Cool inspiration for writing Wintertide

A woman looks out of a window covered in frost
while travelling on a bus in Bucharest, Romania.
(source: Daily Mail Online)

Here are some interesting articles and photos to remind you of upcoming winter or of writing about global cooling if that is what you do. I do. So, this is more like a inspiration for me to keep typing. I managed to write about 20.000 words so far and I believe that an e-book in Croatian will be published before Christmas. It will be ideal gift for people who we love. To remind'em how our lives are short and fragile. Can't think of better gift. Not only for Christmas but for everyday. ;-)

English version will probably be published after New Year. Maybe accompanied with some blizzard storms in the real world.

Meantime, I'll keep typing. I even made a deal with a friend that we will produce at least 1000 words per day for two weeks to keep ourselves motivated. And it works! So, if you are also trying to melt off your writing muscle like I do, find one a fellow writer to make a deal. Just pay attention to pick one who is trustworthy. Because if You pick a wrong guy or a girl - you are screwed.

So long, Penguins!

Ah yes, links:

Europe's worst early snow in 20 years
Snow falls in Rome for the first time in 26 YEARS (by DailyMail)
Worst March snowfall in decades
Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom
Winter of 2009–10 in Europe

I'll be there, in the sun and in the shadow - review

Ja bit ću tu, na suncu i u sjeni by Christian Kracht
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

One word - flatland.

Very well written (although, I read translation), nice descriptions (sometimes like a good canvas) but I couldn't connect with characters and story didn't suck me in. There is no thrill, there is no suspense, there is no even some deep insights or genuine suffer or pain to connect with. It's just listing of episodes. There are a few good scenes like the one with German partisans but also there are some completely inconclusive and already seen like standing on the mine.

To me, this is just another postmodern smart and "provocative" flatland novel. Shallow. No depth in characters, no evolutionary perspective. Whole thing stands on a "shock": Swiss Soviet Republic, Africans that wage war in Alps, Germans and Brits are Nazis but that's, unfortunately, all. Pitty. Because idea is really provocative and opens a great space for exploring possibilities of alternative history and human development.

Luckily, novel is short enough to be read in a few hours. Thanks for that! ;-)

Or, you can forget what you just read about the book and conclude that I'm just stupid or to old fashioned for this postmodern prose.

View all my reviews

Fire from within

Fire from Within by Carlos Castaneda
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Excellent book for people who want to get insight in shamanic spiritual tradition. Other than that, it is pretty much hard to understand it's content if one does not have any spiritual training at all. So, be careful! This book is not for everyone.

Stay focused, Naguals!

;-)

View all my reviews

Change (part two) or What is the cost for avoiding change?

28 days later - still drinking :-)

What are we paying and with what Monet?

We're paying for not living our lives and Monet is our life. In other words, basically: It is a question of conformation and non-conformation. At least in Croatia.

So, what I did last week? I took a vacation and the first three days I spent drunk. Yeah. I drink a lot and I drink fast. On Friday a friend of mine had a birthday party, on Sunday I lead a workshop on e-publishing and we drank a couple of drinks to celebrate the end of a successful workshop and on Sunday I went to help my father with some woods for the coming winter (because winter is coming :-)) and an old friend of mine came too so we got drunk really hard after the job was done. My wife almost carried me to the bed. The next morning she said:

- I don't like you when you're drunk.

Well honey I don't like myself when I'm sober. I don't like myself when I'm drunk either, but only the day after. To cut the crap - I don't like myself, honey. That's the reason when you ask why you drink yourself to death? Actually every day I don't commit suicide is a victory. Yes, honey, sometimes is like that.

So on Monday, the day after, I was really depressed (mild hangover included). When my wife came back from work we had a serious talk and we got to an agreement not to drink and smoke (both of us) for three weeks. I said:

- More suffering? Bring it on, baby! At least I'll suffer by my own choice.

Tuesday passed so-so and on Wednesday I started to meditate, exercise and write. Not much, a couple of hours of writing, but I manage to put almost 1000 words on paper (I know it's a screen actually but paper sounds more like I'm a serious writer). And so I did on Tuesday and on Friday and on Saturday. The story isn't over yet because it broke loose and I don't know what will happen and how will it end. (A nightmare for a control freak like me. :-) But also, the greatest thing in writing process.) As soon I started to do all this things (not without procrastination, hesitation and so on...) depression disappeared and joy and happiness took place. I said to myself:

- All right! That's how I want to spend the rest of my life! I-ha!

And I really very much enjoyed the rest of this vacation. I managed even to reduce the pain in my back so now I can regularly sleep eight hours in a row. That's a winner! And not even one thought of suicide crossed my mind. :-) Sunday evening my spouse and I went for a walk by the seaside and treat ourselves with a beer and A cigarette for enduring the first week of none drinking and non smoking. We deserved it.

p.s.
To say a few words about I don't like myself thing. It's only partially true. Yes, I don't like myself but more precisely – I don't love myself. It doesn't matter what's the reason – probably some kind of unfulfilled expectation of how I or my life should look like – because knowing the reason will not help me to love myself (like is more ego-thing, love is more spiritual-thing). I need to do that, to love myself, not to understand why I'm not doing it. Understanding, eventually, could spring me/us to start do something – it isn't the solution to a problem. We are not mathematical or physical problem which needs to be understood to be solved. We are much, much, much more complex than physical laws – we are biological beings, of course, but we are also emotional beings, reasonable beings and spiritual beings. We cannot be what we are if we only use reason to "understand" what's wrong. So, reasoning is not enough! This is the first obstacle and sometimes it's quite enough to stop us. Listen people, reasoning is not enough! We must do things. We must do things that confirm to us that we love us. To love is to care. Do you care for yourself or you just do things to impress others and maintain image of yourself to yourself (very rarely to others because others know us better than we do ourselves)? Do you care? Do I care 'bout myself? Well, when I'm not drinking myself to death, not smoking 20 fags a day, exercise regularly and eat according to my metabolic type – yes I do. I care 'bout my body. Thank you! When I write 1000 words per day and read every day and work towards becoming full time writer – I care 'bout my talent and my calling. Thank you! When I meditate every day and expanding my worldview with new insights and cut my bad habits as soon as I notice them – I care 'bout my spiritual development. Yes, I do! Thank you for asking!

To conclude – the question is not: Do I care for myself or not? The question is why I'm not doing it? And answer to that question is the reason why we resist changing. Fear.

Fear of what?

The Colony

Inspiration for Wintertide. Haven't seen yet, but I will for sure. :-)

Postcards from Italy

The shattered soul
Following close but nearly twice as slow

The times we had
Oh, when the wind would blow with rain and snow
Were not all bad
We put our feet just where they had, had to go
Never to go

The shattered soul
Following close but nearly twice as slow
In my good times
There were always golden rocks to throw
at those who admit defeat too late
Those were our times, those were our times

And I will love to see that day
That day is mine
When she will marry me outside with the willow trees
And play the songs we made
They made me so
And I would love to see that day
Her day was mine 

Life Before Death

I have nothing to say.

I can only be grateful to Walter Schels and his partner Beate Lakotta for doing this.

I'm deeply touched.

Thanks.

Here.

Wintertide

Unbelievable Pictures of Frozen Europe

There is a lot of fuss and debates about global warming, even the writing competitions start to appear. Is it human influence or it's just normal natural circle which we can't perceive because we have been collecting data for only couple of hundred years or maybe it is solar activities, or solar radiation, or magnetic storms or change in tilt of the earth's axis? We don't know yet for sure but whatever the cause is, the fact is that climate changes in front of our eyes.

I know that because when I was younger, the seasons were more stable, there weren't so many storms, so big oscillations in daily temperatures and so extreme weather. I hear a lot about rising temperature and that drought will strike us so we will have less and less drinking water, ice would melt and the sea level will rise. It looks like we are going to live in a much warmer world than we used to.

Five, six years ago (probably more :-)) I was surprised when I realised it was April and there was still snow in the mountains around Rijeka and that there was still a smell and taste of winter. In Croatia, on the northern part of the Adriatic coast where I live, we were used to the middle of spring in April – bees buzzin', yellow butterflies acting like they know where they flying, swallows nesting, sweet pollen in the air that is pleasantly warm, winter cold melting from our ankles and vitality running through our bodies, girls wearing shorter dresses and blouses and for the moment it looks like everything is OK. Even thought "Life is beautiful!" may cross our minds. On the first of May (a national holiday in Croatia celebrated as International Worker's Day), usually we would all wear t-shirts and even got first sunburns if we fall asleep in a meadow after barbecue and couple of beers. :-) But instead of half-dressed girls I'm looking at the mountains covered with snow and I'm still wearing a winter jacket, a scarf and a cap. Then thought crossed my mind: "What if global warming isn't about living in a warmer world but, instead, living in the Ice Age?"

That was the beginning of short story collection named Wintertide. I wrote three stories set in that world. Even one part of my novel Night by the River (currently in translation and it will be published in autumn if my translator comes home alive from Istanbul – I monitor her over the Facebook :-)) is set in that ice-frozen future city of Rijeka. One of those stories you can read on this blog here, or you can buy it here just to taste what this short story collection will look like or to support my writing. While you do that I'll keep writing new stories.

And remember that we are living in between two ice ages.

"Winter is not coming. Winter is here."

Stay frosty!

Dog days are over

I started.

Finally.

I wrote 600 words on Sunday in a couple of hours, and I wrote 120 words yesterday in one hour.

Advice "Write first – edit later." is a golden one. Before, I used to write and edit almost at the same time and it took me a lot of time to do it, it was a motivational killer and in the end it still needed editing. :-) So, just putting text on paper, even if you see that it could be written better while you typing, is a great thing! At least, it's a great thing for a rusty writer like me. The last short story I wrote six months ago and the short story before that – two years ago. So, to use "rusty" in this context is extremely benevolent and as for the "writer" I wouldn't even comment. Writers write. Right? Yeah, right!

Starting to write this blog was very encouraging to start produce fiction. A few more things got together – like explosion of e-books self-publishing and finding fellow writers with the same goal (thank you very much guys – you help me more than you can imagine! :-)) Final push I got from a reader who, after she read my short story collection, said to me in an e-mail:

I read your short story collection twice even though I have a lot of exams to study for. As I read, I could hardly wait for the end of every story because I knew that the end will cause the rush of ants running in my chest. At the same time, I didn't want for story to end so quickly! So I developed a tactic: I read very fast the whole story and then near the end I slowed down the reading so that end lasted longer than the whole story. And then, came that indescribable feeling! After every last sentence of every story! Then I read again, and even if I know what will happen, the same filing comes again! That's really something!

That's the power of readers!

(I think the worst thing a writer can do is to give his/hers work to family, fellow writers, critics, professors to read... Be in touch with your readers! Readers know! :-))

Thank you very, very much – dear Iva!

I'm back.

Behold!

:-)

Change

I have two dear friends, a couple, married with beautiful and sweet little daughter as all children are. They live in a fine house, on a fine spot and their all basic needs are met. They even have successful careers as much as something like that is possible in Croatia. They have friends, parents that are still alive, hobbies, two cars... I talked to them five months ago and I asked them how things are goin' and they replied not very well. Their relationship is crumbling apparently for no reason. I said that I understand that. This blog post goes for you guys. I hope you're still together and that you have found a way to settle "things".

So, what I understand?

I understand that feeling when it seems that all things are falling apart. I understand dissatisfaction and unbearable feeling of everyday life, frustration because things aren't the way they suppose to be. And I'm not talking about things I cannot influence like current government politics or catastrophic global economic situation or infant behavioural patterns of my closest working partners. I'm talking about things I can influence, I'm talking about things that only I can change. I'm talking about myself.