[Process Note] Preparing for My Own Strange September
The story I've been hiding from for months because I'm terrified of not telling it good enough
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I'm launching a writing challenge this Thursday and I'm about to terrify myself.
Because if I'm asking people to choose strange over safe, I can't keep avoiding the story that scares me most.
Cosmic horror. 18th-century Ottoman Istanbul. A genderfluid dancer. Fire ifrits.
The story I've been hiding from for months because I'm terrified of dishonoring my own culture.
But September 4th is coming, and it's time to practice what I preach.
Are you ready to get strange together?
💀 The Story That Could Destroy Me
The Star-Eater has been sleeping beneath Istanbul for a millennium. Now it's waking up.
Aydan is a genderfluid zenne dancer who becomes the entity's chosen vessel—not by choice, but because their fluid relationship with identity mirrors the creature's shapeless nature.
Étienne, a French physician, tries to document the "sleepwalking episodes" spreading through Galata with European science that can't measure the unmeasurable.
And Lilah, a fire ifrit, wants the Star-Eater to wake up so she can devour what's left of the old world.
It's cosmic horror meets Ottoman history meets gender exploration meets soft apocalypse.
It's also the most terrifying thing I've ever attempted to write.
Because what if I get it wrong? What if adding magic to Turkish history is disrespectful? What if I'm betraying something sacred?
Have you ever felt like a cultural traitor in your own work?
🌙 When Homesickness Becomes a Superpower
I'm a Turkish-born mixed heritage writer living in a Spanish village where the loudest sound is my neighbor's chickens.
I dream about Istanbul streets I walked as a child and wake up homesick for chaos and impossibility.
Do you know what it's like to love a city so much that writing about it feels like bleeding?
Every time I sit down to write this story, the voice whispers: What if you're fetishizing your own culture because you miss it so much?
That cuts deepest. Because I'm writing from exile. From longing. From the particular heartbreak of loving something from a distance.
But maybe that's exactly why I need to write it.
Maybe homesickness isn't a weakness—maybe it's a superpower.
Maybe missing something so deeply you want to resurrect it in words isn't betrayal.
Maybe it's love.
⚡ Your Strange Ideas Made Me Braver
After running a successful 30 Days of Fantasy challenge, I thought I knew what to expect from prompt suggestions.
I was wrong.
The ideas flooding in for Four Weeks of Strange are making me braver in ways I didn't anticipate.
Your concepts are WAY stranger than mine:
• Cursed shenanigans that break reality
• Genre-bending combinations that shouldn't work
• Fantasy scenarios that make my cosmic horror look tame
You're all carrying "too weird" projects. Stories that whisper at 2am and make you think "nobody would want to read that."
But what if that's exactly wrong?
What if the weird is what we're all secretly craving?
Reading your wild ideas made me realize: community courage is contagious. If you can be brave with your impossible stories, maybe I can trust that my culture is strong enough to hold magic too.
What story are you avoiding because you're scared your community will judge you for it?
🔥 This Thursday: We All Stop Playing It Safe
September 4th is almost here, and I'm finally going to write the Star-Eater story.
Not using the challenge prompts—those are for you to explore whatever strange calls to you. This is my parallel journey, my own commitment to choosing courage over comfort.
I'm giving myself permission to make it as strange as it wants to be.
No subgenre boxes. No "but where would this fit in the fantasy section?"
Just fantasy.
Just finally writing the story that's been haunting me.
And I want YOU to join this movement of writers choosing strange over safe.
Because maybe—just maybe—the stories we're most afraid to tell are exactly the ones the world needs to hear.
🌟 What's Your "Too Weird" Project?
Choose your fear:
🔥 The Cultural Betrayal → A story that might dishonor something you love
⚡ The Genre Breaker → Too weird to categorize
💔 The Too Personal → Feels like bleeding on paper
🌙 The Impossible Mix → Elements that shouldn't work together but haunt you
Drop your emoji + one line about your "impossible" project in the comments. Comment with just your emoji if you want to stay anonymous—I want to see which fear resonates most.
Then tell me: what's stopping you from writing it?
Let's be strange together. Let's choose courage over comfort.
Because this Thursday, we're all going to find out what happens when a bunch of writers decide to be brave at the same time.
⏰ This Thursday until the Star-Eater stirs.
This Thursday until we all stop playing it safe.
With ink and cosmic dread,
Luna
P.S. Ready to join Four Weeks of Strange? No registration needed—just show up and write impossible things with us starting September 4th.
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Sounds amazing!
Yes, bring on the weird!
Did you know that here in Egypt there’s a playful old curse: “May fifteen ifrit ride inside you.”
It sounds dire, but it’s often said with a grin, tossed at mischievous children sneaking cookies, or muttered in jest among friends. It’s as often used for comedy as curse. I see it as proof that a culture’s words can be carried to new and interesting places by its people.
That’s the magic of cultural stories: they are yours to live with, to wrestle with, to laugh at, and to pass on. They deserve to be told, adapted, and rescued from the slow erosion of time. Think how many tales and legends vanished simply because no one wrote them down.
So let me say this plainly: you are not bastardizing your culture by adapting its stories, you are championing it. If not you, then who? And isn’t it far better for the telling to come from within, than for it to be borrowed and reshaped by strangers?
Your stories are treasures. Guard them, share them, let them ride out into the world.