On Writing / Personal Rants

Blog Hop: 7/7/7 Challenge

Blog HopBack in May, Myk Pilgrim tagged me in a Facebook chain post, challenging me to post 7 lines from the 7th line at page 7 of my WIP. I promptly did so, and after tagging a bunch of my writing friends, I enjoyed having a sneak peak into what they were working on (and I do hope I get to read their finished pieces!). Then I forgot about the challenge, though I still saw the post and tags circulating along my Facebook acquaintances. I didn’t know the challenge moved to blogs (or maybe this was where it originated?) and last week Sara Letourneau tagged me on her blog, bringing the challenge back to me. (more…)

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September 6, 2015
On Writing / Personal Rants

That Novel I’m Not Writing

ThatNovelThis post has been prompted by a chat with Meg Cowley (if you’re not following her on Twitter, let me fix that for you: @meg_cowley). We shared our experience of being immersed in the worlds we create and jumping between them, and the conversation steered toward one of my projects. Meg got curious, and I somewhat promised her more information on it. (more…)

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August 17, 2015
A Month of Writing / On Writing

A Month of Writing – July

MoW-ENSummer is the time when people think of the sun, long-awaited vacation in some nice place and focus on relaxing if they can. Those of us stuck in the day jobs can only dream of the sea and beaches while glancing at the patch of the blue sky through the office window. And with the weather being moody this year in Ireland, I got my heat only from my projects, because July was quite challenging. (more…)

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August 10, 2015
On Writing / Personal Rants

The Importance of a Satysfying Ending

TheEnd

Those who follow me on Twitter probably already know that I’ve finally finished Dragon: Age Inquisition. I’ve played the game quite extensively in February, and when it became clear I’m getting close to the end, I took a break, not ready to finish it yet. At the same time I was surprised with the main plot line’s length and complexity, or what I’d rather consider the lack of them. I usually don’t rush through the games, and even though I enjoy the story, the open worlds/areas push me to explore every nook and cranny, and interesting characters make me interact multiple times with every single one of them just to check if they have something new to tell me. Needless to say, my progression is quite slow and I enjoy it this way, so getting close to the main storyline’s end after roughly of 60 or 70 hours of mostly bickering about, came as quite a shock to me. (more…)

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July 27, 2015
On Writing

Melfka goes camping

Camp-Participant-2015I guess it had to happen some time, and I although I still claim NaNoWriMo is not working for me, I couldn’t resist Marie’s and Myk’s persuation, so I’ve signed up for July’s Camp NaNoWriMo. What finally convinced me, were the more relaxed rules of the Camp, allowing to pick one’s word count and not limiting the choice to a novel. Of course, I could just insert 31 000 words as my goal to match the 1000 words daily I write for the 365k Club challenge, but that would feel like cheating, so instead I decided to take advantage of Camp’s rules that allow to pick editing instead of writing. (more…)

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June 29, 2015
On Writing / Personal Rants

The Thing That Always Feels Great

FirstDraftThere are things that always feel great. The taste of the first strawberries when the summer starts. Opening a new book by one’s favorite author. The touch of a pillow on the face after a long and tiresome day. No matter how many times experienced, they always feel the same.

And finishing one’s writing, be it a short story or long novel, is one of those things. (more…)

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June 16, 2015
A Month of Writing / On Writing

A Month of Writing – May

MoW-ENIf you’re here in hope of finding news of disasters, missed deadlines and too low word counts, I have to disappoint you. So what happened in the fifth month in my 365k Club challenge? I probably should have report May has been dull, filled with steady progress, and nothing more, but I’ve made several discoveries about my writing process along the way, which I’d like to share with you. (more…)

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June 8, 2015
A Month of Writing / On Writing

A Month of Writing – April

MoW-ENIt feels like I just have been writing the March post, looking forward to April’s challenges, and now I am here, at the beginning of May, thinking of how crazy April has been, and ready to tell you all about the fourth month in the 365k Club’s challenge.

As you might remember, I was planning to visit Pyrkon (you can read more of the convention in the “Little Melfka on a big Pyrkon” post), and considered I might break the writing streak during the trip. I didn’t expect the life to lay its traps for me at the very beginning of the month…

(more…)

7 Comments
May 10, 2015
A Month of Writing / On Writing / Personal Rants

A Month of Writing – March

MoW-ENOh 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. (more…)

19 Comments
April 9, 2015