Sleeping Kingdom || Review of Melanie's Fall - novella authored by Holoz0r

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(Edited)

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Did you know that @holoz0r apart from being:

Photographer, Rambler, Digital Artist, Reviewer of Video Games'

is a novelist as well?

Well, I didn't. Last week, during our usual comment battle - as has been our custom lately - he admitted, that he wrote a novella.... a long time ago.

What's more, he was kind enough to dig it up on the blockchain and share with me a sample of his writing from a time when he didn't have such magnificent beard just yet (am I right?)

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Here you can find it on blockchain:

Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 1
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 2
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 3
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 4
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 5
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 6
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 7
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 8
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 9
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 10
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 11
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 12
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 13
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 14
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 15
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 16
Melanie's Fall by @holoz0r part 17

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As I've probably mentioned more than once - I'm a typical bookworm. Plus I would refer to myself as a rather unrefined reader. This doesn't mean that I read just anything, but that I read without preconceptions - I don't base my choices on the opinions of critics or the reviews of other readers, I definitely like to test writers first hand. I just firmly believe that there is no such thing as a bad book - there are books we like and books we don't like. I'm definitely a fan of subjectivity here.

Of course I still like to passionately argue about details or plot holes from time to time, I won't deny it:) But enough about me, because this isn't a post about me. This post is about Melanie

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The next paragraphs contain spoilers, so if you plan to read

@holoz0r's novella, please skip them.

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Story outline

@holoz0r's story 'Melanie's Fall' circle around the main character - a woman full of passion, determination and self-destruction. Melanie, like many of us, wears a mask of rationality and reason on a daily basis. This is probably why she works as a singer/musician for a big corporate Thomson's Recordings. However, her real great passion is writing. Her head is constantly filled to the brim with self-monologues and outlines for further stories, characters.

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What's more - she doesn't write to a drawer. Faithful, she sends out manuscripts to publishers despite receiving knock-back after knock-back. She keeps a pile of rejection letters in her flat in plain sight - whether she wants to torture herself with it or whether her determination fills her with pride - it is difficult to say. However, we manage to find out that the refusals are usually backed up by arguments like:

Your characters are alive, their thoughts vibrant and believable, but stagnant when the suspense builds. The action is going on around them not within them.

Melanie uses multiple references to: 'obscene and obscure over exaggeration of violence and the abuse of drugs and alcohol', which also displeases publishers.

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In spite of those failures Melanie does not bend her ideas and talent to please publishers. She is consistent in what she does and still dreams big. She has as much determination as she does dreaming in her. Apart from writing, Melanie has another addiction – the pain. Her palette is not very sophisticated - she maime mostly wrists, and usually with a knife. From what @holoz0r reveals to us - we know that she does this not only very often, but she has become a kind of expert in self-mutilation. It is frightening how methodically she carries out her craven ritual. Madness meets cold calculation. Need for pain - self-inflicted pain - satisfaction.

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Melanie dances on a rope. She risks herself with a knife, a crazy car ride, smoking weed the day before an important meeting with her publisher.... Melanie is a textbook example of a self-destructive personality.
Despite all this adversity, despite the fact that her days almost consist of self-sabotage - Melanie manages to break the glass ceiling. She is given the chance to publish her novella.


We part with her at the exact moment when the old world closes behind her - she loses her day job and new perspectives open up to her - the opportunity to publish her book.

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Melanie's Fall Review

I admit that this was not an easy read for me. And not because it was badly written - quite the opposite - the story and world-building is well-paced and I grew very attached to the main character. It's just not pleasant, light literature for a pillow. It is a cynical, sad story about the struggle of everyday life. A story about replacing the pain of existence to the real one, dripped in blood.

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The author does not give us any formulated judgements or answers to the questions which are bothering us during the reading. Oh no. He adds layers to the story with thought-out malice, forcing us to admire the terrifying, bloody scenes with beautiful metaphors, which he interlace with the harsh, blinding light of everyday life which so overwhelms Melanie.


The author plays with the reader, interweaving Melanie's inner monologues and ensuing character ideas with her reality. Daydreaming crashes on the rocks of everyday life - when her 'great achievement' is placed side by side with boring trivialities like having to pay rent. What's more, the author had the nerve to NOT WRITE THE END OF THIS STORY AND LEAVE IT WITH CLIFFHANGER!!! How dare he???

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I have to admit that Melanie's story seemed a bit trite and clichéd at first. It reminded me that when I was a teenager it was extremely common to 'cut yourself'. Teenagers wore their wounds like badges of courage, or treated them as a ritual of passage. For parents they were a wake-up call '- oh I think I need to take an interest in my child'. Stories of this kind were so frequent and publicised that they ceased to be surprising. People became distanced and as a result - desensitised.


@holoz0r applied new colours onto this problem. He skilfully weaves the macabre between the smoothly constructed sentences. Carefully, drop by drop, he tied us to the main character, made us stop judging her behaviour, measuring it by our own measure. We like her, even though her choices drive us crazy. We forgive her, even though she makes the same mistake many times. And we believe in her, even though she does everything to squander her chances.

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Let me leave you with a quote from the 16th part, and the hope that @holoz0r decides to continue this story after all:)

Everyone has to be insane in his or her own personal way. I reckon that everyone is insane, and that there is not one person that does not have some part of their sanity at least within question at some moments of their life. It's just that some people aren't as good as concealing it than others. Don't blame me if you don't want to believe this, but it's true, and I want you to remember it. EVERYONE IS INSANE.

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Below you will find FanArt portraying Melanie but(!) in my Sleeping Kingdom.

Hivains, have a lovely weekend!
Yours,
Strega Azure

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I used noname black pen, black acrylic ink, white acrylic ink, white gel-pen 'Sakkura' and dissolvent.

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Drawing & pictures are my authorship if not stated otherwise,
all rights reserved @strega.azure ©

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60 comments
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(Edited)

Well this is interesting, bookmarked for later reading, Holoz0r is a multi talented beard…

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Thank You! This is amazing.
!PIZZA
!hiqvote

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All good, I promised to let you know when it was published!

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First. Where were you hiding before you came to HIVE?

Second. Thank you for taking the time to look into a thing that I literally wrote in high school, almost twenty years ago, a point where I too, had dreams of being an author one day.

Third: thank you again.

Fourth: What a wonderful illustration, and such a unique perspective of a moment, thoughts materialising from within her mind as if to push her backwards on a teetering chair.

I love how you focused on the story and the character and my youthful immaturity with the subject matter on hand at the time of writing probably served to make her more fragmented and dissonant than a thorough understanding of her situation would.

I probably didn't even know how to drive a car when I wrote this, outside of video games. :D

You're the best kind of person for this kind of website and environment.

I don't think it ends on a cliffhanger.

post plot spoilers below

The spoiler is that the elevator goes up to the top level. There's an unspoken fall, and an ending there that starts at the roof and ends at the street.

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(Edited)

It took me a while to convince myself to do blogging thing - it was popular when I was very young and the very idea of it sounded odd to me. Plus most of my young-adult years I was spending working my ass off, sometimes even 2 jobs at one time, so amount of free time was only sufficient to sleep, if even that.

You don't have to thank you, it was my pleasure, really.

And I don't really think with Melanie that was cliff-hanger, if anything - more of the open end which I actually love. Just needed to shout at you a bit, so you will not get all cocky and stuff. There was simply nothing to complain about. I don't think being somewhat immature can actually spoil things, if anything - it shows different perspective and that's good thing.

I always have my own idea what is going on with the characters, it is impossible to me to get rid of my subjective perspective, but I did my best :)

As for the drawing - I chose literal 'fall' from the book, because I really liked this scene:) I actually liked how you have consistently built an unbreakable relationship between Melanie and her characters, ideas. That was really well done.

With hive I still don't know most of the time what I am doing, but I welcome the opportunity to share what is simmering in my mind. I feel it helps me go through the day sometimes.
And you? Why hive?

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(Edited)

Why Hive?

Getting to interact with people like you! It is intellectually stimulating and makes the general gloominess of the world go by with other people that I know for some reason, crave the desire to express beyond a karenistic rant at their grocery bill or the fact that the McDonalds soft serve machine was broken.

I have to blame @mattclarke for pointing me in the direction of (then STEEM) , and I persisted onto HIVE. He even appropriated an image from my wedding on a recent post of his.

I burnt a lot of bridges in my video game review job; that's a rather long story, I think I've posted about it before... somewhere; then worked a boring corporate job (which I'm still at) for several years, and I craved to express words, pictures, and stuff in a creative way, without any editorial content.

The possibility of being rewarded for that creativity was a tiny cherry on the top of it all.

The other reason I like HIVE (and blockchains in general) is that they show the chain of events that lead to an event. There's a certain level of accountability and authority with everything that is said or written.

It is written by that account, at that moment, and you can see a full edit history (like wikipedia) if you dig into the blockchain.

You can, if you so please, go and see how people have changed their comments or posts in the past, and there is no true "undo" button. It mirrors life, it mirrors paper, and it is like etching the flow of words that gush out my brain into a stone.

Sometimes other people pick up a chisel and work on the stone with me, and that's an awesome moment.

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, crave the desire to express beyond a karenistic rant at their grocery bill or the fact that the McDonalds soft serve machine was broken.

Wow, that's sound indeed depressing! Hive seem to be better alternative, that's for sure:)
In matter a fact - everything seem to be more interesting. For instance - staring at the empty wall seem to be entertaining in comparison:)

I have to blame @mattclarke for pointing me in the direction of (then STEEM) , and I persisted onto HIVE. He even appropriated an image from my wedding on a recent post of his.

Aww:)

I burnt a lot of bridges in my video game review job; that's a rather long story, I think I've posted about it before... somewhere; then worked a boring corporate job (which I'm still at) for several years, and I craved to express words, pictures, and stuff in a creative way, without any editorial content.

Sounds interesting 🤓 I have questions! Many!
First one would be about reviewing the games - would be my guess close to truth if I said - that you did not want to take into account the 'good advices', hm?

The possibility of being rewarded for that creativity was a tiny cherry on the top of it all.

That was one of the biggest surprise to me. Literally no one among my friends new about stuff like that. I am trying to bring some souls here, but I imagine, I am not persuasive enough :(

more hive stuff

Oh yeah, I like that too! Although for me editing serve only typo purposes, at least for now:) It is quite similar to real life - when you say some nasty stuff to a person - you cannot just unsaid it. However - you can apologize. I like this accountability 'feature' very much:)

Sometimes other people pick up a chisel and work on the stone with me, and that's an awesome moment.

🙂

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That's why you should put some pictures up on the empty wall. :) Makes them much more interesting.

Video Game Review Stuff

Parasitic energy.

I wrote an accurate review of a PC port of a popular game, and panned it because while the console version was a great game, the PC version was broken, buggy, unoptimised, terrible, and honestly, as the "fourth" game in a certain series, it didn't do nearly enough to make the quantum leap that previous titles in that series made upon each release.

So the publisher's weren't happy, and threatened to pull their advertising, review samples, etc; so the editor changed the review. (It had the usual caveats of "pre release version, may have changed at launch" ) - but it was clear it hadn't. That was the first event that made me cringe, and shift uncomfortably in my seat at the questionable ethics, and how rapidly a publication would bend the knee to their overlords.

Another occasion, and the way I quit that job:

Now, I'm no literature person with good grammar and all that, I make plenty of typos and expression errors, and I know about that. My (then, a different editor) sent me an email about how it was unacceptable that I had a typo in a certain article.

I sent back an email with a log of everywhere I'd edited his typos, in his articles, without telling him, and with it, my resignation and final invoice for services rendered that particular month. I cc'ed in his manager, and got a phone call from her asking to reconsider.

I didn't. :D

The rest as they say, is history.

My time in that industry led to a plethora of opportunity and taught me to "never work with your idols", and a lot about money really does make the world go around.

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Ok, I am sorry and no really sorry in the same time. In all huge company's work look like that, unfortunately.
Being people pleaser is a must. Been there, and refuse to obey too :D

But you were cheeky! :D
I love it when someone becomes realize, that their closed-mindedness and stupidity is visible from orbit. Corpo places are saturated with artificial, especially managerial positions occupied by people convinced of their own superiority. In my old job I really enjoyed observing their behaviour, the glued-on smiles and the sad emptiness in their eyes.

I had this one situation after I was first time close to quit. That was a presentation 'Our God' - founder and CEO of a company. Rare occurrence! Presentation was long and mostly boring, he presented statistics and our growth on the market and stuff. And to be fair - it is the biggest apparel company in centre Europe, right after Inditex. And we had good year, we all knew that. But I digress. So he was saying how wonderful everything is going, we are achieving goals, making word better place(textile company!!!!), and the we are - wait for it - Polish Apple! He had pictures that compared Apple growth to ours. That was it for me. I started to laughing so loudly that everyone in the conference room started to stare at me. I was laughing so hard that I started to choke and tears were running down my cheeks. My product' manager got up and escorted me out of the meeting saying that I had an 'episode' and that they shouldn't worry. Boy... I had loooong conversation with her after this :D

"never work with your idols"

Tired with writing already, but here it goes.
In my academy after 2nd year if you were not completely useless - some of the professors that still working as a active sculptors, not only teaching - would hire you do help with their stuff.

I had this one professor who I though is just amazing. He was grim, weird person, hardly ever said anything, usually would say more with his eyes, rather than using actual words. But he was an amazing sculptor. So when he had chosen me to one of his 'projects' I was over the moon with excitement. We talked about money and we started to work. I worked in his studio after classes usually till midnights plus weekends, for 3 months straight with 4 other students.

And surprise, surprise - we didn't get paid. At all. When we where asking him about it, he would literally turn on his hill and walked out. We reached to older students - and here you have it - he was pulling shit like that all the time. I was fuming. We really tried to appeal, contacted the rector and other professors, but they all just shrugged their shoulders and said - well, don't you know Mr. X? Everyone knows what he does.

So you know. Was just... great:) Never felt that stupid before;/

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started to laughing so loudly that everyone in the conference room started to stare at me. I was laughing so hard that I started to choke and tears were running down my cheeks. My product' manager got up and escorted me out of the meeting saying that I had an 'episode' and that they shouldn't worry. Boy... I had loooong conversation with her after this :D

I think I might have woken up the cat with my riotous laughter. You were living the absolute dream in that moment. Fantastic 'episode'.

(Dis)obey indeed. :)

This anecdote made me extremely happy, and your description was so clear and vivid. Maybe you should write a book, even if you're tired. :D Now I also know why that chisel metaphor resonated (another pun) well with you.

At least the week is nearly over. The weekend will have some solace, I'm sure.

unpaid labour

Oh, but the "Exposure" and the "Opportunity". It doesn't pay the freakin' bills now, does it?

I'm waiting on payments for two weddings I 2nd shot 6, and 3 weeks ago. I know how you feel. Lucky I don't need that money to eat.

I'm spending the weekend attempting to rebrand my photographic services, and I've decided I'm not doing weddings anymore. I'm just going to be me, and if people can't deal with that, then they can't deal with that.

Maybe I'm having a mid life crisis, but its a decision that I'm making consciously to do so.

Also, I don't know if you noticed, but I sent you a power up of 15 hive to thank you for the time you spent on my novella and the illustration you completed. It's not much, but we must perpetuate the ongoing analogy that a dying artist would ask for a pencil to illustrate something before writing down that they want to drink some water, or hemlock, or whatever they fancy.

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(Edited)

'funny meeting'

To be fair - I had actual groupies after this crazy day. One dude was bringing me coffee for week everyday for my 'comment' of our CEO lovely presentation. So I started some good ripples I guess:)

Now I can better conceal my moods:) I cannot say that temperance is my middle name, but from afar I appear normal:)

Book you say? Not sure I have enough consistency to stick with that, or it had to be something like stream of consciousness, some random thoughts with nice cover:)

unpaid labour/carer change/mid-life crisis

I am sorry to hear that. "Exposure" and the "Opportunity" words make my angry. It become so common, that people actually think it is all ok. I hope that change will do you good. I like changes:)
Mid-life crisis you say? Let's see...
Do you own expensive, 2-seat sport car?
Do you have long-legged, botoxed mistress?
Do you started to have kin interest in your body and looks?

Also, I don't know if you noticed, but I sent you a power up of 15 hive to thank you for the time you spent on my novella and the illustration you completed. It's not much, but we must perpetuate the ongoing analogy that a dying artist would ask for a pencil to illustrate something before writing down that they want to drink some water, or hemlock, or whatever they fancy.

I did't get any notification. 😶
I feel weird now, but I thank you very much!

On unrelated subject: Do you have more novellas to review? 🤑🤣

I like that this one time we nearly stick to one subject. Call it progress?

Edit;
Yeah actually it went through, peakd decided not to inform me about it, so odd, right?

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Hive Power Up

I don't think its something that peakd alerts users for, and that's okay, its a nice surprise when people randomly send a power up to others. It just gives you a tiny bit more influence around the place. You certainly deserve it. You're doing exceptional work here, far better than people who have been on the platform for years and years.

Truly, if there was an instruction manual to HIVE, I'd be sure that you were following it perfectly.

Other Novels

There is another novel, probably (half finished) pottering about on the blockchain somewhere. I wrote it entirely stream of conscious without any plan and it is much more of an abomination. I called it "Sojourn", which means journey; (and is almost an anagram) .

It is 23132 words (according to the word doc I just dug out of my cloud storage) - and it is best summarised as I "I didn't know that Arthur C Clarke wrote the Rama trilogy." (Have you read it?) (I hadn't, then I wrote this dang thing, then read it on the recommendation of someone at all places, a funeral) and though "oh no, I've written a story sooo similar to this", and realised I did a much worse job. :D

Then, there was another that I never digitised. I wrote it by hand in school, in all the classes in which I got bored. I wrote it on grid paper, like some sort of psychopath. It started out all so optimistic and neat and tidy, with all the words written between the lines, until I started writing more and more like a man possessed and an angsty, hormonal teenager, where I started writing beyond the lines.

I always struggle with writing dialogue. I feel like it as though you're trying to play chess with yourself.

Do you own expensive, 2-seat sport car?

No, but I crave a vehicle with a manual transmission, tons of cargo space, and a deep rumbling, resonant drone, perhaps with a bit of crackling in its exhaust note, but also one that is really quite delicate at sipping fuel.

Do you have long-legged, botoxed mistress?

Please, I don't wish to vomit. Such things don't impress me or allure me at all.

Do you started to have kin interest in your body and looks?

If Kin is considered my lowly little, geriatric kitten - then yes. She particularly loves to rub up against my legs at any opportunity, and expose her vulnerable belly to me.

A mid life crisis is a conscious choice. I'm lucky that I have a day job to support it.

I'll share my rebrand once I figure out how I'm gonna lay it all out, I have a friend redoing my logo; and I've spent the evening furiously typing, drafting, redrafting copy that talks about me half in the third person and half in the first person.

I know one thing for sure, one of my new colours is gonna be a burnt orange / gold. Like a photograph at golden hour, or the sunset of my more naive days.

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Truly, if there was an instruction manual to HIVE, I'd be sure that you were following it perfectly.

🤗

"Sojourn" and hand written novella

Said out loud it sound Swedish or something:)
You are no lazy writer then! I hope that in time I will be able to read that:) I wounder how you hand writing look like:) I like hand written stuff. People use pen and paper anymore ;/
I like chaotic bundles of words, neologisms made by authors just for one book, to make it more authentic. More crazy - than better.
I love Clarke, although I still haven read even half of his stuff, I liekd the short stories the most. I started to read Rendezvous with Rama ages ago, but never finished, I can't really remember why. I have them on audible in hope I will find myself in state of mind that will withstand this story. Atm I am reading one by one prose of Cormac McCarthy. So I am veeerry far from Clark :)

car with cargo space

I would love to have car like this, with four-wheel drive, but I don't really have any purpose for it :D When I am visiting my Parents I get to drive dirt-car like this, I just love it:)

silicon people

Don't even... While I was working in stop-motion studio I had weekend job, in retail. I was 'an ambassador of the brand' - I just had to push a particular brand of appliances on a customer in a big home appliance chain store. That involved contact face to face daily basis, and some people have different idea about 'personal space' than I do. And I had this one regular, lady-customer. She was lovely, nice person. But what was going on with her while she was trying to do some basic human stuff - like smiling - it was terrifying.
I mean, I was actually scared. And it wasn't only lifting and botox that changed her face. I think she had this 'fox eyes' done, and she had enormous lips... and she loved to talk with me being like on my face, sooo close. I felt so bad for her, because she was really cool, and had plenty interesting stuff to say...

Oh, I meant 'keen, but I believe you knew that:D Every opportunity to say about your cat should be used well:)

A mid life crisis is a conscious choice. I'm lucky that I have a day job to support it.

I like that, but not sure if this is real crisis if you are aware of it. Maybe you can just call it 'a phase' :)
Plus you aced my mid-life crisis test, and you are all good!

rebrand

Really excited to see that!
When I was working on my small business logo, it took me weeks to be half-okeyed with it :D

Golden hour

Never heard that term before. I like that. I learn something today, thank you:)

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Golden hour is the few hours before sunset where the sun sits low in the horizon, and gives everything a golden tone. You've seen a sunset, right? :D Fun fact, you get the same effect when the sun rises, and there's no way to tell if an image is captured at sunrise or sunset - unless you know the geography of the area, the properties of light at the time are exactly identical.

personal space

They're trying to escape from themselves into your space because they can't cope to be with themselves.

cargo space

The only "sensible option" financially, to me is a Scoda Octavia RS (As much as I despise the Volkwagen group's business practices). They're about 2/3rds of my annual salary here which is too much to spend on a car. It also doesn't come in manual in the Australian market :(

For now, my Focus will do, until it dies. It's been with me for 10 years, since new. Only car I've ever owned.

regular customer

How many fridges does a single person need, or were they shopping for each and every one of their sugar-pronouns?

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Uncle google helped me with that, but I like your definition better.

They're trying to escape from themselves into your space because they can't cope to be with themselves.

This sentence is frighteningly insightful.
And I'm glad I spend most of my day away from people :D

So when I moved here I didn't had a driving licence. I never needed one. When I moved from my parents house - I lived only in big cities, with really good commute options. And in Norther Ireland... it is just impossible to live without it. W have 2 small hatchbacks, just to get to work and back, but will do, because the distances are really short, at least from my, polish point of view. Ford Focus is a good car, many of my friends have it, older and new models - and they seem to be happy with it:)

I have never driven a car with an automatic transmission :D

So it was like 'small and big appliances', and I was on the 'beauty' department - curling tongs and straighteners, stuff like that and 'kitchen' like coffee makers , irons, stuff like that. It was the most boring job of my life, but it paid the bills. And I was left with many good friendships from there:)
But 'regular' for places like that means people like :'I am only looking', but in truth they would tell you story of their life and demand some advises. Skilled salesman can turn that nonsense into profit :D

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I have never driven a car with an automatic transmission :D

Every time I drive a friend's car... I keep looking for the third pedal. I like to pretend I can't drive an automatic.

I had a sales role at my current company before squirming away into analytics, and it wasn't "sales" it was "solving customer's problems" (by giving them products).

There's so many industries that we just do not need at all. So many products that solve problems that are not problems. So much waste.

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As a former fast fashion company(the real devil!) employee- 100% agree!

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What an absolute blessing! I love hearing stories like this where people stand up to sanctimonious bullies in the workplace and go on to achieve far more than they ever dreamed possible. I hope more exciting doors open for you in your future @holozor ... I feel that with your attitude, they can't help but do so !LUV !ALIVE !PIZZA

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Thank you! The stories are far and few between; but they persist. That's the best thing about writing things down.

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You always delight me with your drawings and write-ups, Strega💗I feel like I can relate to your pictures' progressions because IMHO you draw like a writer. You build your characters, layer by layer. You add depth and tone and enough backstory to create interest. You literally tell a story through the development of a piece. I sometimes think it is going to go one way... and plot twist... you take us in a different direction altogether! And I love that you are incorporating a triptych into all your posts now. I truly think the final presentation makes your artwork stand out even more. I've missed reading your posts these past few weeks that I have been away... so I'm doing a little catch-up 😘

Fantastic review of @holozor 's serial fiction too by the way. Perhaps he needs to write some more of them😉. I've read some of his rather eloquent and considered comments on your post... so I'm sure he writes incredible stories.

!LUV !ALIVE !PIZZA

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(Edited)

Missed you soooo much!
I think I work the way I do because I have infinite reserves of hesitation. I often change my mind as I work or write. I try different things, I erase things up, sometimes I fix things, sometimes I mess things up even more.

It can be frustrating, but I think these drawings really reflect my way of looking at life. The one line of song 'idioteque'(Radiohead) stuck with me for a very long time: 'let me hear both sides'.

It's just that the longer you look, the more sides you see, hence the constant hesitation:) Glad you like it!

And again triptych thing - your idea, and I am really grateful for it!

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(Edited)

I often change my mind as I work or write. I try different things, I erase things up, sometimes I fix things, sometimes I mess things up even more.

See!!! Writer! hahaha.

And yes! I feel you on the 'let me hear both side's perspective. I try to take to look at the big picture for most things and situations in life. Acknowledging that people's views are directly related to their perspective and their location in relation to the issue at hand, helps us to understand their relative ideas, choices, and decisions better, and with less judgement. When we step back from a situation, take time to reflect - allow ourselves, as well as the space. the opportunity to breathe... we deepen our understanding and broaden our own perspective. We come back more flexible and ready to appreciate more. In the same way I think creatives need to step back from their creations to gain perspective... to see it as others may see it... to reflect... then to come back and make improvements or simply adjustments that best reflect the lessons that their own craft and inner self has taught them!

We all share with each other little things that may strike us in a moment of reflection and joy... the triptych was just one of those. But it was your beautiful artwork that led the way... without it... I doubt the thought would have formed. It's a privilege to be moved by your drawings💗

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(Edited)

100% agree! Context matters the most.
I think hive helps to gain perspective a lot, since we can read everyday stories first hand from every corner of the world. Apart form facts - subjective emotions, feelings. I appreciate it very much:)

And to be fair, sometimes, I am taking time to finish stuff. Just need to turn my eyes away for day or two to be able to se not only my mistakes, but to se what to do next:)

Really happy you like it!

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Okay! This was stimulating and satisfying to read.

And I certainly agree with holoz0r. Every one of us is crazy. I have my madness and if you find out, you might puke.

Like Melanie I have them in droves that one minute my choices will drive you crazy and the next minute you forgive me. And only the universe knows how many chances I have squandered.

I am glad Melanie moved past all the phases of her life and still accomplish her dreams... Publishing.

Great review, @strega.azure. I love every detail.

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Thank you for visiting my blog!
I am glad you liked my review.
It was really interesting to see what holoz0r had in his head when he was in high school. I truly bonded with Melanie, that's for sure:)

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As always, you pulled a exceptional art once more.
Meanwhile ... I also accept your post
. We need to be insane at times especially when it comes to our goals

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And here I am screaming, "How dare he, too?" I was bewitched by your view on this.

And truly, we all go through that pain.... Everyday.

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enjoyed the drawing more, say is this novel a true life event?

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That would be a question to the author of novella:)

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(Edited)

ohhh i see but you should have an idea if or not

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I would say that it is private thing for writer - if he is using his personal experiences to create fiction - or it is pure fictional writing:) I personally wouldn't ask that questions.

Some of us would share more openly than others. It is actually interesting situation, when we can actually ask writer about his state of mind during writing and such. When we read book or article - we don't have such a opportunity, isn't it?

What you gonna say @holoz0r?

@fredaig was asking

say is this novel a true life event?

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Some of it is. I still wanna be a writer. :D I don't have a pile of rejection letters, and I don't smoke. I don't have any desire for my life to be over any time soon, though.

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Here you have it :) @fredaig

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My biggest weakness is my honesty

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That is bold statement:) No other weaknesses?

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Good conversation.

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Now... what you would consider good one?

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Generally, the conversations we have, meandering around various topics.

In terms of good weaknesses: my inability to be ignorant.

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I am glad to be at service!
Yeah, I would love to be more ignorant, my life would be so much easier ;)

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I wonder what life would be like if I was a vegetable. I could really sit and stew on it.

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ohh yes of cause, i guess looking for the lessons on such write up is more important to know if its real or not

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oh, I would definitely agree with that:)
Thank you for popping by:)

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Thank you for thanking me ☺️☺️

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Not a true life event :) Inspired by some personal thoughts, sure.

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hmmmm well i guess the lessons learnt are more important

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Beautiful artwork with an eye for details! Wonderfully mirrors the review of Melanie's Fall. Enjoyed watching the creative process till the end :)

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Thank you very much @takhar!
I thought that combined 'falls' would work better - both literal and metaphorical together:)

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