And with that, my ONC journey comes to an end for this year.
Unfortunately, I didn’t make it onto the longlist this time. Maybe my English still isn’t quite good enough, or maybe the topic was too political — I’ll probably never know ;)
But honestly, I feel more at peace with the outcome than I did last year, simply because this time I stayed truer to myself while writing. That’s still something I find incredibly hard, but I’m planning to work on it more seriously this year — maybe even go back to therapy.
Still, I’m really proud of having written my first English-language novella: THE POWER OF WORDS. It reminded me that books often reflect the society we live in, and that the values of the author often slip into the story — consciously or not.
At the same time, storytelling can be a powerful way to highlight injustice and name it clearly. We can either process issues through our writing, or unintentionally reinforce them. Every cliché has the potential to strengthen a deeply rooted worldview.
Writing should, of course, be fun above all. But it also comes with a responsibility — especially toward the next generation of readers. That responsibility can be embraced or ignored — but it exists, and each of us contributes to it, for better or worse.
