I love puzzles. Always have. Crosswords, wordsearches, logic puzzles, you name it, I’m a fan.
What turned me from a consumer to a creator was the origin story of the puzzle the world came to know as ‘Sudoku’…
Author Archives: Kobayaashi
The Writer’s List
Humans love lists. Shopping lists. Wish lists. Bucket lists. Many of us structure our lives with ‘to do’ lists, which become ever more important as our lives become gradually more and more complicated…
The Changing of the Guard…
New Year’s Eve. The last day of another 365-day long extravaganza of life. For better or for worse, the days have flown on by, but for those still here, there’s promise of new days to come…
Gustav & The Self-Propelling Pencil.
By Jai Kobayaashi Gomer. At the age of 14, Gustav Mierlson invented the Self-Propelling Pencil. As he told his prospective investors, “It writes for you, so that you don’t have to.” They thought this was an incredibly forward-thinking notion, and a great product, worthy of their investment. They wrote him a cheque for fifteen thousandContinue reading “Gustav & The Self-Propelling Pencil.”
The Disobedient Protagonist.
What to do when your characters won’t behave themselves? Okay, so I have my protagonist (a necromancing child of darkness, spawned in Hell but violently rejected by the Devil himself and conflicted to the very dust within his bones between Good and Evil) and my setting (he’s living out his days in the mortal realmContinue reading “The Disobedient Protagonist.”
On Writing Horrible Things…
I wrote a story. The title is ‘Mondays’ (get your copy now on the site!). It is a rather horrible story, based on a dark premise, and one which begins with a casual portrayal of a brutal act. So far, so horrible. So why did I write it, if it was so horrible? Why investContinue reading “On Writing Horrible Things…”
What do people want to read?
This is a question which plagues many writers (not you, obviously, you look like you’ve got it sorted!). How will I know what to write if I don’t know what people want to read? The answer is : people want to read all kinds of stuff! Some people want to read the Bible, others wantContinue reading “What do people want to read?”
Writing While Broken…
I used to write and write and write. All I needed was to be left alone in a room, and I could churn out reams of wonderful madness. Poetry. Prose. Stream-of-Consciousness. I could enter strange new worlds, explore the alien within, my pen / pencil speeding across the page like lightning. Now, not so much.Continue reading “Writing While Broken…”
I don’t write my stories, I merely record what I see and hear…
Sometimes it’s like wandering into a room where there’s an animated conversation occurring, and I get to watch for a while, and occasionally I can ask one of the non-participants, crowded around to view the action, what’s happening, and why. Sometimes I don’t know all the answers, or the history of a conflict, or theContinue reading “I don’t write my stories, I merely record what I see and hear…”
As Churchill Once Said…
As Kobayaashi Studios finally ‘comes out’ as an independent publisher, I’m reminded of the oft-quoted words by Winston Churchill : “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Of course, I’m not comparing the birth of a publishers to theContinue reading “As Churchill Once Said…”
Kobayaashi Studios 