Jonas Eriksson's Blog: Jonaswrites.com - official site of author and writer Jonas Eriksson, page 11
June 19, 2013
June 18, 2013
“Terry loved candlelight dinners and red wine. It was a nice contrast from work. And killing people.”
Here are some more quotes from the short story collection Everyday Psychopaths
A KILLER DATE
“You are so beautiful, I could eat you,” he said.
And it was true. Her smile was as intoxicating as the wine. And he could eat her.
“You have really nice teeth,” Terry said and thought they could be excellent for his collection of exquisite human body parts.
Won’t this guy just shut the fuck up, thought Terry. Soon he was going to have to kill him
“You sick bastard,” she said.
“Yes, I guess you could call me that.” Terry replied.
THE DEVELOPMENT TALK
He was a strange mix of Heinrich Himmler and Barney the Dinosaur.
Nobody liked him.
He gave Jasper a look of…yes what was that look? Amusement, malice or constipation?
Jasper pictured his manager breaking out into evil movie villain laughter as soon as he left the room.
“A perfectionist,” Stephen repeated. On his lips the word seemed to taste of excrement.
THE WORST/BEST DAY OF MY LIFE
Things like people jumping head in line doesn’t happen without a reason. Or a treason.
No matter how many tapes of whale sounds I listened to, I made Hitler look like a hippie.
I guess all my afternoon beers and burgers were catching up with me, which made me want to scream THEN WHY NOT MY HAIR!?
The only thing which really seemed to pay off in life, if you went by Mary Pedersen’s example, was sleeping with your superiors.
“The “guys” in our IT-department had very few human traits.”
I have never liked expressions that involve fruit except for the word “melons”
She said this like she had climbed Mount Everest. It didn’t surprise me she had gone through a lot…of sex.
That casserole tasted like mashed-up sewage rat and I knew I couldn’t force that down one more time, even if it was chased by a pint of beer.
Buy Everyday Psychopaths for 99 cents at Amazon.com
June 17, 2013
“This is a divorce. In Hollywood that’s as big as someone painting their house.”
Here are some more quotes and excerpts from the romantic comedy Hollywood Ass...
“When B had launched her projectile vomit, right there on the red carpet, the world stopped for a second and stared at the mash of white wine, shrimp, guacamole and God knows what else, and asked the obvious question: What the hell happened? The famous TV-presenter, who witnessed the whole thing from only a meter away and probably got some of her regurgitated food on his shoes, probably asked the same thing. He was frozen and pale, a rare look on his always polished and controlled facade.”
B was an immensely successful romantic comedy actress and the star of movies that made women all over the world go “oooh” and guys go “uuuugh”.
“Good luck,” A said without a hint of belief in his voice and returned to his Ferrari, a car that always performed flawlessly, something I’m sure he wished for in his wife.
B about her husband’s transformation: “From flower-petal-trails to scratching his balls openly and only lusting after things with wheels, what an amazing transformation! I used to feel like the most special woman in the world and now I’m like his sister, bucktooth Bree from fucking Oklahoma. I should take a sledgehammer down to that garage!”
“No, of course I don’t hate you. I was just worried about you, because the B I know doesn’t run away to foreign countries to have late night rendezvous’ with other men.”
A man was touching me. Luckily we weren’t in a bar, but in a Gucci store and the man was a white-haired, old-school tailor with a pen behind his ear and measuring tape in his hands. I was getting an outfit custom-made, express charge and B was paying for it.
“No. There was only one thing alive on you and it was THAT thing.” B’s eyed travel downwards and fastened on where my groin would be, if it wasn’t covered by the bed linen.
Agent Julianne was always looking for ways to spin things. She would have been better off owning a laundromat.
I don’t know how I managed to keep calm and take it, but I did. I saw them exchange jokes and smiles and look so goddamn worry-free that for a second I felt like throwing my wine glass in their faces and leave. Take that you rich and soulless motherfuckers! How does the wine taste when you got it through your nose?
Buy Hollywood Ass. on Amazon.com
“I wanted to achieve greatness and prioritized accordingly.”
I wanted to achieve greatness and prioritized accordingly. Relationships were contra productive to my career. Starting a family was out of the question. Keeping up with friends didn’t really make the list – hell, I didn’t even know who my real friends were.
- Jack Reynolds.
Read how Jack gets his Wake-Up Call
June 15, 2013
The Liberty Tree – a Review
The Liberty Tree
Drunk to Sober, via Love, Death, Disintegration & Freedom
Suzanne Harrington
Check out Liberty Tree at The Book Depository.
This book took some guts to write.
Because it can’t be easy writing a book directed to your kids about the sometimes very dark days in your life and how their (then ex-husband to the author) father, Leo, commited suicide. The Liberty Tree is in part an ode to Leo and in part a very revealing and emotionally heavy autobiography.
Thankfully, Suzanne Harrington has the writing skills to make a sad story compelling and somewhat entertaining to read. You get the feeling nothing is spared in the pages, no secret is left unrevealed. And for that: big kudos to the writer.
I must say though that the book made me angry at times. You think: how can someone be so desperate and take so many drugs, drink so much and be so lost? It almost makes your head spin at times and I can imagine it makes her kids kind of crazy to read about too.
But I understand why she wrote it; when you have so much inside of you dying to get out, so many untold stories – you need to do something like this. And I can imagine it feels like a giant relief once it’s done.
Kind of like: This was me. It’s over. I’m saying goodbye to it.
What I think is a big benefit from a book like The Liberty Tree and one reason she wrote it, is that it can help others battling with depression, alcoholism, drugs, and self-loathing. I think that is the book’s ultimate value: “Look at Suzanne, once she was this complete wreck and now she’s this talented author. There’s hope. No matter what, there’s hope.”
A powerful book. A needed book. But not for the faint of heart.
Check out Liberty Tree at The Book Depository.
Change Philosophy
Throughout my life I’ve always embraced change. At times it’s been a survival strategy, other times it’s just been a transport from boredom.
I simply think it’s dangerous to get too static, because life isn’t. Life moves, changes, transforms.
It would be stupid not to grow and change with it.
Now we’re (Lenah and I) getting kind of desperate for change. We’ve lived in the same house for more than three years, I’ve been at the same job for more than six years and nothing really major has happened for quite a while. It’s a little bit like being stuck in limbo.
Limbo sucks.
When I was a little boy I used to love getting letters in the post. Since I played chess competitively I always hoped there would be an invite to some international tournament. And it did in fact happen from time to time and got to travel quite a lot. More than most young boys.
Waiting to see what was at the letter box was exciting and now I’m getting into the mood again. The mood for adventure. The mood for change.
I’d like someone to send us a letter in the post with some good news. Something to mix things up. To change things around.
I think we’ve deserved it.
No, I know we have.
But of course, change doesn’t always happen just because you wait for it. You need to go out and grab it by the horns. Now that we haven’t tried, but we’re going to try and do that even more from now on.
Hey change! Come on! We’re ready for ya.
Do you embrace change or does it frighten you? Please comment! And thanks for reading.
June 14, 2013
Frozen North – Bruce Soord with Jonas Renkse
Pretty awesome video and great song.
Looking For Readers, Reviewers and Editors
As you readers must now by now (because I’m bitching about it all the time) – I write books. Most of all I try to write entertaining books and although I’ve been flirting around with different genres – they’re all contemporary. I don’t see myself writing a World War II novel any time soon. I probably won’t write a crime novel either, but who knows?
But I will write. That you can bet on.
The thing is, I need help. I do know how to put together a sentence or two – after all I’ve been working as a journalist and a copywriter for many years, but I need a extra eyes. Eyes that spot sentence problems, structural issues, character inconsistencies – really anything that might make a reader say: “No, not for me.” (or worse!).
I’m not a rich man so I need people who love to read and are willing to do this out of the passion of reading. What I can offer is the opportunity to read my books before they hit the stores and to have a sometimes big impact on the content in them. I will also give due credit for any help I might receive.
Simply put, I need feedback on my writing that doesn’t cost professional editor fees. The idea is to build a team of readers that can help me make my books better. This doesn’t require massive amounts of work – the job description is pretty much:
1. Read my book.
2. Write down what you think and e-mail me.
What I hope is for constructive criticism and general proofreading to help my writing and my books get better.
If you’re interested or know about anyone who is, please drop me a line.
June 10, 2013
What’s An Everyday Psychopath?
That’s the question I asked myself before I published my new short story collection by the same name, Everyday Psychopaths. There’s something fascinating about people going crazy and doing unpredictable things. Crazy people are all around us and there’s at least a little bit of crazy in all of us.
Being crazy or a psychopath are of course loose terms that are hard to define. People tend to throw them around without any medical examinations to back them up. But if you google/wiki the word the following definition comes up:
Psychopathy is a personality or mental disorder characterized partly by antisocial behavior, a diminished capacity for remorse, and poor behavioral controls. As a diagnostic category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, psychopathy has been replaced by antisocial personality disorder (ASPD).
Surely, most people don’t see it exactly like that when they hear the word “psychopath”, but the “diminished capacity for remorse” is pretty much spot on.
In Everyday Psychopaths you find three stories, all with some level of psychopath in them. They’re full of dark humor and best described with the line:
Everyday Psychopaths is a collection of short stories that will both frighten you and make you laugh out loud. Warning: reading these three stories can make you sound like a crazy person. Kind of like an Everyday Psychopath…
The stories in Everyday Psychopaths:
A Killer Date
This is a horror story written with portion of humor. Inspired by Stephen King. Here you find the most obvious use of an Everyday Psychopath.
30 minutes into the date, Sheila thinks there’s magic in the air between her and Terry. She can hardly believe her luck to have met a man who seems to have everything. She wants to pinch her arm and ask herself if it’s too good to be true, but if she did the answer would be: Yes, it is too good to be true, because the truth is actually horrifying…
Quotes from A Killer Date:
Terry loved relaxed candlelight dinners and red wine. It was a nice contrast from work and killing people.
“You are so beautiful, I could eat you,” he said.
And it was true. Her smile was as intoxicating as the wine.
And he could eat her.
“You have really nice teeth,” Terry said and thought they could be excellent for his collection of exquisite human body parts.
The Development Talk
In the Development Talk you find Jasper who’s up for his yearly development talk. Jasper hates meetings and he hates them even more now that his new manager is Stephen – a classic everyday psychopath.
Quotes from The Development Talk:
“He was a strange mix of Heinrich Himmler and Barney the Dinosaur.”
“A perfectionist,” Stephen repeated. On his lips the word seemed to taste of excrement.
He gave Jasper a look of…yes what was that look? Amusement, malice or constipation?
The Worst/Best Day of My Life
Joe hasn’t had the best time lately. His life seems to be going steadily downwards – at least if you asked him. When his hated colleague Mary Pedersen (everyday psychopath!) steals the promotion he thought he was going to get, things get even worse. And sometimes things has to get a lot worse before they get better.
Quotes from The Worst/Best Day of My Life:
I guess all my afternoon beers and burgers were catching up with me, which made me want to scream THEN WHY NOT MY HAIR!?
No matter how many tapes of whale sounds I listened to, I made Hitler look like a Woodstock survivor.
That casserole tasted like mashed-up sewage rat and I knew I couldn’t force that down one more time, even if it was chased by a pint of beer.
And to top the collection off I’ve included generous samples of The Wake-Up Call and Hollywood Ass. where both womanizing, workaholic, narcissist Jack Reynolds and Hollywood A-list actress B possess excellent everyday psychopath qualities.
I hope you like my little tribute to everyday psychopaths. May we never become like them.
PS. June 11-12 Everyday Psychopaths is FREE in the Kindle store. DS.
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