Welcome to Phantom Thoughts and Shadow Images, Fellow Adventurer!

On my Phantom Thoughts Substack, I share my original speculative fiction, creative non-fiction, a look behind the scenes of my writing process, research rabbit holes I inevitably fall into, and Other Stuff I Find Interesting. Probably with some rambling as well at times.

What I write

My own writing consists mostly of flash fiction, short stories, poetry, and some current and future novels-in-the-making. The vast majority of my stories fall somewhere under “speculative fiction” – though usually more on the fantasy and science fiction side of things than horror. I find language and language history, etymology, folklore, and mythology fascinating and indulge these loves when writing fiction and non-fiction.

When it comes to novels-in-the-making, my main (English) novel project at the moment is The Ruon Chronicles, an epic fantasy series. Worldbuilding, early drafts, maps, and more can be found under the tab creatively called “The Ruon Chronicles”.

I’m also working on the line edits for a flash fiction collection titled Where the Stars Used to Sing and a stand-alone Afrikaans fantasy novel, Porselein.

About the Substack’s Title, Phantom Thoughts and Shadow Images

When I started blogging (some thirteen years ago now), I decided to call my blog Hersenskim, an Afrikaans word that literally translates as “brain phantom”. (We call cotton candy spookasem in Afrikaans, which literally means “ghost breath” – how awesome is that?) Anyway…

The Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal defines the word hersenskim as “something that only exists in the imagination, or which is impossible; a fantastical dream image; a chimera.”

Seeing as how I write fantasy and I’m always going on about folklore, mythology, etc., I thought it’s a great title. When I started my Substack, however, I wanted to create an English title for the “main Substack” that evokes the same feeling and then using the Afrikaans title specifically for the Afrikaans part of the Substack.

Although I was initially happy with “phatasms” – as I wanted to keep it to one word – it started bugging me because it didn’t really evoke all that I wanted it to. I decided to change the title going into the new year and sat down for quite a while to play around with different combinations until I settled on “phantom thoughts”. I feel like it evokes the fantastical and ephemeral nature of thoughts and memories and, by keeping the second part of the title, I got to a place where I’m really happy with the title.

The tab “Hersenskimme en skadubeelde”

Hersenskimme en skadubeelde is the Substack home of my Afrikaans fiction. It covers mostly flash fiction, short stories, and the worldbuilding and research I’m doing for my Afrikaans novel.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading my stories and ramblings here in my corner of the internet!

To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.

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Speculative fiction, creative non-fiction, a look behind the stories, and research rabbit holes.

People

Speculative fiction and creative non-fiction writer, translator, bibliophile, and crafter. Fascinated by language, history, folklore, mythology, and crafts.