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I’m happy to report I got a short story called “The Birthday Cake” in issue 2 of Lit Shark. You can read it here. There’s also a paperback version coming soon if you’re interested in buying a copy!

This story is a departure from my usual dark fanfare, and I really hadn’t meant for that to happen. I wrote this story fully expecting the main character would go home from shopping feeling defeated and angry at the world. I know it’s crazy, but the character kind of fought back as I was writing. I can best describe it as I was watching her in my mind’s eye in the parking lot taking her groceries to the car after a horrible experience at the grocery store, and I saw her stop by the bumper of her car and just push back against everything I had planned for her.

The woman in question is a mixture of my mom and my mother-in-law, and the story came to me when I was at a grocery store with my mother-in-law, who can’t see the tiny coins very well in her purse. The cashier was incredibly impatient with her inability to distinguish the coins, and my mother-in-law walked away from the experience slightly shaken at how brazenly the cashier had wanted her to stop “being in the way of everyone.”

My mother is the more playful, childish sides of the character who punches back at me, as usual. Together, they form the kind of woman I hope I end up being when I get older.

I think far too often, cultures the world over make us all believe our lives reach their zenith at around 20 and decline from there until we simply are pushed into oblivion by the younger generations. That couldn’t be farther from the truth, and I think we would all benefit from having this stigma erased from our consciousnesses. I’m hoping to contribute however I can, though all too often the characters I write are young, too. I’m working on it.

There are certain shows I like to watch when I don’t particularly feel like thinking too much, which is not to say the shows are stupid – more that the premise is sweet in its simplicity. I love baking shows for this reason (my favorite is “The Great British Bakeoff”), and I’ve always been a fan of Netflix’s “Nailed It!” series.

While I would love to think I would hold my own in that great tent of “The Great British Bakeoff”, the truth is, I’d be way more at home on the “Nailed It” set presenting one disaster after another to the judges. I think maybe that’s why a lot of people love the “Nailed It” series – they can see themselves doing a lot of what the contestants do.

The opportunity to binge-watch the latest incarnation of “Nailed It” presented itself when I was taken out by the flu this week and completely bedridden with a high fever on Wednesday, I think it was. Honestly, it’s hard to keep track of the days when you’re sick.

For “The Big Nailed It Baking Challenge”, which is like a cross between “The Great British Bakeoff” and “Nailed It”, the show took 12 people who are relatively bad at baking, gave them two baking teachers, then had the contestants create masterpieces in cake in a limited time frame.

While the first few episodes were entirely relatable (except for spreading buttercream with your hands on a cake), it felt like viewers weren’t given all of what was going on because it went from contestants saying things like “I have no idea what’s going on so I’ll just grab whatever I can find in the pantry behind me” to “Today, I’d like to make a ganache with a complementary raspberry reduction and a coconut buttercream that will hopefully really play up the chocolate notes of the cake” in a matter of about four episodes. The contestants went from “We shall all make vanilla cake and that is all we know” to things like “Today, I thought I’d try passionfruit in my cake, which is going to have orange blossom extract and a little bit of pretzles and freeze-dried strawberries for that added flavor and texture.”

How are they able to just wildly come up with these flavor combinations? My fever-addled brain concluded that we the viewers aren’t being shown all of the conversations between the contestants and the teachers, and that surely those teachers are severely helping them progress at such lightning speed and are teaching them these flavor combinations. I know I would never think to pair the flavors they suddenly do in the latter half of the show without some sort of guidance.

It’s an enjoyable show to watch, though, and I love the Baking 101 they do at the beginning of each episode. I don’t think I’m ever going to air-brush a cake, though, and I’m fine with that.

My last comment about this show is that I adore what they do for people who get booted off at the end of each episode. Normally with these shows it’s “Sorry, you’re out” and then sometimes hugs are exchanged and the poor person leaving gives a heartfelt speech about what a great experience this was for them. Then, they just leave.

On this show, however, those booted contestants get a 1-minute “pantry raid” on the set, where they can take absolutely anything they want and shove it into a tiny golden shopping cart before their time is up. If I were them, I would grab about 10 of those mixers – each one costs about $300, right? I’d gift them out to all my friends and family. And what about some of those extracts and emulsions? Or, above all, vanilla beans. I would dump all of them into my shopping cart. I like that the show doesn’t simply make the contestants leave empty handed, which too many shows do.

I’m really happy to announce I had a flash fiction piece published on the Lorelei Signal website.

For this story, I wanted to change the traditional and frankly annoying trope that men save women, who are always in distress. I liked the idea that the woman in this story is both in distress and her own hero. I also took out any male presence in the story since it strikes me as a story that would otherwise be traditionally rife with male characters.

It was quite frankly refreshing writing this as flash fiction piece, which I don’t do that much of at all, because all too often I’ll get ideas that are nothing more than a scene from a story, and my task then becomes to flesh it out on either side so it becomes a story. It was nice not having to bother padding it out, though the challenge then became making the story stand well enough on its feet without that padding. I have no idea if I pulled it off or not, but I do have to say that I really love this story. I can picture it all in my head – a knight on the ground struggling to just get up while the villain starts to lose it because that knight was her last hope. It makes me wish I could draw better.

I have to say I’m a bit annoyed I didn’t write down what song I listened to while writing this story – I always end up listening to at least one story on repeat while writing stories. I’ll try to remember them from now on and include them in these entries should I ever hopefully get anything published again.

I’m extremely happy to say I have a short story being read on a podcast called “Kaidankai.” If you have a minute, please give it a listen!

For those of you following along at home, this is the third installment in my series involving a person named Celea, whose job it is to guide lost souls on earth. I have to admit I’m having a lot of fun writing these episodes involving her. The challenge has been to make sure the stories can stand on their own while also being able to be connected to the series for anyone interested in reading them in a row, but I love these kind of challenges.

This story is also a villain origin story for the girl in the story, who is supposed to be a guide like Celea but who might go the other way out of hatred. I haven’t written any stories involving this girl yet, but I might in the future because I’m really curious to see how far she’s going to fall.

If you would like to follow along in the adventures of Celea, I would love if you would read them in this order, but obviously it’s entirely up to you:

“The Bucket Fountain”

“The Guide”

“The Anchor”

While my main focus is on Japanese dramas, every now and then the story of a Korean drama will catch my interest.

It wasn’t until quite recently that I discovered many of the Korean dramas I’ve really enjoyed have been written by the same pair of writers, Hong Jung-eun  and Hong Mi-ran (apparently known as the Hong sisters).

I watched My Girlfriend is a Gumiho (now on Netflix in Japan anyway) and loved how funny and heartbreaking it was.

I’ve had my eye on Alchemy of Souls (also on Netflix) for a while, too, after reading the summary for it on Netflix, but the preview made it seem like the entire show would be about a woman with the soul of a mighty warrior being forced to work for a spoiled man who doesn’t know she’s really a warrior and how one day she’s going to take him out. The preview made the plot sound ridiculous, but maybe something lighthearted to enjoy.

The preview gave the entirely wrong impression; the spoiled man finds out in the first episode and within about 30 seconds of meeting her that she’s actually a warrior trapped in another body. That alone had my attention and kept me going for the first few episodes, at which point the overall plot had me wrapped up in it, and I couldn’t wait to get to the next episode, then the next.

Both dramas I mention above were written by the Hong sisters, long may they write great dramas. Gumiho is a lot lighter, though that vet seriously needs to cool it with the melodramatics.

After years of casually watching Korean dramas, I’ve learned a few things about them.

1. They are ridiculously long. Each episode is at least an hour, and there are at least 16 episodes. Alchemy had 30 episodes.
2. At least for shows the Hong sisters write, seemingly unimportant conversations among minor characters will have a knock-on effect to the overall plot and can prove to be fundamental plot points later on, so there is no skipping in these things.
3. There will be heartbreak, often set to singers wailing ballads. Several times I thought the ballad ruined the scene. One death scene in Alchemy, for example, I thought would’ve been so much better in complete silence, but I had to listen to a singer hitting those high notes as the character’s hand falls limp.
4. Metaphors run rampant. Alchemy had people being referred to as bird’s eggs, room-warming stove things, turtles and dogs throughout. And these metaphors will not go away; the main characters will drag the metaphors through their heated, passionate arguments with each other until the end of the series. (“I guess I really am as useless as a room-warming stove thing in summer,” says a character before storming away. That kind of thing)
5. The fan base for every single actor seems to be absolutely rabid, and it makes me want to not even look up the names of the actors because a lone Google search reveals so much fans have tried to dig up about them that I’m a bit scared.
6. At least with Hong sisters’ series, viewers are given all the information except in a few rare ocassions. This makes it frustrating when characters do things simply because they don’t have the whole story (most of watching Part Two of Alchemy was me screaming at the screen, “I can tell you who she is!”)

Despite some of the cheesy tropes (I’m looking at you, “Characters who always have tearful breakups because they don’t have all the information” trope), I really liked the relative tightness of the story for Alchemy and how, like in life, seemingly unimportant things turned out to be crucial.

I liked the acting (admittedly I speak about three words of Korean despite the hours and hours of watching this series), and the special effects were sometimes good. The soundtrack was magnificent, as were the sets. All of this made for quite an enjoyable series that hardly ever went the way I thought it would, which I always appreciate.

In July, I joined thousands of people who decided the increasingly insane heat of Japan’s summers wouldn’t stop them from enjoying a Disney theme park.

Two years ago, I made the mistake of visiting Disneyland in the summer, and I’m pretty sure I staggered out of the park hours later in a state of heatstroke. Despite Disney’s best efforts to keep everyone visiting cool with mist showers and parades promising to shower you down, going to any theme park when the outdoor temperature is above 30 C is just ludicrous. I walked away from that experience determined never again to go to Disney in the summer.

Then this summer happened. This time, at least, I felt like I was better prepared. I knew the heat would be crippling – that the sun’s rays would slowly suck the life out of me the longer I was exposed to them. So I spent weeks preparing.

• I bought ice packs that promised to last 5 hours before melting.
• I found a soft yet heavily insulated cooler (Disney parks in Japan don’t allow hard-cased coolers) and froze the sports drinks I would enjoy before putting them into the cooler.
• I caved and bought neck rings I see everyone in Japan wearing this year.
• I bought several types of sunscreen, including one that comes in a spray bottle.
• I brought my sun umbrella (while they make me feel like a Victorian British heir, they really do help to keep you marginally cooler) and bought wet wipes that promised to cool my skin by about 3 degrees.
• I also bought snacks that have salt in them to hopefully help my body absorb liquids.

Disney Sea is also blessed with a section of its park being entirely indoors, complete with air conditioning. Called Mermaid Lagoon and based off of The Little Mermaid, it looks like it’s meant for little kids to enjoy, but that didn’t stop a lot of couples and other adults probably trying to escape the heat from enjoying the kiddie rides there, too. It’s a great place to go if it’s raining, too cold outside or ridiculously hot out.

The true game-changer, however, was that this time around, I would be staying at Disney’s Miracosta hotel, which is right at the entrance to Disney Sea. It’s the only hotel I know of that is actually inside of the park, and it comes with its own special entrance off the lobby (meaning no waiting out in the heat just to get in).

There is nothing like having the energy sapped out of you simply from enjoying the rides and having a place right there where you can go and relax for an hour or two during the day’s hottest hours.I loved that I could drop off any stuff I didn’t need as the sun was setting so I didn’t have to carry it around all day. I loved that I could go shopping in the middle of the day, too, when the shops are the most empty and then just drop that stuff off in my room.

The hotel is ridiculously expensive at at least 80,000 yen (547 USD, the yen is so weak right now!) per night, but what a marvelous help it was to enjoying the park.

If you don’t have the ability or opportunity to stay at Miracosta but still want to visit Disney Sea during the summer, I think the best advice I can give is to greatly lower your expectations for how many rides you think you can achieve in one day. There are way too many lines for rides that leave you out in the open, exposed to the sun for hours on end. My tactic was to only go on rides with either really short wait times or that were indoors (Mermaid Lagoon) until the sun set. That meant fewer hours available to use for riding rides, but it also meant I didn’t start showing the same signs of heatstroke I’d endured two years ago.

I think it’s important to also take lots of breaks even when it’s not the summer. Personally, I think you can enjoy the parks a lot more when you slow down and just soak up the atmosphere. There are plenty of restaurants and a couple of cafes where you can just sit and take it all in for an hour or two to recharge. I also love they have a tram, boats, and a variety of vehicles you can ride on – all of which usually don’t have bad lines. They’re a great chance to just slow down and take a breather.

If I may be allowed a quick rant: I once ran across a meme that gave alternate titles to Disney movie, such as “Beauty and the Beast” being called “Stockholm Syndrome.” While funny, it’s not particularly true, and the one they gave “The Little Mermaid”, my favorite Disney movie, just irritated me: “Change for your man.”

What annoys me is that Ariel in no way changed for Eric’s sake, and for those who don’t believe me, please allow me the following paragraphs to try and change your mind.

First, the movie clearly shows from the start that Ariel is obsessed with “the human’s world.” She’s willing to explore dangerous sunken ships to get a hold of their stuff, and she’s willing to go to the surface (which her father expressly forbids) to have a seagull explain what everything is.

As the movie progresses, we see that Ariel has been plundering ships and the seabed for quite some time to learn more about humans, and she sings about how she wants to be part of that world someday.

Eric’s ship catches her interest thanks to the fireworks, and yes it’s love at first sight for Ariel, who changes the song from “Part of that world” to “Part of your world,” but following this declaration, she talks to Sebastian and Flounder about how she wants them to splash around Eric’s window to get his attention that night so they can meet again. At no point does she suggest she wants to become a human. At no point does she wonder if Eric will not like her being a mermaid.

When Flounder somehow (and who knows how??) gets the sunken statue of Eric into her hidden grotto, she flirts with the statue while in no way saying she wants to be a human.

The one who pushes Ariel to see Ursula, in fact, are her father and Ursula’s two minions. Her father came down way too hard on her upon finding her human stuff collection, sending her into a dark mental space that the two minions preyed on. Only her anger toward her father keeps her going as she follows the two eels to Ursula, and even then she’s scared to even go in. Ursula has to coax her into the room.

She hesitates before signing the contract with Ursula that transforms her into a human, but it’s Ursula who convinces her that “the only way to get what you want is to become a human, yourself.”

Of course Ariel is overjoyed to be a human since it means she can get extremely close to the world she’s always wanted to be a part of, but at the end when she transforms back into a mermaid, I don’t see any point where she seems upset she’s a mermaid again until after the big battle and she sees Eric on the shore. I think that’s when she finally realizes she can’t easily be with him unless she’s a human, too, and her father realizes she really does love the human’s world and has fallen for Eric, and so he grants her wish.

Thank you for coming to my lecture.

I’m a huge fan of the manga and anime called Bleach, though I know it follows the same patterns of just about every “boy’s action” manga/anime that has possibly ever existed where the main character constantly levels up along the way. Even if you think they’ve hit their ultimate level, the creator will throw in secret ways they can suddenly level up.

(As a side-note: If anyone’s watching the Thousand-Year Blood War arc, has it ever been explained how these shinigami, who do not possess a body when not on the living world, are dying such bloody deaths in the afterworld? If that’s ever been explained in this story, I have no memory of it, and I think the whole thing is odd to witness).

The first episode in the Thousand -Year Blood War has a special end credits song that I fell madly in love with called “Rapport” by Tatsuya Kitani. It inspired me to write another book, which I’ve nearly finished, and I spent most of my time writing it while listening to this one song:

I decided to check out some of his other music, and I love a lot of it. Here are a couple others I’ve fallen for:

I think a lot of his songs are a bit over the top in their messages and lyrics of despair, but for me, they’re the perfect inspiration for writing, so I love these songs.

His voice is also so fantastic. For me, it seems to have the perfect mix of beauty and suffering somehow.

If you have a moment, I hope you’ll listen to some of his songs, especially if you’re a fellow writer of dark fantasy stories.

I’m going to get on a soap box for this entry and propose a theory about why people are scared of those who are different from them by offering an example:

A character in a movie is eating ice cream, and you can easily picture yourself eating that ice cream.

I think people naturally place themselves in the main character’s shoes and go from there when watching a film or TV series or reading a book. We are all naturally inclined, I think, to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. It’s what can make horror films so unsettling or adventure films so much fun – we see ourselves doing that.

I think that therein lies the problem, because that then translates out to the real world. We see those around us, and we picture ourselves acting how they are. If it’s something we just can’t picture ourselves doing, we lash out at the person doing it in the hopes of making them stop, as if we’re yelling at our own selves to stop.

Of course, there are those who are able to understand we are not those around us. These are probably also people who can watch a horror movie and laugh it off because they can remind themselves it’s not real and isn’t actually happening to them.

But there seems to always be those who are unable to seperate themselves from those around them, and so when they see someone acting differently, they protest in fear and in anger at being afraid. To such people, I can only ask that they take a moment and try to understand the source of their fear. What are they really afraid of? Do they not see how forcing others to conform to their ideals is part of that fear they feel at the idea they might have to change for others?

I believe people who are different want one human right: To feel they can safely and freely express themselves in society. Why can we not readily support that?

I think the world would be supremely boring if we were all made to conform to one person’s ideas of what a person should be, and so many would only needlessly suffer. What a tragic life to live in fear simply because of who you are.

Acceptance is the ability to understand everyone around us is not us and that it is just fine that they have different ways of thinking and different ways of living. I accept anyone who is different from me as long as they’re not hurting anyone.

So here I stand on my little soap box, asking for a society that can be more accepting of those who are different from them.

I have brown, wavy hair that I have spent most of my life not thinking much about. In high school and college I’d usually put it half up or into a ponytail and promptly forget about it for the rest of the day.

My hair didn’t particularly grab any portion of my attention until I moved to Japan and experienced the humidity here. Especially around the Tokyo area (with Kyoto being so much worse), the summers here are close relatives to the summers of Florida, where you walk outside and feel like you’re breathing in water more than air.

The humidity here means my hair enjoys going absolutely crazy with frizziness. I feel like almost as soon as I stepped off the plane at Narita Airport over a decade ago, the battle for better hair had begun.

The problem for me is that most hairstylists here have no idea what to do with my hair, and I not particularly caring for my hair had seen no reason to look into how to make it better.

Thus, when hairstylists here suggested layers and straightened my hair out, I didn’t even think about it.

All the while, my hair seemed to be getting worse, to the point it was starting to grab what I thought to be far too much of my attention.

I started doing what I should’ve done in high school, I suppose – I looked up how to care for slightly curly hair. My hair has the potential to become extremely curly if I had tools like a diffuser and proper mousse, but I don’t have time or patience for that, so I’m usually left with waves that end in curls.

I finally learned how to care for my hair (no fine-tooth combs, use a shirt to dry your hair rather than a towel, wash your hair less often during the week, try to air dry your hair if you can, use hair oil as often as you can, NO LAYERING).

Having learned what my hair needs, I started to really, deeply understand my problem with hairstylists here and their constant need to layer my hair since it’s so thick.

The search began for a hairsytlist who could actually cut my hair properly. I had finally found one, too, who said all the right things about what to do with my hair and who used a wide-tooth comb while combing my hair in the salon, but then she suddenly was moved to a different salon (or moved) and I haven’t seen her since.

I recently decided to commute to a hair salon fairly far from where I live just so I could have a hairsytlist who at least has cut different types of hair before, but even she seemed confused when I told her “No layering.”

“Are you sure?” she said, fine-tooth comb in hand. “Your hair is so thick.”

If anything, caring a bit more about my hair has meant I’ve learned to be firm about what I want in a salon. That still doesn’t stop a lot of stylists from trying to straighten my hair, though.

So, the search continues.