Hyde Park, London, 2022 My life could be falling apart, but I couldn’t realise it, or I’m not trying to face it intentionally because it’s fearful. Terrifying to see I am not doing it right. Falling apart is, though, not an end. It’s one state of life. Painful but saying to myself that it’s natural. Natural to feel pain because you are alive. It’s one human condition we always have to deal with. If not alive, everything would be numb. Nothing to feel. No sensation or perception. “At peace” is a euphemism for death but the term could have been conjured in view of the others. Death could not simply be a peace for the dead, I suppose. Death is discontinuation. The very End. Some religions promise a life after death, but we don’t know it until we actually die. It’s never known until we open the box (or close the box, our coffin box). My self-worth is dependent on whether I am writing good stories. My writing is directly connected to my self-esteem, and decides whether I would co...
The recent Google search Guns or arrows? 🔫🏹 While I am editing and formatting my second novel in InDesign these days, I am reviewing all the historical facts I used in each setting, for example, the weaponry used in the 1600s in Scotland, whether there was a transportation means other than horses and carriages that time, and so on. Apparently, guns, particularly pistols and muskets, had already been used in the 17th century in Scotland. There were images of royals using pistols, and the royal soldiers used muskets. I vaguely assumed that bows and arrows were still be commonly used in 1600s in Scotland and England, but I was wrong. So I changed every detail in each scene where weapons are mentioned, from arrows/bows to guns. I believe that one of the arduous tasks in writing a novel, especially a historical novel or an alternative history novel, is to make these sorts of changes if necessary. I always try to search for and choose historical elements as cautiously and thoro...