Do you want to know how I first saw them?
When cleaning, I came across the original mind map that I made at the very beginning of writing a novel VIGIL…
Oh my god, how important for me were these clippings! They moved me toward my fictional characters!
Trust me, train can hit you even on a sidewalk
I will never again say that desperate sentence, not even to me: “What else can happen to me today?” Not once, this sentence costed me a lot. Probably, it is the most provocative question targeting “somewhere above”. And there is always a clear answer coming back. I will seriously remember it!
After a day hectic to the max, when the turbulence and the hurricane of bad news calmed down, I went to do some shopping. I had planned to spend the weekend at home and spend it creatively. I was not sure yet whether it would be painting or writing, but I knew for sure I would be creating. I had not been a creator for so long that I became a creature in fact.
Let’s have a movie night!
Whenever you turn on the TV, you can always find something that can keep you “hanging” there. I am a film maniac and I admit falling for the new trend of series. I understand why producers bet on series. It is around midnight when I return from work and that is not the time you start watching a two-hour movie. Episodes of series are typically under one hour and if it is good, you fall for it fast.
My favorite Game of Thrones, Westworld, Twin Peaks, etc., is all good. But it is not the right movie night. It is complete with a bowl of popcorn, nice blanket and the phone switched-off. God, have I not allowed myself such a luxury for a long time!
Two people can look at the same thing and see something different
A friend Matúš, an actor by occupation, writes amazing stories. He writes them only for himself for now, just like that. It is exactly the style and the genre I love. We occasionally exchange some and then we talk about them long.
In fact, we write the same and yet completely different. One way or another, we inspire each other a lot. Matúš is one of the few people I let inside my literary kitchen and let him look under the lids of my ebullient pots.
When a muse starts kicking
There are days in lives when we have the feeling that we can change the world and turn it inside out with our deeds. Whatever you touch, turns out well. You have the power, you got what it takes.
I do not know what would be the best thing to do on such day, but I decided to sit by the computer and write. And muses were kicking me with all their power. So much that I am surprised for not having bruises…
I will never give up my ball
I do not remember exactly when was the first time I started to be interested in the ball as a fascinating spatial shape but I do now that it has been quite serious since early childhood. I liked everything rounded. I would not eat any fruits, unless they were the shape of a ball, and as a ten-year-old I signed up for the shot put. I wished to get the fortune-telling ball for Christmas and called our kitty Little Ball.
Later, I fell for bowling and enjoyed the full moon as the largest holiday and, till I die, I will remember the definition a closed sphere as a set of all points of the in the distance from the sphere’s center not larger than a given positive number – the radius of the sphere.
The Curious Cross Street Grannies Discover New Worlds
Sometimes, I get tired of how carefully you have to work with the term sci-fi. You move a bit in your writing beyond the limits of the possible and you are put in the literature ghetto. This is exactly how the grand master of the Slovak modern fantasy and sci-fi, theoretician Ondrej Herec formulated it. “Fantasy is a genre which we were put in a in a ghetto operating on parallelly next to the acknowledged ‘high’ literature. Fortunately, it is slowly building its self-esteem.”
After tens of mystery stories and two “light-fantasy” novels I wrote a story book VIGIL, which I consider romantic above all. Despite it belongs to the sci-fi genre by its theme and can be found in shelves with this label at the back of the book stores, people find it right on the counter in my gallery. All those people, who buy my pictures and paintings and for some curious perspective they find it interesting to read my book with my painting. After all, they have it with a signature. So why not?
KEEP CALM & LOVE PURPLE
My day today passed in the theme of purple color without this having any link to Vigil or without my influence whatsoever…
A lady in the purplest and the biggest hat I had ever seen entered my gallery right in the morning. She wanted to buy light bulbs. I asked her if we seemed to be selling light bulbs and smiled at her. She jibbed a bit, looked around better and then she bought a scarf. Purple.
Vigil Is Wearing My Jeans
The “real sale” of English translation of VIGIL is launching today. At the same time I found out that there is the last print of the Slovak version of Vigil in my gallery…
It occurred to me that I should “make it special” to a future reader.
Vigil is going into the world
It is November 11, 2017 and in a few days, my novel Vigil in English will go on sales.
I have not realized it properly until this day, but just today a close friend asked me:
“Monika, are you looking forward to the start of sales of your book in English? This is exceptional for you, right?”
I admit that only these questions got me to stop and leave the spiral of events around me. It got me to think a bit.
Hallo? Is it true? Is this really happening?