A Persistent Optimist

If you’ve only read my horror short stories, you may be under the misconception that I am a pessimist at heart. It may surprise you to know that I’m actually the exact opposite. I’m one of the most optimistic people you may ever meet actually. Note that doesn’t mean I’m bubbly, just an optimist.

I’ve been that way for most of my life and I strive to continue to be optimistic even when faced with some very bleak circumstances. If you ever meet me in person, you’ll know that I really do try to share that optimism with others too. (It’s a side effect of being an INFJ I think.) When a friend is in a really deep hole, I’ll pull out a shovel and slowly work to help them out of it. I consciously try to make the world a better place, even if it is through other-worldly horror stories or heart-wrenching fantasy. To continue this not-so-official goal of mine, I’m taking part in the “We Are The World Blogfest” cause the world needs to be a little bit more bright and cheery.

Basically the We Are The World Blogfest means that on the last Friday of the month, we all will post something positive and human. Something that gives you faith in humanity again. Isn’t it a refreshing change?

My April addition mixes a few things I love: short stories and technology.

These little short story dispensers sit in the center of a shop, usually a cafe, and you just plug them in and give them network access. All a user has to do is walk up, hit a button, and a random short story gets printed out. Now these stories can be filtered depending on the environment, such as stories targeting children or targeting a particular genre. Now as you can imagine, they’ve been quite popular in France, but they’re slowly trickling into the US as well!

Store owners love them because people will come in just to get a story, and then they are more inclined to come again since they’ve scoped out the environment. It’s a great draw for customers. Writers (like myself) appreciate them because they get our work out in front of more readers. And as for humanity as a whole? Well I think getting any kind of artistic or literary work out to the public for free is a good thing. We need an excuse to step away from our phone games and work email and conversations to step into a world built on words.

I’ve already signed up for the English version of this to submit a few stories of my own, but they don’t have that portion as beefed up as the French version yet. And unfortunately my French isn’t good enough to decipher everything yet. You can bet I’ll be keeping an eye on this though! I’m eager to see this take off!