded with weevils. I was sick to my stomach when I saw her cat’s sad face. She was sitting on top of a box filled with God knows what.
“I can’t throw away any of it,” Cate said. She’s a hidden hoarder. Her home-owning, bill=paying status means nobody’s coming after her to clean the crap up.
Oddly, her work table where she belts out episodic TV is pretty clean – for a writer. She has rings on it from coffee cups, files and folders, notebooks…but it is tidy.
The rest of her life…man oh man…the kitchen almost made me throw up. It is so infested with bugs she’s pasted yellow insect paper everywhere, and tiny black bodies are stuck to the many surfaces.
We couldn’t figure out where these insects were coming from and threw out the overflowing garbage and still they circled the room.
I was given the task of cleaning the walls, the fridge and the oven.
After two hours, I started to realize the stove is white.
I think.
It is currently sitting under layers of oven-cleaning foam and my arms ache.
We cleaned off one section of living room and her carpet is emerald green.
“I tell you what’s weird,” the feng-shui lady said, bending over to examine it. “It’s pretty clean. She has so much crap on top of it, it’s stayed pretty clean and green is the color of money, which is why she’s been able to make an income.”
I rolled my eyes around this woman so much that they were about to tumble out of my head.
Progress is slow and every box Cate packs for storage has to be examined and half-emptied behind her back.
That’s the only way we can help her. The show “Hoarders” features legendary battles with its subjects who scrutinize boxes. When we allowed Cate to do so, she held up progress.
I threw out 17 green garbage bags full of half-filled cereal boxes and 10-year old cake mixes. Rancid meat made me retch so badly, her husband took over the fridge cleaning so I could take a break.
So much was going on Cate grew more frantic, but then she realized she was uncovering things she thought had been stolen.
Stolen!
She is finding lost gems and I suspect when I go back and finish my job of the stove, there will be more tears and triumphs.
Unfortunately I suspect too, in six months she’ll have accumulated more crap, but for now, I hope the good feng-shui wins over the bad feng-shui.
And I hope her cat has somewhere much more comfy to sleep tonight.
Aloha oe,

A.J.

Currently listening: Kahea O Keale By The Makaha Sons of Ni’ihau Release date: 1999-02-16

Stealing My Heart
Current mood:  ecstatic
Category: Writing and Poetry

I know that many people involved with ebook publishing – and those who critique it – roll their eyes at the mention of ebook theft but the fact remains, it is killing us. It is killing those of us who sit there day after day creating stories for people to read. It is killing the publishing industry. I am not going to listen to comments about libraries and friends sharing paperbacks.

The average lending life if a book is 200 lends before the book is withdrawn from circulation. I know this because I’ve worked in a library for 3 years.

The average lending life of a pirated ebook is limitless. The theft goes on and on.

So rather than whine, my lovely co-author on many books, D.J. Manly, decided to lend his considerable weight to actual change.

And now, I am pleased to say our project, the anthology Stealing My Heart is soon to be published by Total eBound. Its objective is to provide the thrills and gasps we normally do BUT to also make readers aware that we do this job with passion – and stealing from us comes at a price.

We want to thank the dedicated readers who spend their hard-earned dollars on our books. We also hope to make persistent ‘file-sharers’ aware that when they upload books and thank one another, they really ought to be thanking the people who really made these books possible in the first place.

In this antho, we have stories from me and DJ, my other frequent co-author Stephani Hecht, Jaime Samms, Jambrea Jo Jones, Carol Lynne and my soon to be next co-author, Serena Yates.

I am also thrilled that my cover-model-for-life Adam Killian donated a pic from the shoot he and I did together last year for this cover.

He is gorgeous and his face tells our story.

Ebook theft is not a nameless, faceless crime. We are all people who are wounded where it hurts every time an ebook is uploaded and shared illegally.

Money raised from this book will go to a fund to directly combat piracy.

I hope this is the beginning of a huge, wonderful, sexy sea of change.

Ebook theft steals from our wallets but also steals from our hearts.

Thank you to Claire and the wonderful staff at Total eBound for supporting our cause. For realizing our dream.

And thanks to our many, many wonderful readers who make us want to sit in our chairs and to keep writing. You all in so many good and glorious ways, mend our hearts, each and every day.

Aloha oe,

A.J.

Currently listening: Gentleman Cambrioleur By Garou Release date: 2009-12-08

When the Bucket List Delivers
Current mood:  blessed
Category: Life

Last year, when the world went mad compiling Bucket Lists (you know, must-do things before we die) it bugged me that what had been at the top of my list the previous year – to see Don Ho, my ultimate, all-time music hero perform live – had to be scratched.
My hero died in 2007 and I still couldn’t bring myself to scratch him off the list from the previous year.
I knew it was silly, an impossible dream, but it broke my heart when he died. I just loved that man. It hurt me that I never got to see him perform live. I’ve met many people over the years who did and the smiles on their faces at the memory told me everything I needed to know.
So I kept him on my list. It’s my list after all and nobody needed to know how demented I really am…
This week, my sweetheart sent me an amazing gift, one I will cherish forever. When the big box arrived, I couldn’t imagine what he sent me, and was stunned to find an LP I never even knew existed: Don Ho Live at the Polynesian Palace.
I’ve since discovered it is indeed, a rare LP. Don looks like an angel on the cover and I carefully dusted and cleaned the LP and put it on the turntable.
I quickly called my man. “Where did you find it? How?”
He laughed and told me somebody had given it to him in a collection they no longer wanted, but he knew I was the one person in the world would really appreciate that album.
Recorded live in 1969 at the Palace, where he performed nightly for over a decade, it is raw, pure, beautiful 100% Ho.
There’s no filtering of the microphone clunking, chatty background noises, no over-dubs. I listened to the opening Hawaiian chant and stood mesmerized as he asked the children in the audience to come to the stage. He tried to get them to sing along on Pearly Shells, but not only were they off-key, none of them knew the lyrics.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asked one little girl.
“Maria.”
“And where are you from, Maria?”
“California.”
“And what does your daddy do?”
“He’s in heaven.”
There was a hushed silence and Ho said, “He’s in a beautiful place, much better than here, Maria. Come and give me a kiss, sweetheart.”
Yes, it was awkward and probably today, some sound engineer would have cut it from the lengthy track. But this was Don Ho’s gift. He knew his audience and he once described his live show as “like inviting a trainwreck, but we haven’t had one yet.”
So you see, my Bucket List delivered. I feel I was right there, right by the stage as a little boy called Teddy shrieked his name twice when Mr. Ho didn’t hear him the first time.
His wonderful, mad laughter, his constant jokes and lively, lovely music are revelations I will listen to again and again, as if I were there. Live at the Polynesian Palace.
Aloha oe,

A.J.

Currently listening: Gold By Don Ho Release date: 1995-03-14

Playing Nicely Together
Current mood:  blissful
Category: Writing and Poetry

One of the questions I’m often asked by readers is how does a collaboration work between two writers living far apart?

I have been extraordinarily lucky that D.J. Manly first contacted me 19 months ago and asked me if I wanted to collaborate. I’d always seen myself as a lone wolf – and so did D.J. – but he had an idea and sent me the first few chapters via email. I loved it.

I’ve said this before so I am not telling tales out of school, but D.J.’s idea of two romance writers meeting over the Internet and falling in love just grabbed me.

He wrote the chapters from Thomas’ point of view and his growing feelings for Marcus.

As I read the pages, I realized I’d be writing from Marcus’ POV.

I emailed D.J. saying I couldn’t get into the name Marcus, would he mind if I changed it to Matt.

He didn’t mind at all and I jumped all over the story that became Black Point. The funny thing is, I’ve sat in rooms with people and had difficult collaborations, but not this time.

A friend of mine is an author and approached me to write a book with her. She had a wonderful idea but presented me with sloppily-written pages and inserted A.J. – SEX SCENE NEEDED HERE.

I don’t write like that. Neither does D.J. Thank God.

The sex scenes must be organic to the work, I think.

She also freaked when I did write the first sex scene – a blow job. She thought it was dirty.

I knew right away we couldn’t work together. It saved our friendship and our sanity.

To write in any genre, it’s important that you both have a love for it. If one author is squeamish about explicit sex, you are doomed to failure.

Trust me on that.

If one of you has trouble writing and the other keeps pulling the wagon, ditto, as Patrick Swayze was fond of saying in Ghost.

Oh, D.J. and I didn’t always agree, but it was one point we argued and D.J. turned out to be right. I think the success of any collaboration lies in trust.

At some point, one of you is gonna jump the shark. So somebody has to be unafraid to paddle the canoe back to the right pool of water. Sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s D.J. To be honest, it doesn’t happen much with us, because we seem to be so in tune.

I trust D.J.’s heart and his mind. He loves the characters we have created as much as I do. As we wrap up the final work on our 15th book together, Blood Eclipse 4: Apocalypse, I find it hard to do anything except think about Rory, Carden, Dennis and Thiago.

We have become so comfortable writing together now, our styles blend so well even our editor can’t tell who wrote what. Neither can many of our readers.

I think this is the sign of a successful series. I’ve had conversations with other authors about their collaborations and from what I see I am lucky. Some collaborations become volatile and painful. I feel especially lucky because I now also have a fantastic partnership with Stephani Hecht.

We have the same wonderful discussions, nutting out ideas, leaving each other to float and dream and when sharks approach, we yell, “Ahoy!”

As D.J. and I wind up work on Apocalypse, I feel a sense of sadness saying goodbye to our characters. This is our last book in this particular series but D.J. and I have many more lined up. It’s just so hard to say goodbye.

I think this is a good sign though, that the characters cling to me, and I to them. We play so nicely together.

Aloha oe,

A.J.

Currently listening: Heart Full of Wine/Chocolates & Cigarettes By Angus & Julia Stone Release date: 2007-03-19

The Love Bottle
Current mood:  blustery
Category: Life

One of my dearest, closest friends (let’s call him Steve) works for a millionaire who gave his employees a Christmas gift of a Love Bottle. My friend Steve was devastated. He’s worked just over a year for this guy, working long hours but earning a low salary in a job in which he can progress.
Steve feels lucky to have the job considering the current climate. He showed me the Love Bottle and asked me what I thought.
It’s an empty milk bottle with a lid and one of those rubber bracelets charities are so fond of, dangling around the neck.
A small card attached read that a donation had been made in Steve’s name to a charity in Haiti that provides food for hungry people.
That’s nice. But there are hungry people right here in the US.
Steve being one of them.
Forget Haiti. Forget Katrina.
There are people secretly starving all over our country not from natural disasters, but man-made ones.
People like Steve are the secret victims. His boss has no way of knowing that Steve is struggling to pay his bills. So much so that he has spent the last three weeks eating hot dogs and buns purchased at the 99 Cent Store. Three times a day.
He landed in the hospital a few days ago when he became so severely ill from his poor diet that he collapsed in his apartment building hallway.
“I have to tell you, I didn’t mind what I was eating. I liked the hot dogs,” Steve told me when I visited him in the hospital yesterday.
“But the doctors here told me that hot dogs have such high sodium it sent my organs and blood sugar reeling. I was constipated, but I was still hungry. Then I started to feel really, really sick one day. That was the day I collapsed.”
Steve’s sister thinks he probably felt bad long before the day he collapsed but said nothing out of his secret shame.
He’s got so many bills, food became the last priority. His family feels terrible that they didn’t know and yesterday, they filled his fridge with food in preparation for his return home.
“I fed my cat every day,” he said with pride. “I fed her before I even fed myself.”
Steve is not the only person I know living this way. We have another mutual friend who confessed he was eating Top Ramen every day and became so sick his wife had him hospitalized. Both of these men are good, decent, hard-working individuals with JOBS!
In both cases, they’ve had to take severe pay cuts to stay employed. Their income decreased, their work load and financial responsibilities have not.
When Steve became ill, many of his friends came forward with similar stories. Steve and I both lived on pita bread and salad for months until I swallowed a bit of crushed glass one time. Steve hasn’t bought bagged lettuce since. Besides, he confessed, when he purchased his hot dogs, there were more dogs in the bag than there was lettuce in the lettuce bag.
He was trying to shop smart and nearly died.
I know making donations in people’s names is a fashionable thing, but I believe it’s a bogus gift. Why? Nine times out of ten, the really rich people doing this are making the donations anyway and are given bottles, badges or whatever to give to employees and friends as a token.
Give them a gift card or gift certificate instead.
Now that Steve is better, he finds his Love Bottle humorous. “I got an empty bottle for Christmas,” he said. “That’s the story of my life.”

Aloha oe,

A.J.

Currently listening: Hepfidelity By Diesel Release date: 2007-02-12

Current mood:  chipper
Category: News and Politics

I love children and the nieces, nephews and assorted godchildren I have in my life are very important to me. As an author, they have inspired both Baby Kimo and the twins Kamaha and Keli’i in the Phantom Lover books (13 and counting). My niece is the model for Baby Daphne in the Black Point books I co-author with D.J. Manly.
When D.J. first suggested that our red-hot Black Point husbands Thomas and Matt should have their own child, I was all over the idea. However, I felt there should be a tug of war with the surrogate mom, an idea D.J. ran with.
I’ve seen this situation happen over and over again with friends where surrogate mothers and even sperm-donor dads have fought for custody rights.
Watching the dreadful circus that unfolded in Rio de Janeiro this morning with the long custody battle over 9-year old Sean Goldman, I realized how lucky Kimo and Lopaka were that they managed to get custody of their son Baby Kimo pretty easily. But that’s fiction.
If you haven’t been following this case the bare facts are this: A Brazilian woman, Bruna Bianchi married New Jersey resident David Goldman. They had a son, Sean. When Sean was four, she took an alleged two-week vacation to Brazil with her son.
And never came back.
She divorced Goldman, married another man and fought, with her powerful attorney husband Joao Paulo Lins e Silva, any efforts her former husband made to even see his son.
For five years, David Goldman has petitioned the courts for visitation and for a custody order to be enforced. And then Bianchi died in childbirth.
Up until the last month, this drama has played out privately. Like many custody battles, the details are shocking and cruel.
Both Bianchi’s mother and her widower fought Sean’s return to his father until they ran out of options this week.
What disturbed me today was how some newshounds supported the family that abducted Sean Goldman and kept his father from even seeing him for 5 long years.
In my Phantom Lover books. Kimo has magical powers. He was able to fight wrong with the help of his ancestors.
David Goldman isn’t so lucky.
It isn’t the first time a high-profile US child abduction case has hit international headlines (remember Elian Gonzalez?) but what disturbed me in this emotional tug-of-war was how the Brazilian family who profess to love Sean Goldman behaved this morning.
Forced by the courts to return Sean to his father, Lins e Silva, who has been able to use his legal and financial clout to prevent David Goldman from having contact with his son – in spite of several Brazilian court rulings in Goldman’s favor – chose to parade the child he claims to love through the streets, the boy crying and frightened all the way to the US Embassy.
I’ve read all the reports and watched extensive coverage of this case and it is clear that if Joao Paulo Lins e Silva truly loved his dead wife’s little boy, he would never have put him through such public trauma.
He was given much more private means of returning Sean. In the end, it is apparent that his motives are not for the love of Sean, but for the love of winning.
In spite all the hoopla, New Jersey rep Chris Smith who has helped David Goldman in his quest for justice since the beginning and was present this morning when they were reunited, said that once Sean was over his terror of the crowds, he and his dad were thrilled to be together.
“They were calm, smiling, they started talking about basketball.”
Smith was also present the first and last time David Goldman got to see his son in February and said that visit too, showed the father and son adored each other.
I am certain that once the dust settles and Sean is comfortable and safe, David Goldman will allow Sean’s maternal grandma to see the boy again.
All of this heartache – on both sides – could have been avoided if the child hadn’t been stolen in the first place.
I feel strongly that David Goldman should not have just forgotten his kid or given up on him as some in the media suggest. He loves his son and the photos of them together from five years ago show a loving bond.
This is a story of love and I for one, am impressed that David Goldman never gave up on his kid like so many dads do. He is no deadbeat. He hasn’t moved on and fathered a bunch of other kids by a bunch of other women.
He is a man who loves his son.
I hope they get to cement that bond in peace and without further interference from the family in Brazil. I heard this morning that they don’t plan to contest this arrangement anymore.
Perhaps they have finally woken up and realized their only resource is to make peace with the man they denied for so long.
I am not sure how merry this Christmas will be for either side, but I think Sean’s return to the father who loves him devotedly might just mean that for him, it is a very happy day indeed.
What do you think?
Aloha oe,

A.J.

Currently listening: Diva Series By Blossom Dearie Release date: 2003-05-20