Art isn’t always beautiful.
Many of you who have blogs are artists of one sort, or another. Blogging becomes and almost is a therapy of sorts, if you will.
I began to notice long before I even began my writing career or my amateur photography pursuits, that I felt things much deeper than most.
As I began to branch out into the arts I had, and still have an innate desire to make others feel.
I literally wanted to reach inside of them and pull, twist, rip and tear at their insides.
Though many of our magazines are doctored with so much photo shop that we all want to be that girl; or that guy, true art, I believe will touch you deep within.
I love taking images and writing about things that are not beautiful, yet they speak to the deepest part of man-kind. (I understand that pseudo photo shopped pics also have that capability.) Believe me, I photo shop and I love the results.
I do so love to capture images that are raw and real though, because I believe that they grip you in a different manner. And so I say:

Long live the arts.
Long live the man, the woman, the child who takes us away from our everyday existence or drowns us in a sea of reality; with their gripping gift of the arts.
Long live the man, the woman, the child who takes the business man, or woman, away from the stress and strain of everyday life. Long live the gifted artist who rescues the population from the dregs of using drugs or alcohol to escape.
For when they take a book into their hands they soak its life into their very being and escape has been granted to them for an allotted time.
When they open a magazine and they view a picture that grips their soul, they are encouraged to: ‘Live to fight another day.’
Long live the artist who will crawl, twist, climb, or bend, in order to get the shot, the picture, or the visual art that will grip their audience in the same way that he was gripped when he undertook impossible odds; in order to get it on film.
Yes… long live the Arts that will still rise and stand in victory, long after it has been removed from our schools and government due to budget cuts; for it resides within the being of we who have been gifted as artists, in order to bring to you the masses, who are gifted to treasure it.
Long live the Arts…
©2013 Suzanne Steele

And when I fall…I fall.

AN AUTHOR’S CREED

1. I promise to always be true to the character’s personality even when you as a reader don’t always agree or understand.
2. I promise to not drag out a series longer than what the story truly demands just to milk you of your hard earned dollars.
3. I promise to release series in a timely manner so as not to keep my readers needlessly waiting.
4. I promise to always use my own creativity and imagination to come up with interesting and unique plots.
5. I promise to give you the right to your own opinion and to honor your right to not connect with my style of writing.
6. I promise to always try to make myself available to you; my reader or fan.
7. I promise to always be humbled by the fact that you believe in me as an author and my dream to give you literature that speaks to you as a person.
8. I promise to always maintain a deep love of literature.
9. I promise to give you my very best and always give you quality work to the best of my abilities.
10. I promise to continue to grow in my craft in order to become the best I can be for you.
Sincerely: An author for you—Suzanne Steele
©2017 Suzanne Steele

The darkest light is one which is only registered by those who understand its true obscurity.

The season of my life has changed and the cold chill of winter blows the warning winds of my soon to be demise.

An excerpt from the ‘Born Bratva’ series.

Where did the fiction go?

When did we begin to write off literature when its contents contained a character who remained true to themselves?

It’s not my job as an author to create a character everyone likes, one who personifies perfection.

However…it is my job to be true to the character’s personality, even when their attributes are dark, demented, and contrary to all we believe, or have been taught is right.

It is my job to show the reader, the good, bad, and the ugly of the protagonist’s true nature that resides within them.

It is not my job to create a character everyone loves, adores, agrees, and sides with.

True literature remains true to the characters within the pages they inhabit; even when the readers may not understand or agree with the character’s integrity or lack thereof.

As an author I share a bond with each and every character within the books I write. Though they are figments of my imagination, they are alive, and to them I will always remain true; even when the reader may, or may not understand.

I was born this way…
Born how, do you say?
Born with the innate desire to root for the villain in the story.
Born with the need to study criminal behavior, the criminal mind, abduction, and all the dark behavioral patterns that go along with it.
Born with the desire to keep the things I write about real; even if it’s in a dark way that uncovers the hideous monsters hidden behind your white picket fences. White picket fences you’ve so carefully constructed, in hopes no one would see what goes on behind your suburban portals of perfection.
For you see…
I do not believe that monsters exist only in haunted mansions and desolate graveyards; oh no…they are very much alive and well within our own human race.
So if I offend you with my style of writing; my quill which is dipped in the blood stained ink of truth, by all means turn your gaze of denial elsewhere to that which you can withstand.
But know ye this…
I will never be silenced from writing about that which I know, that which I have lived.
I will ever to myself be true…
Because baby…I was born this way.
©2015 Suzanne Steele

I am a woman, I think like a man.
I am sweet, I am sour.
I am a good girl, I am a brat.
I am sinner, I am saint.
I am chaste, I am a vixen.
I am pure, I am tainted.
I am independent, wild and free, yet captive, subservient and slave.
I am focused, I am distracted.
I will intrigue you, confuse you, and torment you, for I am ever changing like the weather and just as unpredictable.
You will believe that you have me figured out and I will elude you, causing you to have to recapture your prey over and over, time after time.
One thing is for certain, you will not become bored with me, for I am ever changing, ever evolving from within.
I will make you feel as if my world revolves around you, only to elude you as I disappear onto my next venture.
The next adventure within my vivid imagination.
I roam wild and free in the recesses of my mind as I ponder the next story, the next character, the next love, or lack thereof.
I invite you to go with me but I must warn you I am very hard to keep up with, for I am a true artist from the very depths of my soul and creativity is and will always be my first love…
©2014 Suzanne Steele

Who is Ptichka?
She is the one woman who makes me crazy and yet keeps me sane.
She is my focus when my eyes are full of blood and rage.
She is the drug that permeates my being taking me higher than any endorphin drugged state of being should ever be permitted to take one man.
She is Ptichka…And be aware…Be very aware…That she is mine!…

An excerpt from Glazov

You ask me if the lines have become blurred.

If I have become what I write about.

I will tell that yes, while my fingers stroke the keys that weave you a tale, I become the Abductor.

While my fingers stroke the keys telling you of abduction, I become the abducted.

While I weave you a tale of blackmail and intrigue or of love and lust, control or loss of it, yes, I become that character.

The same as an actor becomes the character they portray on the screen before your very eyes, I too become the character of the tale that I weave.

I have always been gifted with insight, the ability to see not only what others do, but why they do it.

While my fingers stroke these keys, I pull from anything in me, to draw on that character and make them real for you, my reader.

I draw on all of my insight and understanding, to in turn give it to you, my reader.

While you read the words that I have written, you become part of that story.

You feel what I write about and you see into the mind and the thought process of that character.

When my fingers cease from the stroke of those keys, I go back to my normal, everyday reality.

If I can take you away from the problems that you faced today and the mundane boring existence of everyday monotony, then I have done my job.

I have given you an escape from reality…
©2015 Suzanne Steele

Time…

Kept as if by magic in a cocoon of literary bliss.

Each feeling and thought transcribed in the portals of time for the next generation to decipher its meaning.

Made to think and contemplate our ideals and those things that have been ingrained in our souls by strangers dwelling in a well-meaning society.

Years from now you and your descendants will be challenged because someone took the time to put thoughts into the magic of the written word; and those thoughts will provoke you to new understanding.

Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?

I am, yet I taunt and tease him.

Pulling at his tail and rattling his cage.

I skip through the woods purposely taunting him.

I know he is dangerous, but yet I call to him as I merrily skip through the wooded areas of my life.

“You can’t catch me” I giggle, as I dodge behind a tree.

I watch from a distance as he raises his nose in the air, identifying my scent and locating me.

Tee, hee, I giggle, as I run along, high on the aphrodisiac of subtle fear that he provides me.

I see the craving in his eyes, as he licks his lips eyeing me.

But the sun is going down and dusk is upon me, I’ll have to go for now.

Because deep down inside, I’m afraid of the big, bad, wolf!

I write because…

I write because I love the art and the magic of Literature.

I write because it keeps me safe, sane, and connected to you.

I write because it takes me to the places I want to go and those who wish to join me in the journey; may grasp my hand and my heart; in this stroll through this moment of time.

I write because when no one was there, the word was there: The word has always been and always will be the preeminent being in my universe.

I write because it allows me; to allow you to be understood and we are joined for a moment in time.

I do not write because it comes from a place of grammatical perfection; free of line breaks in perfected poetry; for my history is one of line breaks and imperfections.

I do not come to you from a place of polished and perfected; educated and critiqued.

No! I come to you from a place of raw, real, gutsy, and riveting. What I give you is raw, real, gutsy and riveting; with all of its imperfections and inconsistencies.

You have been touched, you have been curious, and you have been intrigued; you have come back looking, longing, expecting or not…

But then suddenly you were surprised; surprised that you could be moved; surprised that your preconceived ideas had been shattered by one who writes because…

Memoirs of a whip

My best memories have been when I was used for the pleasure of pain between two consenting adults.

The cries of ecstasy were pleasing in my ears, when they came from willing a participant.

There is a part of me that is wild and untamable.

No one has known that side of me

No man has touched that primal place in me.

If and when I unleash the full intensity of that primal place,

You will never be the same.

It is then that you become the Master, or Dom taken captive, by one who can never be owned completely.

It is not what I do, it is who I am!

I was born this way, and groomed by the circumstances of life.

As I crawl to you, purposely hesitating, and staring into your eyes,

You sit at the edge of the bed; ready to pounce, and take what you think is yours.

I purposely tease you, slithering in your direction, bringing out the primal Dominate, that will take what he thinks is his.

It is amusing to me to see the aggression build in you, as I purposely tease, and taunt you.

I am feral and this is my way, I want to bring out your aggression, to taunt, to tease, to provoke you into taking what you think is yours; but will never own.

Once I unleash the full intensity of my feral nature on you, you will never be satisfied with another,

You will take the full intensity of primal that I have given you, but you can never completely own me because I am feral!

I will forever be in my imagination.
Regardless of my geography, state of mind, circumstances, or limitations.
Even the late Albert Einstein recognized that imagination was even more important than knowledge.
He knew and declared that imagination was not limited.
There are no boundaries that are put on a person who can see something in nothing.
No boundaries on one that looks at what others would declare useless and sees a story.
The words, “You can’t do that,” hold no meaning for me, because I am forever in my imagination…
©2013