It’s been 5 years since I moved over to the USA, and it feels like I should write a short summary. I’ve already mentioned a lot of what happened in the last year’s post, and due to the circumstances around the world, there wasn’t much exploring or activity outside of my apartment. So this year, let’s focus on adjusting to life in a new country and achievements, which I had quite a few.
If you’re on social media, you’ve probably seen memes about how 2020 delivers countless plot twists without being bothered with logic and structure of a story. In that vein, it delivered one to me, and though it wasn’t one of the curve balls it seems to have in an endless supply, my third quarter of the year still ended up under its heavy influence.
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.
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 …
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!).
So far, 2020 has been an odd year for me. I might not be a person to make New Year resolutions, but I had plans, solid and detailed, and I was ready to see them through. Yet, as always in life, unexpected things happen, and my plans got derailed, so the first quarter of the year for me, although somewhat productive, has been affected by a sudden loss of direction and then need to rearrange my goals. And although writing isn’t necessarily as lonely endeavor as some people might paint it, the writing progress remains invisible until a novel or …
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.
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.
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?
