Clouds
INSIDE THE BOOK tales of a loud humab
a humab is the sort of creature you’d only meet if you accidentally tripped into the gap between a yawn and a sneeze. it’s shaped vaguely like a beanbag that housed a ton of sugar, with stubby arms like folded origami and a mouth that seems to run all the way around its head, like an unzipped jacket. a loud humab doesn’t just speak—it broadcasts. its voice comes in foghorn-waves, like a brass band warming up in a cave, shaking loose dust from rafters and making teacups quiver in their cupboards. strangely, the humab isn’t aware of how loud it is.
WRITING PROMPTS
when a project stops feeling fun, when i lose the spark or start overthinking every line, i like to work with permission prompts.
i give myself one specific permission for the day, or for the next two weeks, or whatever time frame feels like it might bring back a sense of creative freedom — the kind that makes me want to sit down and write again.
the permission’s job is to silence the annoying editor in my head — the one who keeps shouting out rules, categories, and expectations.
ESSAY PUBLISHED
ten years ago, when i decided not to have children, i felt like the queen of self-liberation. not because i’d freed myself from the idea of children, but because i thought i’d escaped the collective deadline mindset imposed by what we call the biological clock. only recently did i realize that i had locked myself up in a new prison of time — one that felt just as suffocating as the old one. with the help of my friends, i’m now planning my next breakout.
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the full essay Gespräche über Zeitlosigkeit, Sprachlosigkeit und vermeintliche Kinderlosigkeit was published (in german) on NICHT NUR MÜTTER WAREN SCHWANGER, a project exploring diverse and underrepresented perspectives on pregnancy, time, and parenthood.
DIARY
when i was a kid i would sometimes stub my toe on a threshold, and some grown-up would claim: ‘you’re tired. time for bed.’ to me, that’s the epitome of grown-up terror to me—being told what i feel. but even if it was true, even if i really was tired, why does it automatically translate to ‘time for bed’?
DIARY
stepping out of the grindset means spending the whole day polishing something. it’s gently caressing a single monstera leaf with a damp cloth until it gleams. it’s going out to buff a few inches of canal railing, a stranger’s bicycle handle, a found coin, a beer coaster tucked between cobblestones. it’s polishing one’s own fingernail and pressing it against the philtrum to feel its smoothness. by polishing anything that comes your way, you can pause time and stretch out the summer.
INSIDE THE BOOK MIA
today, mia saw a young girl walking along the sidewalk. the girl wore a light pink dress with a leather jacket over it, looking like she had just turned six, having just outgrown her baby chubbiness into a more elongated, school-aged form. her black curls were tied back, and she had this incredibly determined gaze, almost as if she’d been cast for a film poster because of that intense determination in her eyes.
DIARY
stepping out of the grindset means finding life in the unfinished. it’s settling into an armchair amidst unpacked boxes and overturned furniture. it’s soaking up a sunbeam like a cat sprawled on this island called an armchair. stepping out means declaring “time for ice cream!” with a sense of ending the workday before it even starts. it’s lying down with a capri-sun in the hammock, ringing in the after-work hours, tasks still half-done.
DIARY
a snow-white slipper sits on the gravel path, with light and shadows from the summer trees playing on its soft white surface. a rubber dinghy floats in the middle of the canal, anchored to a buoy, with a couple of girls seated inside. they wear sun hats and their feet dangle lazily over the edge. one of them opens a pale red sunshade, its color so faded it seems bleached by many summers. on the kottbusser brücke, amidst a lot of trash, a white butterfly flits back and forth, treating the trash as a legitimate landscape. water reflections flicker on the dark green body of the van loon boat.
WRITING PROMPTS
when i turn to chatgpt for phrasing suggestions, its standard responses often feel boring and useless. so i’ve started challenging the ai to scale its own text suggestions.
COACHING INSIGHTS
i return to you what you’ve knowingly or unknowingly passed on to me and what is not mine to carry.
i learned this phrase during my coaching training, and it often works wonders for my friends, my coachees, and myself. you can think of it when you feel you’ve picked up something from someone else that doesn‘t belong to you — maybe it’s misplaced anger, an unfair judgment, or someone else’s projections. sometimes, these things might not even stem directly from another person, but from a societal system. i love this phrase because it’s non-blaming and liberating.
BINGE DIARY
in movies and tv shows, we often see this moment when a smart dream girl comes into a guy’s life, and he’s completely baffled by it. usually, he’ll say something like: “this is the first time i’m dating a smart girl, i’m not used to this!” — let me rant about three things here.
SELF-COACHING
when i’m facing a busy work marathon, i start my day with an intention-setting walk. during this walk, i ask myself a series of questions to help ease the pressure and make my day lighter while still making progress on what’s important.
WRITING PROMPTS
when brainstorming, writing, and editing texts with chatgpt, i often find its standard responses clichéd, generic, and annoying. so i switched to giving chatgpt personas, like a kafkaesque beetle, to get more refreshing responses. turns out, it works a million times better than yelling at chatgpt to stop being such a cliché machine. these persona switches have been a huge game changer in my creative work with chatgpt.
WRITING PROMPTS
when my writing feels kind of lame, i like to turn to scaling prompts to crank it up. i‘d ask myself: what do i want my text to be instead of lame? sometimes i need it to be more cinematic, other times edgier, braver or even more vulnerable. somehow moving up the scale step by step sparks a lot more ideas than simply aiming to make my text more cinematic.
COACHING INSIGHTS
positive gossip can be a powerful tool to nurture a culture of kindness, appreciation, and curiosity. you can do it as a proper team exercise, but also just casually get in the habit of it in your daily work or personal life. by asking these questions to others or even just to yourself, you can shift your focus to the things you appreciate in others, enhancing relationships and community spirit.
DIARY
i show myself and let the shame do its thing.
i'm confused. i keep hearing the suggestion to simply let go of shame. to drop the shame when performing, promoting, or sharing emotional turmoil. this advice comes from people who usually advocate for embracing all feelings. so why are they against shame in particular?
WRITING PROMPTS
last week, i worked worked worked towards a deadline which kind of messed up my back. so i’d switch to my dance ‘n write ‘n roll the dice method where i’d write for 5 minutes, dance for 5 minutes, go back to writing, and so on.
JOURNALING
almost every night just before sleeping, i write down a few good moments and visual snapshots of the day in my bedtime diary. this practice helps me take something pleasant into my sleep and gives me something joyful to think about when i wake up. i developed this routine when i was struggling emotionally and i desperately needed something to shift my mind at night (for the night is dark and full of terrors).
SELF-COACHING
i'm very experienced with tough days. i'm an expert in having emotional rollercoasters, hardcore pms-ing, feeling like my heart was ripped on some barbed wire, thinking that i’m a monster and the world is ending — over the past years i’ve put together an emotional first-aid kit of self-coaching techniques that help me be kind to myself and feel okay-ish enough to get through the day.
DIARY
reading feels like i'm nibbling on a cloud made of macarons, snacking without ever feeling full, without any snack-sickness, just the gentle pastel turquoise in my mind. my kindle background is pastel turquoise, my eyes settle right into the lines and find their rest. words wash through my mind, softening life, making sorrow poetic. sometimes i don’t even listen to what i’m reading.
SELF-COACHING
last year, i hit a point where it felt like my focus on future planning and goal-setting started taking a toll on my mental health. it pushed me into some kind of neoliberal grindset. i realized, i needed to refocus on the here and now—on what was good or good enough in my current life, rather than what i wanted to achieve in the future. so, i put together a list of 21 questions to help me shift my view. during my morning walks, i would reflect on one of these questions. i’m sharing these questions here in case they might help you too.
WRITING PROMPTS
i’m currently applying for a scholarship with a book project and have designed this writing tapas session to ease into writing the exposé. this approach makes the writing process more inviting and delicious by cutting it into tiny, snackable bits. i’m sharing these writing tapas with you to try out whenever you need to write a project description. it works for other projects too, not just books.
DIARY
i find the personal growth metaphor a bit outrageous, tbh, especially as a tiny-sized human in a world full of height privilege and an obsession with upscaling in general. we always talk about wanting to grow, which suggests that bigger and more is the desirable thing. it’s about time we celebrate some smallness. who says we shouldn’t want to be smaller? let’s flip the script. instead of saying i want to grow, let’s say i want to shrink,
WRITING PROMPTS
voice-activated chatgpt really has revolutionized my writing process. i now get most of my writing done by talking to chatgpt while i’m walking. it’s been the biggest game-changer of my creative life.
it’s like having a phone call with chatgpt while i’m walking. two things happen on that call: 1. as i speak, my thoughts are being transcribed. huge chunks of my writing get done here because this already provides a written record of my ideas. 2. chatgpt then reflects these ideas back to me, which works as a kind of reshaping of my words for me.
JOURNALING
on my birthday i love doing this journaling session to envision the delicious beauty of the new year i‘m entering today. you can do these prompts even when it‘s not your birthday. or in other words, it might be your birthday every day.
COACHING INSIGHTS
one of my coachee couples inspired me to design debrief questions for after their conflict conversations. i’m sharing these debrief questions here. you can also use these questions for other relationships—friends, siblings, other family members, or colleagues—to reconnect after difficult conversations. the questions are designed to focus on the relationship’s strengths, resources, and hopes.
WRITING PROMPTS
a lot of us are familiar with these annoying inner voices that clutter our thoughts and block our writing. these aren’t always the voices of our inner critics; sometimes, they belong to our biggest fans and supporters. but the obsession to please these voices can block our creative process. sometimes the voice will be helpful later in the process, just not right now. the following writing tapas can help send these voices away. when i do these tapas, i‘m usually surprised by all the things my mind wants to write once it‘s freed from that chatter.
BINGE DIARY
the reality show "love is blind" unintentionally caricatures toxic narratives of romantic love, pointing to broader societal norms. besides the obvious gender stereotypes, what strikes me most is how the show glorifies an almost addictive dependence on fake predictability. it is bizarre how the show celebrates fast-forwarding the beginning of a romantic connection.
DIARY
the letter ‘L’ is my favorite, giving me a cozy corner and a solid backing, a sense of being held while also letting me breathe wide and open, like letting go into the world. it’s bright and airy, and pale yellow.
INSIDE THE BOOK MIA
mia is sitting in sydney, immersed in the heat of the new year, and her star lights dance on the ceiling, casting water-like reflections, and outside, the jungle garden is thriving with lush greenery, and her cat sprawls in her lap making the keyboard wobble, and through the window, mia sees people braving the morning heat, and the sunlight flashes into her room as cars pass by, reflecting the intense australian sun, and it’s seven in the morning, and she's sipping hot coffee from her tiny mug from saigon, and the freshness of a recent shower lingers on her, and her pajamas are crisp and new.