NaNoDoubts
The other day we’ve met our neighbor heading out with his dog and his camera. “It’s this time of the year,” he said with a smile. I also watch the growing display of Halloween decorations in stores (many more than what I was used to in Ireland) and the biggest pumpkins I’ve ever seen (which in a way proves the cliche saying that “everything is bigger in America”). Because, yeah, it’s this time of the year too.
And then, of course, almost every writer out there will recognize it’s this time of the year. Frantic plotting, digging out prehistoric projects for inspiration, desperately stocking on notebooks, caffeine-products, and snacks. As NaNoWriMo approaches, the writers’ universe on the Internet polarizes: from all decked-up to panic-stricken, authors share their preparation progress, exchange their NaNoWriMo usernames, and join the fantastic community that grows bigger and bigger each year. (more…)
Somehow September had played a time warp on me: it hardly started, and then instantly jumped to the end of the month without any prior notice, and with the days (if not weeks) lost in my memory, I had a fuzzy image of once more having fallen behind with my 365k Club challenge, but apparently the soon-to-be-autumn aura had a beneficial influence on me, since I did better than expected. 
Guild of Dungeoneering was one of those indie games I’ve never heard about until it popped in my GOG suggestions, and I always hesitated to get it. The sketch-like graphics had their unique appeal, but the game play itself didn’t seem to offer enough engaging. As you can guess, I got it during one of the sales, when I accidentally watched a trailer video for the game which featured a fun song to match the not-so-serious interface. The game promised building my own dungeon and letting an adventurer in on what seemed like a digitalized version of early Dungeons&Dragons dungeon crawls. 
When over eight years ago I boarded the plane for the first time ever, I couldn’t help wondering whether I’d like flying. I still remember the first step I made on the steps leading up and the moment my other foot left the ground… My last step on the Polish ground for who knew how long: I was just about to immigrate to Ireland—excited, anticipating, maybe a bit worried—but I still couldn’t resist thinking of flying. After all, it’s the dreamer’s ultimate dream, isn’t it? 
They say that writing is a lonely business, and in a way it’s true: when you sit down to write, the whole world ceases to exist as you traverse to another one, to the one in your head. Someone might be sitting beside you, figuratively holding your hand, but you’re still somewhat on your own with the text you’re writing.
Almost every advice out there tell aspiring writers they should read a lot. But the key is not really devouring as many books as possible, but making the reading into a lesson: studying plots, characterization, even the style. There’s much more to reading as a writer than it is to reading as a book lover, and even though writers mostly enjoy reading as much as any other bookworm, aside from entertainment, good story, and food for thought, we have other reasons to read too. 
Everybody says that writing fantasy is easy. You don’t have to do research, and you can create just about anything your imagination conjures. It’s all inexistent anyway, right? As a writer of speculative fiction, both fantasy and science-fiction, I can say from my experience: quite to the contrary. I think fantasy is one of the most difficult genres to write.