The Book

The Estrella is a page dedicated to the fantasy book, by Sisi Kirkwood which chronicles the story of Alex and Electra in their struggle against the Demon, Moredus who threatens to start a war with the heavens and use Earth as the battle ground. Alex must find Electra and recover the artefacts stolen from the Sanctuary. Electra , his partner and lover has been abducted. She faces change and struggles of her own as she learns of her birth right and her origins. What she discovers changes her fate and the fate of the world forever.
The Estrella, a book by Sisi Kirkwood can be purchased as an ebook from Smashwords.com
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/254176

Friday 31 May 2013

Change , Inherent and Irrevocable

The Estrella is about change, how one deals with it. Electra gets blind sided by her transformation. It's fight or flight and honestly that's where I am right now.
As a woman we face so many challenges. We give birth, we breast feed, we suffer through mastitis. We raise families, we break glass ceilings of prejudice. We fight stereotypes and demand equal rights to men. We get breast cancer and ovarian cancer. That's where my pen stops. I have recently been faced with the frightening process of biopsies and mammograms. Of waiting for results and worrying. Of being terrified of what could be. What if I have breast cancer? What if I died and left my four children motherless? What if I have to get chemo and undergo radio therapy? These terrifying possibilities have haunted me for the last 6 months as I found lumps in my breast. "Oh by the way," I told my doctor, "can I get a referral for a mammogram?" I brought up casually,"I found a lump." Little did I know the next 6 months would send me on a roller coaster ride of emotions. A ride that took me and my family to the depths of despair and the heights of joy. Ultrasounds, biopsies, fine needle and core follow. The waiting for results, "be ready", the Dr warned, because if they are cancer, you will need an emergency mastectomy on Monday. It was Thursday.
The lumps are benign; "Let's follow up in 6 months." The Doctor advises me as he gratefully closes the door on that chapter. Breast cancer, access denied! Yay team Sisi!
Then I toddled back to my pristine life, no mastectomy needed here I told the powers that be. Grateful and relieved to the point of giddiness. Best news of my life.
Three months later standing in my doctors office in tears. The water from my eyes pouring down my face; I had found blood coming out of my nipple.
The terror came back. The fear of cancer, of dying and leaving my family came flooding back. More tests, more ultrasounds, more painful tests. They found a papilloma with atypical cells. these particular lumps are suspicious and seen as precancerous; they are usually removed.
Surgery.
 They also found calcifications that would need a special kind of biopsy called a mammotome biopsy.
I needed to be admitted into hospital and wait in a waiting room with women in a similar position to mine. Women who had been stolen from their normal lives to sit in a pastel room wearing a hospital gown thinking anything but pastel thoughts. My mum came with me and kept me company (please read kept me from rocking in the foetal position in the corner) while the lady next to me regaled me on all of the religious reliquaries that she had in her bag. I didn't have Jesus in my bag, I made a mental note to get something religiously inspirational for my bag, like a bottle of semillon blanc.
I finally get called in and lay on a bed, put the boob in question in a hole and hold very still while they administer a local anaesthetic and prepare to squish my boob in a vice and drill it with a suctioning cutting blade in a tube. There's a nurse there to stop me from going crazy and trying to get up. Don't worry I wasn't moving!! I finished that procedure, walked into the waiting room and proceeded to blanch as pale as the pastel puke walls. I shook so hard I couldn't talk.
Benign.
I talk to the surgeon, everything has gone numb, my mind, my emotions. I should be relieved but I am going to have surgery to remove the papilloma and will lose a large portion of my breast. "Cut it out" I said, "I don't need it!" In truth my kids needed me more than I needed my entire upper ductal system. I was outwardly stoic and inwardly bereft. I talk a good game! Real tough but I am scared of surgery, of losing half my breast.
I don't have cancer and that is the best news I could hope for, but to reduce the risk of developing ductal carcinoma in the future, ol' lefty has to go under the knife. Cancer, even in its absence has left its mark on me, indelible, irrevocable.
That part of me that I associate as being inherently female is being scrutinized and dissected. My fear is I will walk out less. Stupid I know. Beauty is not dependant on whether I have both breasts intact. I get that. I love my body for all its bumps. For the children it has bore me and nourished. But I love my children and my husband and my life much more than those lumps, calcifications, cysts and bad cells.
There have been so many women affected by cancer and who have lost their lives and left jagged holes in their families where they belonged. I will not be one of them.
I'm grateful to have the choice of early detection.
Prevention is the cure!

So get grabbing and make sure you know your boob as more than just the hunk of flesh that you roll on when you're in bed or the accessories you wear when you go out. Get to know every Rocky Mountain and valley of those babies and have mammograms and be VIGILANT!
Peace people. I will get over this hurdle and I pray for those faced with worse. As my beautiful father used to say, whatever you're going through, this too shall pass. Hang in there and love and light to you all. Xx Sisi


Thursday 31 January 2013

victimization.

This is off topic, but I want to talk about victimization. Well i suppose, its not about vampires werewolves and faeries. Theres no angels in this post.(amazingly) Not many people know this about me but i am a wife and a mum of four kids. One of whom is having trouble at school. It's funny because I thought his first day of highschool went really well. I truly believed that he was going to make a good start at a new school, first year of highschool and all. Today I found out he was threatened by a student to punch him to the ground and stick his head in a toilet. Charming. This boy was an older boy two years ahead of him and the brother of one of my sons friends..

My husband and I live on the same street as the kids mother, so he saw her standing out the front of the house and decided to say something, maybe trying to circumvent further trouble, maybe she would be able to have a word with the kid. She said oh dear, how terrible, she'd talk to him, she also said well your son isnt really friends with my son and his brother, he is annoying them all the time really and wont leave them alone. she basically said whilst its not on that her son threatens my son, hes just trying to stick up for his brother and that my son was actually the problem. Okay. My son gets threatened with violence and hes to blame? Really is that the take she has on it? So its bad but not so bad cos my kid was asking for it? Being so annoying. That's such a crock of shit. Im flabbergasted that she even bothered to come back up to the house to tell us. BTW it didnt happen the way you say, It's all your sons fault. I think its lucky I didnt sic my attack baby onto her to drool all over her smug face. I already tried to talk to her in the past because ....Oh I forgot to mention, Her big thug of a child has a history of bullying my son in grade school. Awesome. So we went to the only highchool in the area that was a 7 to 12 school, all the grades, and we're stuck with the BULLY. It was the bully's first day at school today, so as you can see he wasted no time in fitting the stereotype as a class A Bully.

 My son has special needs, he had behavioural problems, ADHD, Oppositional defiance disorder and multi focal tic disorder. He has his challenges, dont get me wrong, HE IS NO ANGEL. I have no illusions that he can be really hard to be around at times. But to resort to violence and threats against a 12 year old by a 14 yr old, well, the older kid certainly has his own issues. especially if  this seems to be his Modus Operandi. My kid has special needs, he didnt ask to be this way and life is a struggle for everyone. So if you dont want to be his friend, fine. But dont hang around him or seek him out to get crappy with him for being too chatty or over the top. My kid is the patron Saint of Over the top. But he has a good heart and tries hard to make friends. So if you dont want to be there I understand, but have the balls to say it to his face, not serve him up to your big brother to frighten him and make his school life hell. VICTIMIZATION. It's appalling. Im off to the school to make a formal complaint cos excuse me if the mother didnt fill me with hope that she'd effect any change at all. That is all.

Saturday 1 December 2012

Electra - a woman not defined by scars

I have thought on what similarities if any do I share with Electra, my female protagonist in my book The Estrella. I see Electra as a woman in a state of flux. Changing from one form to another. Testing her metal in the fire, being thrust from one world she thought she knew, into another she has to run to catch up to. I don't quite identify with the dramatic nature of her struggles, I do however identify with her metamorphosis. The catalyst for irrevocable change can be small or monumental, their outcomes are the same. The seed for growth is planted. It need only be fostered. I feel that deeply as I'm sure many women do in life. I'm a woman who believes in wrestling the positive from the negative. Something however small can be gleaned from the struggles one faces in life. Electra found herself changed physically and spiritually by a situation beyond her control. The first instinct is usually fold up and give up. Instead Electra changes the events around her, bends it to her will. Turns a no into a yes. She's not much on boundaries and people saying she can't do something. I'm all about that! If you can project that "will" far, you surprise yourself with what can be achieved. Electra isn't defined by her scars. She uses the hurt to facilitate change so deep in her core that Electra that she thought she was exists no longer. She ceases to be the prey and becomes the predator. She doesn't become the predator as a reaction to her circumstance. The circumstance becomes irrelevant. All that is relevant is the acceptance of her true nature. Who Electra truly needs to be regardless of ego or external stimulus. Although I didn't mean to identify with that, I still do. I hope that many women faced with adversity would feel the same way. The desire to rise above and bend that situation to their will. Find their inner divinity and effect positive change. That would be perfect.

Tuesday 13 November 2012

The Estrella: We have Gone Live On Smashwords.com!!!

The Estrella: We have Gone Live On Smashwords.com!!!: Hi there, the time has finally arrived! We are live on smashwords.com! You can purchase your copy of the book The Estrella at smashwords.c...

Monday 12 November 2012

We have Gone Live On Smashwords.com!!!

Hi there, the time has finally arrived! We are live on smashwords.com! You can purchase your copy of the book The Estrella at smashwords.com, just search Sisi Kirkwood or The Estrella ... Its only $2.99!!! Bargain!!
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/254176

Happy reading everybody!!

Alex is trying to piece together what the correlation is between the disappearance of his girlfriend and fellow investigator for the Society of Magicks, Electra and the theft of an artifact of great Dark Magicks from the Sanctuary. Can he save the worlds from the demon, Moredeus, hellbent on destruction and war?

Sunday 28 October 2012

Welcome readers


Welcome to the blog set up to discuss the book I wrote  called The Estrella, it follows the story of Alex and Electra, two lovers that are separated from one another, changing their destiny and the fate of the world. If you've already read the book and you love it, please feel free to comment. The estrella is my first book, and I am currently working on Book 2, as the dust settles from Book 1 The Estrella. You can buy the book at Smashwords.com for $2.99AUD, at present that is the only place it is available.

! will be publishing to smashwords by the end of the week, so thanks for your patience, I seek perfection, so less will not do!!!