Yesterday, there was a five-hour-long power outage on my street. Usually, they warn us about these things over text messages, and it rarely lasts more than an hour. The last repair only cut off power for two minutes – I barely even noticed it.
Yesterday was different, and I felt that difference.
(more…)I remember when I was still working as an English tutor, I once wrote a blog post about how to encourage children to learn the language. At the time, I thought I was so smart because I came up with this simple trick. Curiosity! Of course, if a child is curious about the world, they’ll go looking for information. And if not enough of it is available in their native tongue, surely that’ll encourage them to look up the topic in English. Right? Wrong!
(more…)As a writer, you can use as little as a simple notebook and pencil, but if you really want to get somewhere with your craft, you’ll need a bit more than that. That’s why I’ve decided to compile a list of tools that I’ve personally tried and tested. Call this a ‘writer’s toolbox’! I’ll make sure to keep the list updated and add to it as I discover something new.
As we live in a modern society, it’s quite self-explanatory that you won’t get far with your writing unless you digitise it. If you want to get published, send an opinion post to a newspaper or a short story to a literary magazine, the editor will expect you to hand over a properly formatted and attributed digital file. Snail mail submissions still exist, so I’ve heard. As a whole, the typical communication between an author and a publisher nowadays is done overwhelmingly via email.
(more…)I don’t write every day, and it makes me feel bad about myself. It’s like I’m sabotaging my own goals. How on Earth am I supposed ever to get published if I never manage to complete a manuscript?
I remember once even writing a blog post about ‘writing every other day’. I even made a promise with myself that I would keep on working on those drafts. It doesn’t matter how much or when I write, as long as I’m putting words down on paper. Right?
Reality is not that simple for many reasons.
(more…)At the moment of typing this, I have turned 36. I have a BA in Library Studies and an MA in Business Intelligence from a Ukrainian university (i.e. useless), and a Hubspot certificate in Content Marketing. If I had the money, I would’ve also had a few Coursera certificates to boast of, but I only ever did the auditing path.
Ever since graduating in 2013, I couldn’t help but feel that my education wasn’t enough. Partly, it’s due to having studied at a Ukrainian university and having to deal with corruption and indifference from my professors. I’ve seen many of my fellow students pursue a second Master’s — something that I’ve always wanted to do, but never had the money to actually do it.
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