With the start of 2016 a new edition of 365k Club is back and I’m back as well, writing or at least trying to write. January had turned out quite a challenging month for me, for several reasons, and even though I expected some rough patches, I hoped a much more different beginning. (more…)
I have a confession to make: I like short stories. I like to read them, those morsels of distant worlds, bite-sized and perfect for lunchtime and commuting. I like to write them too as they help me experiment with my style and explore all those tiny bits of ideas that wouldn’t suffice to become a basis of a novel. But for some reason many writers I talk to them online neither writes them or considers them worth the effort. Sure, one can’t make much money by writing short stories only, but there are still reasons to stop outlining that sixth novel in the series and instead tell a story in less than 7000 words. (more…)
The first year of 365k Club has not only been a wonderful adventure for me, but also allowed me to learn a lot about myself and my writing process. When I signed up, I expected myself to fall miserably, maybe even drop out after the first month, but to my surprise, I stayed, writing my 1000 words every day. But I know exactly how intimidating the 365k Club may feel in the beginning: so many words to be written and so many days in the year. It’s not NaNoWriMo where one can plan a month devoted to writing. It’s a real challenge, because we need to build our writing habit around our daily lives. We need to incorporate it into the daily routines, family life, day job… It’s much harder than telling friends and family we’ll be unavailable for November. (more…)
You may have noticed that I haven’t posted any reports for October and November, but it doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned 365k Club’s challenge. Quite to the contrary. The last months of 2015 were busy for me, both writing-wise and life-wise, so I might have not updated my “A Month of Writing” reports, but I definitely kept writing. (more…)
Whenever I think about me as a writer, I can only recall good memories. Surely, there were some bad things along the way, the stings of rejection letters or the frustration of when the writer’s block hits, but they just don’t come to my mind as if they weren’t that significant. And when I focus on the bright side of being a writer, several memories constantly come up to my head, and I’d like to share them with you. (more…)
My friend asked me recently whether I ever feel like indulging myself with a day without writing. Looking back at my writing journey with the 365k Club and those 9 months of consecutive writing without a day being missed, I replied: yes, sometimes I feel like not writing or writing less. Over the days, weeks and months I’ve build up enough “extra” words to take even a week off if I wanted, but… it just doesn’t feel right. Of course, if I had a major life event interfere with my writing, I’d find it justified to skip a day or a month, but with life being somewhat steady, I’d feel like cheating with skipping a day without a good reason. But I’ll tell you a secret: sometimes I do procrastinate and then writing is the only thing I get done in the evening. (more…)
Back when I lived in Poland, I used to teach English as a foreign language to children. I remember one year, when a mother of a seven year old girl approached me. It was September, we have just started the classes on the beginner level, and that mother asked me whether at the end of the school year her daughter would be fluent in English. “You see,” she said, “next summer we’re moving to United Kindgom where her father works.” I looked at the woman and hesitated before giving an answer. Would the girl be fluent? No. Yes. (more…)
I’ve finished novels before, but usually it took over a year to get to the end, so when I finished my fantasy novel “By His Will“, in six months going from “nothing” to “135 000 words”, I looked back wondering what made me accomplish it. I knew partially it came from taking part in 365k Club, which somewhat forced me to produce words daily, but this challange is not NaNoWriMo: it doesn’t force writers to work on one novel, and I took advantage of that rule, writing short stories and blog posts along working on “By His Will”.
So what really helped me to finish the first draft relatively quickly, while I still held a full-time job and haven’t neglected life? (more…)
It seems that I’m more than fashionably late with my month writing report, but it doesn’t mean I have bad news. Quite to the contrary, after a difficult July when I had to balance both the 365k Club challenge and Camp NaNoWriMo, I caught my breath and slowed down with editing my novel, though I still took it to my day job to work on it during my lunch break. With no need to devote an hour or two every to it other evening I felt like I have a lot of time at my disposal and I took it to relax a bit while I maintained my writing goal. (more…)
Back 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…)