Steven A. Williams's Blog

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My highly anticipated paperback debut is finally done and available now on Amazon. It’s called ‘Of Blood and Ink’ and is the complete collection of all of my work! I have to say, I’m extremely proud of the finished result of this book, and cannot wait to see what readers think of it. So go get yourself a copy now! It’s sure to make a fine addition to your personal library. Here is the description and the link;

Over 15 years in the making, Of Blood and Ink is the complete poetry collection of Steven A Williams. It is the compilation of his previous three ‘Kindle only’ books, plus nearly 100 pages of brand new content including his epic poem, ‘My Travels to the Isle of Carcosa’ which is Williams’ contribution to the infamous Carcosa/The King in Yellow mythos. Overall, this complete collection is comprised of four different but equally…

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My highly anticipated paperback debut is finally done and available now on Amazon. It’s called ‘Of Blood and Ink’ and is the complete collection of all of my work! I have to say, I’m extremely proud of the finished result of this book, and cannot wait to see what readers think of it. So go get yourself a copy now! It’s sure to make a fine addition to your personal library. Here is the description and the link;

Over 15 years in the making, Of Blood and Ink is the complete poetry collection of Steven A Williams. It is the compilation of his previous three ‘Kindle only’ books, plus nearly 100 pages of brand new content including his epic poem, ‘My Travels to the Isle of Carcosa’ which is Williams’ contribution to the infamous Carcosa/The King in Yellow mythos. Overall, this complete collection is comprised of four different but equally important sections craftily threaded together to tell one common story. A story of man…and of the very human condition which defines us all. It is a journey through the darkness, into the light, and within the enlightenment found beyond. Through poetry and personal essay, this book dives deep into the very human psyche to explore the integral, revelatory, epic story of life itself.

Click this link to order a copy now on Amazon! Of Blood and Ink

        This is a piece which I wrote several years ago and which is included in my romantic/hopeful/nature poetry collection published back in July of last year, A Little Spot of Light. It has always been a favorite among readers, and for myself. I hope you enjoy, and as always, feedback is welcome.

A Momentary Peace of Mind

          This quiet summer evening I find myself sitting outside my bedroom window on the warm rooftop looking over the dimly lit street below. The rough shingles scratch my legs and the hard aluminum siding which my back rests upon makes it nearly impossible to find a comfortable position. The still night surrounds me in darkness like water at the bottom of the sea and I have only the soft yellow moonlight to reveal the page in my hands. With this rather uneasy position and environment, strangely comes a small slice of clarity. The kind that is rarely found scattered within the other dominant, hectic moments of an average day.

            On this night, the tedious, uneventful monotony of life is paused, though just briefly, and replaced with empty time. Time that I can happily fill with my own thoughts. Finally a chance to relax…and think. A chance to slow things down just a bit so that I can get a grasp on them and obtain a better understanding of myself and my place in this world. The silence helps. All that reaches my ears is the soft sweeping of a cool breeze, the rustling of leaves as it passes them by, and the occasional pop of fireworks down the street where some teenagers are holding a one month premature celebration of Independence Day. The heavy summer air smells of sulfur and tree sap. Within this silence, my thoughts come to me clear and precise, just the way I construct them. The project that I am laboring in my head is the one in which I yet again attempt to formulate the real meaning of life. These moments come to me rarely these days, so this inquiry of mine is certainly a work in progress.

         But as I listen to the faint hum of some 70’s classic playing inside my house, the crying of a guitar and the melancholy rhythm of the singers voice, one thing I know for sure is that you get whatever it is that you put in, and it doesn’t really matter how much you leave this world with. You can’t take it to the grave with you so that affects nothing. But what you give while you’re here, well that can affect the lives of many.  I think that maybe the meaning of all of this madness and beauty that surrounds us is much simpler than we sometimes assume it to be. Life is all about treating each other with kindness and integrity, even when the favor is not returned, and helping people enjoy their own lives just a little bit more. But aside from that even, I think that a key element of the big picture, as they say, is to learn…to grow. We were all put here on this Earth and given this life so that we can gain as much knowledge of it and of ourselves as we can so that we depart as a much wiser and more understanding person than we were when we arrived.

          As the glowing white sentinel in the sky begins to drop down past the ubiquitous stars, I spot a slowly growing red horizon behind me. The moment has ended and I need to be at work in three hours. Time once again to return to the grind…the routine of thoughtless society.

-Steven A Williams

Published in A Little Spot of Light July 2014

To be published in ‘Of Blood and Ink’ coming April 2015

        Hello bloggers and readers, and welcome to my site! This is my first experience with blogging and/or building a web-site of any kind. I must say, I’m pretty proud of myself for what I have put together here so far! So here goes a bit of an introduction of myself to the world of blogging.

          A lot of this can also be read on the ‘about’ page of this site, but I’m going to go through it anyway for those of you readers who just come across this during your browsing and perhaps would like to dive into my site later and learn more. My name is Steven A Williams. I’m an independent (and currently self-published) author, philosopher, and poet from Chicago, IL. You can call me Steve.

           I grew up right here in Chicago, and have never wanted to live anywhere else. I love the skyline, I love Downtown, I love the museums, I love the nearly perfect-square-grid street layout, I LOVE the Blackhawks, and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the food. You cannot find better food anywhere in the world than here in my Chicago. I promise…go ahead and try, and then come here, and let me know what you think. Anyway, before I get too off topic, I want to say thanks to my pal Author Adam Gainer. Adam is the one who suggested that I start a blog site like this to reach more readers, and so I took his advice. So if you’re reading this Adam, thanks. Like I was saying, I’m a writer above all else. The post before this one, my very first post, is one of my favorite short personal essay pieces that I’ve written, and is published in my first Amazon Kindle book, The Funeral of Life. If you haven’t read the post, please check it out. You may notice that it’s a bit dark and a little scary. I’ve always been inspired by the darkness, and it bleeds through everything that I write. But it’s also a touch philosophical, as is most of my work. Either primarily, or with just a subtle hint here and there, all of my writing has real life substance and philosophical value within it. No page can go to waste in my journey to change the world in some humble way. So if you like dark, horror, scary, and also philosophical poetry and fiction, then I’m your writer!

          But my genre preference doesn’t stop there. My passion for writing can’t be contained to just a couple stylized genres like horror and philosophy. I love writing all kinds of poems and stories. Whatever the stories they tell, my characters will always be real and relatable. All of my work currently finished and available is poetry. But I have a small stockpile of my fiction anxiously awaiting re-writes and will start working on them very soon. These range in story from a tormented serial killer, all the way to a medieval epic! I can’t wait to get them all out into the literary world!

          So as I said before, welcome to my site! Please have a look around, and if you like what you read then follow this blog. I will periodically post more short pieces of writing and poems as well as updates on how my work is going and the availability of new releases. Please ‘like’ what you enjoyed reading, and feel free to leave a comment so we can discuss whatever you’d like to discuss. If you like a particular post, let me know and I’ll post more writing like that. Anyway, thanks for reading my introduction, I hope you enjoy my blog, and remember…always be inspired by the darkness

            It’s midnight now. The pale moon has at last reached the apex of the ageless pine two blocks over. The only tree left plush and fully clothed among a crowd of skeletal branches and bark. Next to the frost tipped top of the evergreen giant stands the ominous brick smokestack stemming from the factory down the road. Its three bright red orbs flash and pierce the twilight sky with a chilling shade of crimson, with each blink revealing a bit more detail of the needles and webbing inside the layers of the pine only to take it away again a second later when the darkness again takes back the territory. These two silent sentinels share one characteristic in this moonlight. It can be seen on the rigid walls of the stack and along the roots of the old tree, gripping the soil forevermore. Faint shadows of the world around it can be seen on both; playfully swaying, slowly creeping in sync with the objects they’re cast from. This time of night, and the shadows which accompany it, always gets my imagination and wonderment thriving.

            What secrets and mysteries are held within these dark figures? Or is there nothing more to them than the absence of the light sneaking around their subjects? What timeless stories of horror and unearthly terror do they possess? These secrets being carried with them through all the years they have cast themselves upon the same ground. When you walk a path filled with light, it’s clear to see where you are and what lies ahead. But when you walk through darkness, much more is left to the unknown and the minds perception. And the mind can be a very scary place, especially when it’s your only compass. But that doesn’t mean we should hide away from it or wearily avoid contemplating it. To appreciate the light you must first understand darkness. And so I would say that indeed there is nothing more to shadows than what science and the laws of nature tell us. But what a man sees in place of the light, where his mind goes when engulfed in those shadows, that’s where the real horror stems. The stories and fables of old, tales of ghosts and ghouls, monsters and the undead, are actually gilded disguises of the atrocities mankind and madness can create. When one is lost in the shadows of his own mind, there is no going back and the new world that is created is a torturous place if you let it be. This is the manner in which evil deeds are done, this is why some are capable of bringing hell on Earth. Insanity and curiosity lurking in the shadows.

          Of course, perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe there is something else in those shadows other than a mystique powerful enough to drive a man past the brink of reality. Maybe they act as the portal out of the darkest night imaginable. The gateway from hell itself. Where the horrors creep into our world to torment our dreams and poison our souls. Only to slither back into the dying shadows just before dawn and bide their time until nightfall comes again. Just how supernatural is this world we live in? Do you believe in ghosts? When you hear a bang or creak at night, where is the first place your worried mind goes? The practical man would naturally believe my first explanation here; that is that men go evil, insane, and sadistic and their minds succumb to the darkness and the shadows turning them into the real monsters. The dreamer would feel more inclined to believe in the latter discussion here; that the unreal can be real. That the dead can rise and the impossible can haunt us. Either way, the shadows cause the pain. The unknown which we fear breeds much more to really be afraid of. The secrets these shadows hold are fascinating things to think about. One man sees one thing, unaffected. The next man may see them and never be the same again. What powers must they possess? All that is certain is that the secrets and mysteries held within these dark, empty reflections of our world can never really be understood. For in the dark, too much is left to the unknown to ever truly be safe.

Steven A Williams

First published in ‘The Funeral of Life’ June 2014

To be published in ‘Of Blood and Ink” coming April 2015

Purchase ‘The Funeral of Life‘