Confessions of a Book Addict
Looking at my Goodreads challenge (yes, I’m still behind) made me think I’ve read awfully few books this year, and it made me wonder why. I still consider books my favorite pastime, and the “to be read list” is ever so growing. But I don’t read as much as I used to.
Of course, there’s been a lot of writing and editing this year on top of my day job, and I could say video games, movies or arts & crafts take up my free time, but then why would I pick them over books if I love reading so much? The question made me thinking, and I finally realized I don’t read books because… I’m scared. (more…)
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December 1, 2015
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. 
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. 
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. 
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”.
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 
More than video games, I love a good tabletop RPG game and in the past I used to play regularly (and still would if I had a chance), so I wasn’t unfamiliar with the name “Shadowrun”, though I never get to play the tabletop version, and when Shadowrun Returns emerged on the Kickstarter, I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t get the game until much later, when Shadowrun: Dragonfall was already out. A friend recommended it to me, so I purchased the bundle and found myself immersed in the dark and rich world of magic, technology, powerful corporations, and shadowrunners.