I once wanted to write a romantic story. Something that would involve sun, kisses, and tender embraces, as all romances seem to contain. After a couple of days I came up with a title. “The Portrait of a Lady.” I thought, why not, let’s search the Internet to see if anyone else came up with the same title as I. And figure what. Someone did.

Of course, it’s a famous novel written by Henry James. He obviously typed faster than I did. Pardon my bad humor. I knew who he was, I just didn’t know about that specific work. “The Turn of The Screw” is my favorite. Apropos, what do you think about it? In my humble opinion, it gives you a freedom of choice unparalleled in the world of literature. But you’re not here to talk about books. Let’s face it, reading is one of your least favorite things to do when you walk out of this room. So, let’s cut to the chase.

That book scared the hell out of me. And, trust me, I’m used to handling strange. But this was just… impossible? Is that the right word to describe this? Continue reading →

Every morning Sebastian would come out of his improvised office, yawn a couple of times, hand me his notebook, and say, “Do your thing.”

That meant I had to check for spelling mistakes. Oh, and place the occasional comma here and there. Other than that, there was nothing more I could do. Everything he wrote was perfect.

While he slept, I would spend my time in the library, reading books. He had been right. I couldn’t find information about any of the writers or books that were there. But that didn’t stop me from reading them. Some were good; really, really well written. Others, not so much.

But what I found odd was the fact that most of them had the same name for the main female character. Selena. Continue reading →

You know I’m going to read you one of my stories. Maybe you’re going to like this one. It’s… a bit, well, you’ll see.

One

I am an avid smoker. When I wake up in the morning, I feel this inexplicable urge to smoke a cigarette. I have to do it. After a good meal, I light myself a cigarette. I can’t drink coffee without two or three cigarettes – as a side dish, I suppose.

So one day I made myself a promise. For every cigarette I smoke I have to write one page of literature. Good or bad, it doesn’t matter. I have to write one page, five hundred or so words, just so I can puff away some nicotine.

At first it was easy. I found enough inspiration to write thirty pages in a matter of days. It wasn’t so bad. After that, I wrote a twelve page short story in a day or so. Again, it was not the usual amount of nicotine I had been used to, but it had to make do. Continue reading →

That same night, I woke up from a dream. The moon’s empty glare trickled down walls, shadows quivered around me.

The dream was still scratching its way out of my brain when I sat at my desk and began to type on my computer, my fingers fueled by a vision much more vivid than reality itself. After all, between what’s real and what’s not is but a thin line.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his Kublai Khan.

I closed my eyes, and there it was. Glued to the back of my eyelids, a forest trapped by a blistering wind, a man walking down a dirt road, holding a guitar. I typed with my eyes still closed.

The world around me was nothing and I was nothing.

Robert Louis Stevenson and his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I opened my eyes, eager to read the words that I wrote. But there were no words there, on that computer screen. No. My dream was there, on that screen. As surreal as it seems, the dream was there, held captive by mere words, by a cage of punctuation marks.

I had been nothing and I became something.

Mary Shelley and her Frankenstein.

I had created something that wasn’t there before I sat down at that desk. Something that didn’t use to exist. Continue reading →