A Profound Look Back at the Week: January 18-24

It’s been an eventful week, personally and globally speaking, and I’m ending it with a bit more insight into several topics that are of interest to me. I won’t bore you with all of them, I’ll just touch on the more fascinating ones.

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The Impostor Syndrome

I often have internal dialogues. Sometimes they’re mostly peaceful but usually they’re highly argumentative. Yes, I often disagree with myself and I get on my nerves a lot being stubborn about stuff. Such as the impostor syndrome.

When Characters Go Rogue

I had such high hopes when I met Natalie Griffiths for the first time. She had just died (Stroke. Felled her like a tree.) without finishing her cigarette and she was bent on having another, however long it took. While she argued her case with her account manager Natalie managed to cause the death of her husband and antagonise said manager so much that she, the manager, bungled the procedure of preparing two deceased for the after life. On top of it all, Natalie — and her husband — escaped from the waiting room of the Great Beyond setting the stage for many ghost adventures. And a cigarette, obviously.

Would You Kill To Live Forever?

A fellow twitterer with the kind of dark bend I respect as much as a no-boundaries sense of humour posted a poll with this question — and the condition that you could choose who you kill — and I answered honestly. After all, I just published a book whose main character kills her own son whom she loves deeply to gain eternal life… and the power to save a doomed city. The results of the poll were quite evenly split, which is understandable, I suppose, but my honest opinion cost me two followers.

The Story Repository

It started as a dream journal. I called it that but the goal I started it with was to collect story ideas – kernels – I could use when I was in the mood for a short story. Apparently, once you finish a novel every story idea that comes to mind is a novel idea, or at least this is the case for me. Now, dreams on the other hand, dreams are short story material, I’ve no idea why. What I know is that most of the short stories I’ve written started their lives as something in a dream. It made sense to collect these story kernels.

So I Wrote This Book…

… and now I’m supposed to promote it. That would not be problem at all for someone who knows a thing or two about marketing, or who is bursting with the confidence that they’ve written a timeless classic/bestseller. Unfortunately, I’m neither.

The Importance of a Good Ending

If there’s anything that can put me off writing, it’s endings. I never imagined completing a story in a way that is plausible, logical, moving, satisfying, hopefully a little surprising, and memorable could be so difficult.

The Man Who Once Made Soup

…or why there are things we simply are not cut out for and it’s smart to stay away from them and focus on what we do well.

Covers, Covers Everywhere. Also Torsos.

What you see above is what the cover of The Lamiastriga would have been had I continued with my initial plan to self-publish it. I’ve never been very good at explaining anything to anyone but my concept for the book was simple enough to articulate without leaving any space for doubt: just the title and nothing else.

Salt of the Earth

A friend — a professional editor and proofreader — offered the other day to edit a bunch of short stories I’ve decided to publish as a collection. For free because she’s weird. Leaving the weirdness aside, however, she said something that struck a sensitive spot.