Little Melfka on a big Pyrkon
By the time I catch up with both life and sleep, you will probably have read something about Polish biggest multigenre convention – Pyrkon (its name has nothing to do with the publisher Pyr, but comes from the regional word for potato: “pyra”, which Wielkopolska and Poznań are somewhat famous for), and my intent is not to deliver the fastest or the most detailed account of the event, but rather to share personal feelings of a person who remembers the times when Pyrkon was much smaller convention, and who now had a chance to come back after ten years.
So read on if you want to know if it was worth the cost of the flight tickets and missing “Avengers: Age of Ultron” premiere… (more…)

Oh look! Another month went by. Compared to the bumpy February, March had proven more understanding, allowing me to add the words at a steady pace, and to appreciate the effects of the long-term commitment. It reminded me of hiking in the mountains where the peaks always seemed to be as distant as in the beginning of the journey, but once you’ve looked back, you saw the whole stretch of valleys and narrow paths you’ve scaled already. And writing felt similar: a thousand word on its own doesn’t seem that much, but when you look at a month, then two and three months of such thousands, they grow into stories, blog posts and novels.
Just a day after I was nominated in Liebster Award Blog Hop, I’ve been sneakily tagged by Myk Pilgrim from Little Plastic Castle who challenged me to reveal ten most formative books. Books that shaped the Melfka I am now.
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.
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.