fiction writer, blogger

Deliciousness on the patio @prettyradbar Steak frites 🥩🍟 Fish tacos 🌮 Rad bowl 🥣 . . . #foodie #patio #steak #fries #taco #healthybowl (at Pretty Rad) https://www.instagram.com/p/CrQnxYnuljS/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Whewww! Somehow … done! Not sure at all about how I did. But I think I did the best I could with the material and time I had. The rest is not up to me now. Best of luck to all participating! . . . #nycmidnight #shortstorychallenge2023 #writingcommunity #shortstory #writingcompetition #writersofinstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CrH4gePu1WX/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Why this year’s challenges all gotta be on the same weekends as my papers’ due dates? 🤦🏻‍♂️ But I’m excited! Let’s go! 😆 . . . #nycmidnightshortstorychallenge #shortstories #writingcommunity #writingchallenge #writersofinstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CrE4V05ufo6/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Remember that day back in January when I wrote like a paper plus a short story in one day and I wasn’t sure how I did for the story? Well, here it is! And I got the 4th place!!! 😆 The highest ranking yet, in any #nycmidnight challenges 🎉 You know what they say — you never know where a story is going to carry you. So true, I can’t believe it. Looking forward to the 2nd round😊 . . . #writingcontest #writingchallenge #shortstorychallenge2023 #shortstory #writersofinstagram #writer https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq7j_k3udeD/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

This book proclaims: “The pen is mightier.” Narrative determines your life, for we all live in one narrative or another; this character or that; pushing the plot forward, written by ourselves or someone else. If the narrative is ill-fitted to our character — as personality or novelistic creation — we suffer. White and Epston propose that we rewrite the story we live in and invite the people who care about us to participate in its realization. These two social workers show through their seminal work that the transformative literary prowess we’re so enchanted by in creative literature may be summoned in the therapy room, through the artful translation of life into story. The story we tell ourselves about our own life decides how we envision, interpret, and interact with our lives. It is the story that ails and heals the people in it. Great writing throughout, with the only annoyance being that in the later half the authors spent too much space demonstrating the point using much of the same type of materials — letters. Regrettably, however, these letters can come off as conceived, wanting of more heart. Otherwise, a very enjoyable read! . . . #narrativetherapy #greatreads #bookrecommendations #psychology #familytherapy https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq5bEcvOg__/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

A fictional tale of the awakening journey of a learned young man sharing the name, Siddhartha, with the Buddha in the actual world. He foregoes all learning and teaching and set out to find his own way, define his own meaning, see life for what it is, as it is. He learns from the river that knows everything. Forever changing, yet forever the same. This tale takes interior focus of the protagonist to a new level by demonstrating how everything we feel, think, perceive, and sense is contained within ourselves. The past, present, and the future has already come into being within us, awaiting revelation. Above all, this tale shows us that, contrary to intuition, meaning of life is revealed to us by living through it and introspecting, not outward searching. Turned within, we find what we all search for—meaning, and become siddhartha, the oneness and complete human being sitting within our souls. Hesse’s lyrical prose is almost like Buddhist meditation, taking us along with the awakening through inner dialogues and revelations. But only to tell us that all these are but the fractured one half of the whole truth about life, which is ultimately inexpressible. Therefore, for the purpose of awakening, insignificant. Wisdom cannot be taught, only lived and earned. What a masterpiece. #hermannhesse #siddhartha #greatreads #bookrecommendations #bookreview https://www.instagram.com/p/Cqa3Yzsu9JR/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Yalom poured his soul into this book. And the result is a tantalizing open letter to all therapists. The conversation that happens between us and Yalom throughout the pages exemplifies partially what happens in therapy—a transformative meeting between two souls. Yalom’s sage advice comes through as caring and passionate, both for his patients he recounts in the book and for this profession, which he urges us new therapists to resurrect back to its healing roots that touch both parties of the therapeutic encounter in the deepest place of their psyches 🪷 . . . #irvinyalom #therapy #therapist #greatreads #bookrecommendations #bookreview https://www.instagram.com/p/CqFsv0nu-4D/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Done! I’ll be honest, I had a lot going on this past week, so I didn’t get started until last night. Never written a 2200-word story so fast in my life (finished in 3 hrs)! Thought it was impossible 🫠 But I did it. Submitted with 3 mins on the clock ⏰ 😮‍💨 I’ll be honest again, I have no idea how good the story is 😅 but I know I did the best writing I could, given the circumstances. It was fun, super stressful, and eminently thrilling! Hope it will at least get some good feedback 🙏🏻 . . . #nycmidnightshortstorychallenge #writingcontest #nycmidnight #shortstorychallenge2023 https://www.instagram.com/p/CoBq0Cwul35/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Been a while since the last contest 😃 Got an interesting and fun prompt. A mystery involving an earthquake and a meditator 🤔 This will make a very fun week 😆 #nycmidnightshortstorychallenge #writingcompetition #writersofinstagram #fiction https://www.instagram.com/p/Cnr-lBKuwgZ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Why “the Big Terrible Thing”? It’s serious issue that’s being talked about here. “Addiction” would’ve sufficed, and be more succinct. Yes, but it would’ve been banal, bland, boring, and void of feeling—clinical. … Un-Chandler, anti-Matthew. “Addiction” would’ve been as ingenuous as Matty is unsparing of him in this darkly funny memoir. The comedic voice telling his unbelievable story full of hardship is one anybody would recognize as iconic and inimitable. That Matthew deems much, if not all, of what he endured as what he did to himself shows his razor-sharp clarity about where he’s been, where he is, and where he wants to go. Much of this clarity has, heartbreakingly, remained as mere dormant potential for most of his life, never quite enough to break him out of Hell. But towards the end, as I read the last chapters, that golden light seemed to reach out and touch this world, as Matthew’s long nightmare gives way to reality, where he was spared for the nth time from Death, where he ponders on the meaning of these narrow escapes, and where he decides to give his suffering a positive meaning, despite all the darkness he’s been in. To summarize and comment any further is to diminish the richness of this book. So I will end with this last comment: It’s not a good book, nor a bad one, nor is it mediocre—it’s honest and fearless. It’s naked. And that’s more than enough. Read it like you’re lending an ear to a friend, which @mattyperry4 certainly has, to all those who’ve watched him in “Friends”. You will be moved and changed by the time you turn the last page. . . . #addiction #alcoholism #memoir #greatreads #matthewperry #bookstagram #bookrecommendations https://www.instagram.com/p/CnCZA-MuIRR/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

What a pleasure to read, especially for those with a taste for philosophy and the complex workings between people’s unconscious. Coming from a seasoned eminent therapist, this novel puts together the best parts of intellectual exploration, philosophical pondering, emotional resonance, and therapeutic storytelling. The characters are many and each is real and grounded. The plot is fascinating because it is centred on the transformations of these characters and their relationships with one another. This is my first Yalom novel, and I can’t wait to open his other works! 😆 . . . #bookreview #greatreads #irvinyalom #bookstagram #bookrecommendations #writersofinstagram #writer https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm4ZTt-OMB3/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Happy New Year everyone 🥳 Janus was the god after whom we named January. As the god of change and transformation, Janus is two-faced, one looking at the past, the other, the future. Honouring this time of change, New Year’s Day marks a month of reflection on the past and projection into the future. As I do so, it seems like this whole past year I have been graced by Janus, as I was blessed by a wonderful, growing and blossoming relationship with my girlfriend @eclipse.mx, returned to work after a one-year hiatus, started my Master’s, moved out of the big city I’ve been living in for the past 7 years and into a smaller town, and made great progress in discovering my writer’s voice. All these gave me more reason to honour Janus by looking simultaneously back and forward. Can’t wait to step through the New Year’s door and discover what changes and transformations lie on the other side! Hope you are too 😊 . . . #newyear2023 (at Milton, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm3TndBuDni/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

For some reason this got left out from my Xmas Eve post 😂 here’s the almond milk panna cotta with apricot jam 😋 #merrychristmas #christmaseve #homecooking #happyholidays (at Abbeys On The Sixteenth) https://www.instagram.com/p/CmoxhnjONS_/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#christmaseve #merrychristmas 🎄 This year’s Xmas dinner, to me, was fundamentally different from all the others I’ve spent. It’s no longer an annual excuse for a self-indulgent feast fuelled only by the trends in the culture, which, with all its excitements, doesn’t season the food with merry-jolly as promised when you sit alone at a table for four. With you, @eclipse.mx this night is finally full and warm, and seasoned with all the joy and bliss one can find ❤️ (Chestnut mushroom soup 🍄 Rib roast with veggies with zesty garlicky green onion paste 🥩+ Almond apricot panna cotta 😋) (at Abbeys On The Sixteenth) https://www.instagram.com/p/CmovNnxuxpH/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Finally read Faust! As one of the masterpiece classic, Goethe’s storytelling is compelling—too bad I can’t speak to the language because I can’t read it in the original German 🤷🏻‍♂️ But even in the translation, assuming the translator stayed as true to the original as possible, the theatrical discourse is a pleasure to read. The images conjured up by these rhyming lines are dramatically vibrant. Aside from the beautiful poetic sense and the overarching storyline, however I regret to say that the finer plot lines are lost to me, mainly because the wealth of myths referenced was way beyond my scope of knowledge 😵‍💫😵‍💫 I guess an annotated version is next on my agenda 🤓 (any recommendations for good translated and annotated editions, pls comment below, it’ll be much appreciated 🙏🏻🙏🏻) . . . #classic #poetry #faust #goethe #greatreads #recommendation https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl3iihMObna/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Reworked a short musing about this drawing into verses, which I’m sure is rough, but I tried 🤷🏻‍♂️😂 . . . #original #poetry #poem #writersofinstagram #poetsofinstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/Cki-E-0Oy6Q/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

So much beauty in one book. Under Delia Owens’ pen, the marsh is a living, breathing, magical being of Nature. With such gorgeous prose, a moral stance is made about nature and humanity, so strong it seems irrefutable. Achieved in an amoral portrait of characters. No good, nor bad—just are. Haven’t liked and rooted for a character so completely in a long time. Kya might be my favourite now, I must admit. Gorgeous. Perfect. This should be a textbook for every writer. I, for one, plan to study it, learn from it, and hopefully one day write something that moves the reader as much as Owens has moved me. . . . #wherethecrawdadssing #deliaowens #greatreads #writing #writersofinstagram #bookstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CjY9Tk9O_rN/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=