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Did you have a chance to check out this month's CSR story, The Others by Stannie? I hope you did and you're ready to share your thoughts, but first you can enjoy all his answers to my probing questions, including what he plans on posting next!! Chocolate or Vanilla? I don’t really like sweet food, so I’m going for chocolate. Real bitter pure chocolate! If you had 30 minutes of free time, what would you do? Watching, just looking around. When the sun is shining I’d go sit on my balcony with a cup of coffee, just to watch the people outside. I watch the children play, the elderly going for a walk, or the adults rushing towards their work. What do you like best about being part of the GA community? Motivation, to me, has always been a problem. Whether it’s at school, when working or when doing things I really like doing, I regularly can’t seem to get motivated enough. When writing for GA and getting feedback on what I write or getting messages when I didn’t upload for a while, it gets me motivated to do what I like best: writing. So, I think that means I like the support I get. Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing? Writing in English. I think I mastered English well enough to have normal conversation, et cetera, but when writing a story you want something beyond that. I noticed I lack the ability to get something literary on paper, especially when it isn’t anything physical, like describing emotions. I don’t know many sayings or proverbs to illustrate what I want to say. How did it feel to finish posting your first novel on GA? Well, that was a little confusing, I’d say, as I never planned on finishing the story with this. Originally the story was way longer (and it still is), but I just decided to make a sequel. That was something I had thought about for a long time, because I normally don’t like stories being split into sections. With this story, however, I felt like the next part was a whole new story, a new part of Adam’s life, so that’s why I chose for it. Your character, Adam, has a taste for older movies (Monty Python) most contemporary teens probably don’t watch. Did you invent that for his character or is it modeled after your own preferences? I’m just a “teen” myself, so if I didn’t know those movies, I couldn’t have made Adam like them, so it’s kind of modeled after my own preference. It’s also based on someone else I met who is around my age, but listens to old music and watches old movies a lot, so I guess he had something to do with it as well. Do you believe people are inherently selfish or was that just Adam’s take for his blog? Yes, I truly do. I’ve had many discussions about this with people and every time I don’t get it why they don’t feel the same way about it. I challenge them to show me a situation in which someone isn’t inherently selfish, only to counter it by explaining what the selfish part was. It always works, unconditionally, unless it has something to do with having children. I haven’t been able to explain why people do certain things for children even when it doesn’t make them necessarily happier or something, so I guess that’s the exception to the rule. Sam says she likes, “The happy you” in chapter 6. Do you think that mood lift from the release of writing the blog that made Adam seem happier, or the knowledge of his Anonymous Reader’s identity and his feelings about him? Ah, that’s funny, because I actually talked about this today with someone. I stated that happiness without an obvious reason to it, is the best kind of happiness. It makes you feel like it doesn’t matter what happens around you, you can always be happy. I think Adam had the same thing here, as he thought to himself right after Sam said she like the “happy Adam”. He asked, being surprised: “I’m acting different?” Maybe it’s because it just feels right, you know? When you realise everything is okay, your life is going at a bearable pace and you found your position in the world in correspondence to the people around you. It feels right, and you are happy it does so. If you could sum up the theme of The Others, what would it be? I find that very difficult. When I started the story I just wrote 1 chapter and uploaded it. By then I wanted Adam to be a person with this secret second life, and I meant the story to be an interaction between those lives. It didn’t really work out (that’s why there is so much time between the first and second upload), so I decided the theme to be a book with a main character who isn’t necessarily likeable. I noticed that many stories have protagonists we sympathise, we feel sorry for, or just like a lot. Very plain feelings, in general, though when we think about ourselves and when we try to feel something about ourselves, it’s never this simplistic. We are complex organisms, and I wanted that in this story, so I made up Adam: a person who you can’t understand all the time (he doesn’t even do that himself) and switches between being liked to being hated. Not much for a summary, is it? What do you plan on posting next on GA? Of course, that’s the sequel of the Others, which will be about the travels of Adam.

And just this fast, June is upon us and the year is half over. But the CSR event is still going strong, and I have a new story chosen for you guys to read this month. June's selection is by an author who's been on the site for a while but just completed posting his first novel. Let's all take a look at The Others by @Stannie and share some thoughts and comments on the site on the discussion day on the last Monday of the month, June 26th! The Others by Stannie Length: 74,750 Description: While pretending to be cool when he is with his friends and trying to be intelligent when he is editing his popular weblog, Adam actually is going through a lot. He is able to ignore his own problems by running from reality. It works, until someone in the real world becomes interesting enough to stay for. A Reader said: Looking forward to the next book, great job Stannie! ~ Scary Don't forget to come back and comment on the story on the discussion day set for Monday, June 26th!