When I’m writing these words, it’s been only a few days after I had finished the first draft of my standalone fantasy, Memories of Sorcery and Sand. There’s still a lot of work ahead of me, but the most important bit is done: I have laid what I hope is a solid structure to probably the most challenging story I attempted to write up to date.
And to be honest, part of me still can’t believe I pulled it off.
Time is a peculiar thing. On one hand, it flies so fast that before you blink, you cross the midpoint of the year. On the other, when you look back at all that happened, it feels like it’s been ages since 2020 started. Of course, it doesn’t help that the year itself seems to be a story of a mad writer or a random plot generator… Yet, as we say in Polish, “one has to go on living” even if things didn’t exactly get back to normal during the second quarter of 2020. (more…)
When I was first making plans for this year, I was hoping to finish book 3 of my epic fantasy by the end of April. Then, my laptop broke and with the delivery date of my new computer being three weeks later, I knew I’d had to adjust the plans. I hoped for the end of May, but realistically, I set myself to finish by the end of June.
It’s almost halfway through the month, and although it still could be possible for me get to the end before July, but even if I push really hard, it’s unlikely. There are several reasons. (more…)
My free fantasy stories collection, Scourges, Spells, and Serenades is now on Goodreads, which means you can add it to your shelves, and it will count toward your reading challenge if you’re taking part in it. And if you haven’t gotten the collection yet, you can receive the ebook by singing up to my monthly newsletter (you can unsubscribe any time!).
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It’s been at least three years since I finished my epic fantasy novel, By the Pact. It was all revised, edited, and “ready to go”. But I wasn’t entirely happy with the compromises I had to make between the story, beta readers’ expectations, and the word count. But to address it, I would have to set myself back, adding a significant amount of work to my already-full schedule. And in the end, I did it. (more…)
Do end-of-year lists have a point? 355 days is enough time to both get acquainted with massive amounts of creations and… forget about a lot of them, no matter how good they were. Yet, those subjective “the best of” lists do have an appeal of discovery of another person’s favorites that in the next year might become mine.
Nowadays I’m more focused on creating rather than consuming, so I don’t have dozens of books or tv shows to pick from, but I still can point toward my favorites, so here’s a meager Melfka’s Best of 2019 list. (more…)
It’s been a while since I updated this blog. It’s been mostly due to my freelance workload and the determination to finish my writing project, but I also realized that the monthly update on my life has become slightly repetitive: focused on my writing, I do very little outside of it that would justify monthly reports. Therefore, I bulked the last three months together in a larger post. Next year, I might switch to quarterly updates or find another formula. Until then, here’s what has been going on in my life while I was quiet. (more…)
I could swear yesterday was the end of May, but instead September got a jump on me before I could even wonder where did August go. This year feels like I’m constantly playing catch-up, and I still stay behind with everything, and the last month was no different… or was it? (more…)
I’m pleased to announce that my dark fantasy story Yet Another Vessel is available in issue 10 of Broadswords and Blasters.
Join mercenary Molsyn who is on a mission to solve the mystery of disappearances in the woods and finds more than he had bargained for.
The magazine is available on Amazon. (more…)
In the Origin of the Story series I’ll be sharing insights of how some of my stories came to be. What inspired them, and what kind of process followed it. All of that spoiler-free, so you can still enjoy the story if you didn’t have a chance to read it yet.
Today, I’m going to share a story of the piece that I’m particularly happy with, the quasi-steampunk (or magical realism, if you prefer) short story, Mr. Roache’s Drummer (Polish: Bębniarz pana Roache). It was first published, long with its counterpart story, Seven Percent Chance (Siedem procent szans) in a Polish anthology by RW2010. Its English version is available as a part of my collection, Scourges, Spells, and Serenades, and you can get it for free. (more…)