As a Side Note – Page 3 – Joanna Maciejewska

3 Interesting Sci-Fi and Fantasy Movies

We all hear about blockbusters like Avatar, Lord of the Rings, or movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Some are great, some meet our expectations, and some are just entertaining enough to ignore their shortcomings. There are many sci-fi and fantasy movies that any fan could readily name. But what about the less known titles? They aren’t necessarily worse, and sometimes they offer some fresh ideas, because they aren’t bound by the blockbuster requirements of how the story should be written.

I’m sure there are many great ones out there, but today I’d like to share three that I really liked. They aren’t without flaws, and they aren’t the most recent blockbusters, but they all provide decent entertainment and some inspiration too. (more…)

4 Comments

October 2, 2017

As a Side Note

5 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Animations Worth Your Time

The life of short films tend to be as long as they are: they flash into existence, and then disappear in the daily stream of the new information, events, and videos. Some get into the limelight when they become viral or are lucky enough to be among the Academy or other award nominees, while others fade even though they deserve attention too, some of the masterpieces of animation, storytelling or evoking emotions.

I’m not on top of every new release, I don’t follow every news, and I’m more likely to stumble upon interesting titles on random websites, forums, or via friends’ recommendations, so I’m sure I’ve missed a lot of interesting projects. Others I’ve forgotten or they simply didn’t strike the right chord to make it to the list below.

But I dare to call the 5 short films I mention here as my favorite ones. I come back to them every once a while, and they not only show the best what this form has to offer, but also spark my writer’s imagination and inspire me to create new stories. (more…)

13 Comments

July 5, 2016

As a Side Note

A to Z Challenge: Theme Reveal

I’ve known about A to Z Challenge for a couple of years now, but I never got around to joining it. Mostly because I never considered myself a blogger, and my posting schedule is still at best “shaky”, with merely a post a week (or even less). But, as you can guess, this year is different and I’ll be doing my best to post 26 posts throughout April (Sundays excluded, everybody needs a bit of rest!), each related to one letter of the alphabet.

And today is the challenges day for theme reveal. (more…)

36 Comments

March 21, 2016

As a Side Note / Personal Rants

When Things Pile Up

It think happens to most of us. We make ambitious plans, we jump on a chance that came unexpected or we simply feel we should be doing more in our lives. Tasks pile upon tasks, obligations we took upon ourselves take our breathing space, and we suddenly stop, overwhelmed by it all, unable to find a way through the chaos we brought upon ourselves. (more…)

10 Comments

February 1, 2016

As a Side Note / On Writing

Inspiring Fridays

I don’t think I would be wrong if I said that most of people can’t wait for Friday: especially for its evening part, when the week’s work has been done and it’s time to relax… or catch up with all the things neglected during the non-weekend days. Though I have to admit that regardless of how much I am looking forward to the weekend, Friday morning always throws me in a state of panic. “Is it today already?” I think opening my browser. “What’s this week’s theme?” (more…)

2 Comments

July 16, 2014

As a Side Note / On Writing

How do I write? Writing Process Blog Tour

Rachel Stirling from Stirlingwriter blog invited me to take part in a Blog Tour: it is exciting, as it’s my first one. Rachel’s blog post on Writing Process was published last week, and now it is my turn to answer 4 questions. I should also be passing the baton to the next three (un)lucky writers, but unfortunately everyone seems to be enjoying the prolonged weekend and I found no volunteers yet. So I leave the three spots open and if you want to take one of them and write a post for next Monday (28/04/2014) – just let me know in the comments.

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What am I working on at the moment?

At the moment I am focusing on two short stories I have planned: one of them is a sci-fi with a bit of horror flavouring, the other one will be set in an alternative history. It’s a new experience for me to write both of them as I never attempted to write anything horror-related before and the other story is a bit of an experiment as well with two worlds interwoven. But there are always other stories and ideas to be written as well, some of them partially done, some still nothing more than ideas. This way I can avoid writer’s block by jumping into another story if I hit a speed bump while writing the current one. (more…)

6 Comments

April 21, 2014

As a Side Note

From a booklover’s life

I remember the day I was going to Ireland “possibly for a year, maybe forever”. Since I was flying over there, my luggage was restricted by weight and I only could take four books with me. Two of them were dictionaries: Polish-English and English-Polish as I had a hunch they might come in handy. The other two were fiction: one that I already read and loved and the other one that I didn’t, but was supposed to write a review. That’s it, four books.

Just a year later I pushed my bicycle up the hill, carrying a package on it. It was my first bookshelf: meager, small and insignificant, but at least I could transport and assemble it on my own. I had few more books back then, but they still all fitted in and there was even some space left for boxes with “stuff”. (more…)

10 Comments

April 14, 2014

As a Side Note

No New Year’s resolutions!

The New Year is here. Some people already had their first days at work while others finally got over their first hangover this year, and they either already announced or they are just putting together their New Year’s Resolution List. And even though I admire people who make the Big Plans, I can’t help but wonder how many of them will stick to it (according to scientists over two thirds won’t make it) and how many of them will have the courage to revisit their list in December 2014 to honestly announce how much they accomplished. Or, letting the statistics giggle cruelly for a moment, how spectacularly they failed. (more…)

2 Comments

January 2, 2014

As a Side Note

Why I won’t buy the newest bestseller

Recently Polish sci-fi and fantasy websites were electrified by the news that Andrzej Sapkowski, the author of “The Witcher”, has written another book in the witcher universe, starring Geralt himself. Many people (myself included) grew up with the white-haired monster slayer, impatiently waited for every next book in the series, quoted the countless punchlines and consider the Witcher series somewhat of a legend. Regardless of speculations what was the reason for the author to come back to writing the series (which he said countless times was not an option), there was little doubt of whether to buy the book or not – we all pretty much knew we are going to get it. (more…)

4 Comments

November 11, 2013