alter ego

A random sampling of recent feedback I've received for my fiction. Note that none of these people have discussed my work with each other, and quite a few of them are reading completely different pieces.

--"Somber."

--"David Lynch-like." (Bad enough to get that comment once. I got it twice, from two unrelated people for two totally different pieces of writing.)

--"The tenderness the characters had for each other relieved the grimness of the story."

--"Depressing."

--"Monotone, in an intentional way." (Uh, yeah, right, I meant to do that.)

--"Gloomy."

The thing is, all this is a total surprise to me. I mean, every once in a while I sense that deep down, I'm not quite as chipper as the people around me. But then I get called an optimist, or cheerful, or funny...and all that stuff sounds true as well. Before recent weeks, no one's been going around using a hilariously antiquated word like "grim" to describe me.

I'm thinking of taking up smoking in order to support my new image.