So I just got my first short story published, in a Finnish zine aimed at amateur speculative writers called Kosmoskynä. It's an amazing feeling, to see one's words on paper. I wrote the story originally a year ago, in a mad rush during midsummer weekend (sorry inlaws! I was really absorbed in my writing instead of hanging out socially!). It is a kind of cat-and-mouse chase between two hacker dudes in calorie-starved post-oil near future, sort of romance but they are actually rather shitty people both and so it's not really romantic in the stricter definition of the genre. But people with selfish character fall in love too or at least obsess over people and it was quite intense writing about such personalities (me being a considerate and nice person, or at least very much trying to). I put in it a lot of stuff that interests me: perma gardening, high-speed trains, a little bit of fashion advice too, like the importance of owning a well-cut and good-quality coat...

The title of the story is Yu'Xin'Ou Express, after the train line that connects China and Germany. Which actually exists but is currently restricted to freight. I wish one day it's opened for passenger traffic.

Thanks to Kosmoskynä editor who pointed out many things to improve, after which the story made more sense to myself as well.

I have other stories in the works, more or less all having a romance core plot. For whatever reason I can't come up with plots that don't hang on the relationship happiness of someone, perhaps it is some cosmic retribution for me looking down upon romance as a genre when I was younger! But these days I'm all for romance, preferably of melodramatic and tragic nature, and nothing makes me happier than a conflict between love and duty. In entertainment only, of course!