Featured

Who the F$#k Is Cristian Mihai?

The author of this article, age 8

When I was a kid, I thought I was destined for great things. I was born on Christmas Day, exactly one year after they shot Ceausescu, the only ruler of a Communist country to ever be executed. Now, in the same spot, they’re building a shopping mall.

Maybe because I was born when I was born, I don’t really listen to what other people tell me I should do. I never did.

I don’t like authority. I don’t like to follow rules.

I am not afraid of the consequences of not doing what I am told. I am not where I’d like to be in life because I don’t like most people. I have long suspected they don’t like me back.

I am a rebel without a cause, garnering a bit of applause here and there from those who read my stories.

Continue reading “Who the F$#k Is Cristian Mihai?”

Summer Sale: Pay What You Want

Hey guys,

It’s been a while since I’ve hosted a sale on the e-store, so…

For the next 24 hours, pay what you want for the Big Book Bundle (which contains all 8 of my books.)

Yes, this means you can pay absolutely nothing at all and download all the books for free.

Or you can pay more and support my blog and the stories I share with you.

You can find the bundle here.

That’s about it!

Cristian

Mission Regrettable: Facebook, Big Business, and Nostalgia

Image(s)

Usually this blog examines images in advertising and the slogans that accompany such images. In this particular post, the slogan itself takes center stage in the form of Facebook’s mission statement:

To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.

For those who have come across this declaration, how many have laughed out loud, sneered, or even gagged? Can a company that caters to egoism really claim to be altruistic? And yet, how many people stop to ask this question? How many simply absorb the message and think nothing of it?

Girl alone in her big-city apartment looks at her phone.

“The amoral corporation as humanitarian” is a card that has been played so often, it no longer registers as a play. Or perhaps the public has simply become accustomed to pretense as part of the consumer landscape. Consider the mission statement as a public relations tool, twisting and softening the true aim of any…

View original post 749 more words

New! Writing: Profession or Religion?

Hey guys,

New release!

Writing: Profession or Religion is a compilation of 12 essays on creativity and writing. I deconstruct the process and try to understand whether writing is a profession or a religion, and whether we should approach the blank page with reverence or just roll up our sleeves and proceed to punch those damn keys.

If you like my essays on the creative process, you’re going to love this one.

You can find it on my e-store here.

P.S. The Big Book Bundle is looking better than ever, with 8 books for only $10. And, yes, Writing: Profession or Religion is also included.

Get the eBook
Get them all

The Writer: Prologue

There’s this neat trick they do in television, especially in hour long TV dramas. It’s called a teaser and its sole purpose is to make you want more. It usually ends with a cliffhanger just so you don’t change the channel when that lengthy commercial break starts.

Sometimes the teaser is a glimpse of a scene close to the end of that episode. This is how I’m going to begin my story – with a short scene close to the end.

I guess the first thing you should know is where this scene is taking place. 

Continue reading “The Writer: Prologue”

[short story] koi no yokan

He walks into the waiting room, sees all the other patients eagerly waiting to be called into the doctor’s office. They all nod in that peculiar manner; they are here because of necessity, rather than choice. He sits on the only available chair and takes out his cell phone. It’s so warm inside that he has to struggle not to yawn.

But then he looks up and notices her.

Continue reading “[short story] koi no yokan”