Heads up, dear readers …
I am changing the post format to personal newsletters from now on.
And I will therefore only list links to new stories (check them out below).
Then you can click the story links and read on (I hope you will) … or feel free to just peruse the news stuff and maybe leave a thought in the comments section (I’d appreciate that a lot) …
But why this change?
Well, the move (back) to ShadeoftheMorningSun.com is over, so I felt that this might be a good time to make some other changes.
And a big one will be to have more socializing along with the storytelling.
It’s just something I have been thinking about for a long time—if I should give it a go. And now I will do just that 🙂
As usual my future direction will depend on the response from you—my readers—so let me know in the comments if you like this new format or if you want to see me doing Shade in a different way.
We’ll see. But for the time being each newsletter post is going to follow roughly the format laid out in this post.
Sounds good? Let’s begin …
The Home Front
It’s been a relatively quiet week after a winter with a mini-pandemic of flu and other respiratory nasties here in Copenhagen. I guess I should feel relieved but to be honest I also feel rather exhausted. I’m grateful that I’ve had the wherewithal to write something, though, and to work a little on my upcoming collection (in print).
The latter project is very tedious — i.e to prep for print, but I have had some very good help from Vania Margene Rheault who checked for instances when I didn’t get the US English quite right, and will help me set things up for at the appropriate print-on-demand services. (Vania runs a really insightful blog on self-publishing, which I heartily recommend.) Hopefully I can finally get this one out in April and then you will be the first to hear about it.
But of course, there have been other distractions from writing than family life …
I’m talking about the world news, of course.
Some days, I’m deeply affected by all the bad news, while other days, I manage to shut it off completely. Suffice it to say, it would be lovely to focus solely on life as a special needs family (or writing) without the constant barrage of bad news—mostly from the U.S., of course, but also Ukraine, which is only a day’s drive away from here.
And yeah … Trump is rattling his sabers about Greenland again (or is that his Diet Cokes?) and I for one am pretty pissed about that, and not just because I have family connected to Greenland.
But there’s a lot of things to be pissed about, I guess, both in the big world and in my own small world, and to be honest the only real cure when you are just little me is to try to calm down and be mindful about it. (Easier said than done, I know.)
To that end I have found that I enjoy nature videos, especially Nature Relaxation Films on YouTube. It really makes me feel as if some kind of lasting peace in my life is possible, when I watch these videos and listen to the ambient music or nature sounds.
I have even bought a subscription so I can have it run ads free during bedtime, which helps me a lot to sleep (if nothing is going on with J – my autistic son). I don’t get any commissions for plugging this one, I just wanted to recommend it, especially to other special needs parents.
But the little tricks I use to stay sane doesn’t change the fact that beneath my daily routine as a special needs father, there isn’t much space for writing. Pff… what else is new?! ;-p
Even so, I remain cautiously optimistic about what I can accomplish this year—despite a rough start, both personally and in terms of the troubling news that has occupied so much of my mental space.
Here are some examples of what I actually managed during this week, in all its usual chaos …
This Week’s Stories
FEATURED STORY
No Other Could See Me Through (2017)
Is it better to have loved and lost than not having loved at all? When her mother is dying, Calum and Deborah have an uneasy but hopeful reunion.
(About 2.2K words – 12 min read)
In a Beam of Light With You (1982) Calum regrets his last words to Deborah before setting off to war in the Falklands.
(About 1.2K words – 6 min read)
A House Divided part 5 (2025): Dave makes an important decision on how to survive the second Trump presidency without losing his soul.
(About 700 words – 4 min read)
Story Thoughts
My first wish for this year, in terms of storytelling, remains unchanged, namely to stick to a weekly posting schedule . There’s no guarantee I’ll accomplish it without glitches such as my life is, but I will strive to get something out for you every week, no matter how small—that’s the first priority.
The second wish is about what to write about. I wish to delve much deeper into Deborah’s life and that of her French family, whom we’ve only glimpsed through a few hints so far.
Deb’s mother (Carrie’s grandmother) French, and last year, I had the idea to explore this more because I wanted to attempt writing a novel (yikes!) for the first time in many years.
The novel would revolve around our experiences in France during the May 1968 riots, told from the perspective of a child of Mormon parents, where her father is from the U.S but lives in Paris as a missionary with her mother, who originally comes from a smaller town up in Normandy.
I find this a fascinating challenge—the more I learn about the Church of Latter-day Saints, the more intrigued I am by their particular experience of Christianity. I don’t know much about it, though, so I will have to do a lot of research.
Juxtaposing that (Deborah’s religious background) with the material struggles and political upheaval of France at the time, when student protests nearly tore the nation apart, I feel is a very compelling narrative. It also resonates a bit with today’s world, particularly the upheavals in the U.S., (though of course, there are hard limits to the analogy).
Anyway, given that I take care of my son most of the day, I know writing a full novel in one stretch isn’t realistic—I simply don’t have the time or energy. I experimented with it a little last year, but it quickly fell apart, as I feared it might.
So instead, I’m going to approach it the way I did with my first print collection (coming very soon, as said): bit by bit through linked stories and vignettes.
These pieces will come about as flashbacks within the contemporary stories about Deborah and the others, since their narrative takes place in 2017.
So the plan is to gradually do a lot of those flashbacks and eventually have enough for a “core story” for a novel, and while it may take many years to complete, I look forward to the process. (No, really!)
Of course, I’d also love to tell stories about all the other characters, and I will, rest assured, but this is what’s been on my mind lately. And what I have focused on.
I could go on for a long time about all my ideas, but for now, I’ll mention just one other strand:
That is my ongoing, irregularly written series about Carrie’s brother-in-law David Reese and his experiences during the second Trump presidency in 2025. I use this series as a way to process my own feelings, but also as an attempt to understand the perspective of those who support the current U.S. administration.
This is why I introduced Abigail, the woman who lives in the apartment next to David. She is his political opposite, and they rarely speak. I want to explore their dynamic and try to understand what drives her as a character. I already know what drives David—his views align closely with my own—but what about the other side? It’s going to be an interesting experiment. And apropos that …
How does everything happening in the United States right now affect you, and how do you feel about it?
I’d really like to know, so feel free to drop me a comment about it!
That’s it for now. Take care out there.
Chris
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