Janna Kaixer from Writing Visually had tagged me for the Liebster Award Blog Hop, asking to answer her 11 questions and carry the fun to more people.
The rules are simple – thank the person who tagged you (Thank you, Janna!), answer the questions, list your own 11 questions and invite more people to the fun.
Janna asked the following questions: (more…)
They say that writing is a “lonely” business: hours spent on research in the library or on the Internet, hours spent writing and editing… all of it alone. But they also say that no man is a lonely island, and that also seem true: we have families, we have friends (even if they feel neglected at times) and we often work full-time which means having coworkers. And most importantly, we do fall in love and find partners, create new families. We are not alone, yet… we are sometimes, struggling to be understood or accepted not only as beloved family members or best friends, but also as writers. (more…)
Not so long ago I’ve explained how NaNoWriMo, although great initiative, wasn’t really working for me and how I’d be more eager to participate in something to build up the writing habit instead of speeding into a book within a month. And there it came, the opportunity to challenge myself, commit to writing and make friends with a group of people who do the same: the 365k Club.
The idea, originating from Jane Steen, was brought to life by Katherine Grubb and Jessica White from 10 Minute Novelist group. They invited fellow writers, professional and not, to partake in the challenge of writing 365,ooo words in a year, which meant to produce on average 1000 words every day. I thought I’m not capable of meeting such a goal. I thought that life will surely interfere preventing me from even trying. And I thought that a hopeless plotter such as me won’t be able to plot quick enough to meet the daily word count.
And with all these thoughts… I signed up. (more…)
Every once a while I look into my wardrobe and think it’s time to sort it out. Not only put all the skirts together and put sweaters beside one another, but actually take out all the clothes, check if they still fit and try to remember when was the last time I actually wore them. I don’t like it as it requires parting with pieces I feel sentimal about, but never really wear or admitting that there’s no way I’m going to fit in that blouse again. And the jacket? I love it, but it really starts looking shabby… If you can’t relate, maybe you can imagine how unappealing this task can be.
But what I do love is cleaning my literary wardrobe: looking back at all the ideas I scribbled down years ago and inspecting the forever postponed works in progress. It’s not only a pleasant surprise of finding hidden gems I’ve forgotten, but also a decision whether anything is worth coming back to. Some texts are archived to be forgotten forever, but others get to be considered again, and kept for later. They will be perfect for these grim days every writer has sometimes when they feel out of fresh ideas. (more…)
A couple of days I got an automatic post from Facebook inviting me to view my 2014 summary and – of course – share it with my friends. I looked out of curiosity and noticed that the snippets were based on the pictures I uploaded and the amounts of “likes” they got, so Facebook pretty much missed most of the important events in my life. I shrugged and created my own: a simple collage of seven anthologies published this year. Because, in the end, writing is one of the most important parts of my life and I always get very excited seeing my stories released. (more…)
Once again Fiction Writers Group members from all over the world joined their efforts to put together a drabble anthology: "May all your wishes...", themed around festive season. And once again, I have a pleasure announcing that you can find my drabble, "Just Like Every Year" inside. So if you're…
A new ebook was released yesterday by RW2010 publishing house. "Do diabła z bogiem" ("To hell with god") is an anthology of speculative fiction stories with religion as their theme, and my "Wszyscy jesteśmy bogami" ("We all are gods") is one of them. Publisher about the anthology: To hell with…
Recently I came across an article from 2010 about a German writer whose first book, a bestseller, was proven to be plagiarized from a novel of another author. What shook me more than the act itself, was the author’s defense. “It’s not copying, it’s mixing”, even though supposedly whole passages were copied from another author’s work.
Just a week later I witnessed online a similar situation: a young Polish author publishing with a vanity press openly admitted that his book is a fan-fiction set in one of the bestselling fantasy author’s world and using her main character. This time the excuse was similar: “it’s only inspiration and it’s ok if I use the main character’s name, because it’s not the same character”. I didn’t get to read an excerpt from the book, but the book’s description suggests the main character is a dragon, just like in the bestselling series. (more…)
November edition of Polish "Szortal Na Wynos" is available now and it contains two of my drabbles. You can download the file in pdf, mobi or epub formats. My drabbles can be also read directly on Szortal's website: "Infolinia" ("Helpline") and "Zekyańska tradycja" ("Zekyan tradition").