This morning, just after enjoying a late breakfast in the sun, I talked with my brother and his girlfriend on the phone. Besides chatting about that-what-must-not-be-named, we got to speak about my writing too.
At a certain point in time, they asked me whether I had considered to shorten the name of HyperZENsitivosaurus, as it's kind of hard to read, let alone pronounce, for kids.
I replied that I had indeed considered this - Little Hyper , Li'l Hyper or Santa's Little Hyper ( for the Christmas edition* ) - find out more about that here - and that the full name would probably be difficult to pronounce for many adults too.
Then again, it would be kind of a shame to loose the ZEN part that I added to the name a while back ( as I feel we can all use more ZEN in our lives these days ). I can't find when I changed SENsitivo to ZENsitivo but here's when my favorite lizard leveled up from Hyper to Super. And, for those who just can't get enough of this creature and it's growth, I also shared how this idea developed from computer game to novel to children's book
Anyhow, it's hours later now and I wanna log off for the night ( too many distractions ), so I will end it in a bit, with a fragment of what I wrote today.
It's in Dutch, my native tongue, as I suddenly felt like writing Dutch and my main inspiration ( Toon Tellegen's short stories, that I mentioned here ) is Dutch too.
If you can't read Dutch, no worries, the book will be published in English too.
If you're very curious, have fun with Google Translate or, even better, DeepL Translator
I just threw the Dutch text in there and the result sure is funny. At least you will have a laugh. If you're still uber curious afterwards, feel free to ask me questions about the real meaning in the comments ;>)
My mom, who reads all my posts - it's hard to follow through on the writer's rule: 'write as if your mom doesn't read your work' if you know she does read it - just informed me that it's time to dust off my drawing skills. I told her that I love to go against perfectionism, so I will keep adding pics like the SuperZENsitivosaurus** one above this post to my write ups. I still really hope though that my twin sister - who draws a little neater - will add her illustrations to the eventual book.
And now without further ado, here's part of what I wrote today:
Hypersensitivosaurus was nooit echt van het handen schudden geweest. Hij hield wel van huggen maar ook dat was lastig met z'n korte raptor armpjes.
Deze dagen was er echter iets raars aan de hand. Alle dieren die hij tegenkwam, hielden ruime afstand. Er werd nauwelijks gegroet. Sommigen keken hem helemaal niet aan, of wenden hun blik af zodra ze hem zagen. Een enkeling zei nog goede dag. Zo had de dagpauwoog hem gegroet met een kort maar vriendelijk “Dag” maar wellicht kon deze dat niet helpen.
Hij hoefde zijn grot niet uit te gaan om het te voelen, maar hij deed het toch.
De angst in de lucht was voelbaar. Het leek haast of hij hem kon ruiken en misschien was dat ook wel zo. Met zijn supersensitieve zintuigen en doorontwikkelde neus was zweet van grote afstand op te merken. Dit was niet altijd een voordeel, vooral als het sommige dieren betrof, maar hij was goed opgevoed dus besloot het hierbij te houden.
Dit was echter meer dan angstzweet, het was een algeheel gevoel. Een zwaar gevoel, een triest soort spanning.
TO BE CONTINUED...
*Just kidding about the Santa's Little Hyper© part, although it might be fun. Let's copyright it here, just in case.
**Original imperfect art by me.