About me

User profile picture

Jonas Lodewyckx

  • Country Belgium
  • Languages Dutch (Native)
    English
  • Age 32 years

Hi, nice to have you here!

What's this website for?
In short: I've been trying to write stories for years but I noticed the solitary part is hard. With this website I want to try another way by showing my work, every step of the process. I'm not a professional writer nor a native English speaker.

I don't see this as a sustainable career path but I hope to learn a lot by getting feedback early on, both on the writing and my process, so maybe one day it could become something I can invest more time in.

If you're interested in learning more, read on.

How I (cl)aim to use this website

I'll be posting how and what I wrote each day. This will be in a short blog-like format, 3-5 minutes including the written part.
Post structure: These posts will include: plan or thoughts for what I want to write this session (written before I start), the writing itself (unedited), stats and timing for that session, thoughts about the session, and what I plan for the next day. A revision or rewriting post will not include the full writing, this would make for possibly very long posts, but will link to the new available version.
Stats: I'll be including stats like words written, writing time, read time and any other I can think of.
Mailing: There is an automated mailing which will fire daily at 12. This will give a short preview for the post and link to the full post directly. I don't like to spam people so there will also be a weekly version which will go out on Sundays: this will give a full recap of the week with links to the individual posts.
Stories: I don't enjoy using the term book because it creates some pressures: a specific format, something you should publish, a specific number of pages,... A book could be a collection of stories or only a part of it. That's why I'm using Story instead, to focus on the story itself.
Chapters: Stories are split into chapters, possibly I'll expand this with parts too someday. A chapter contains a collection of finished writing sessions, linked with posts. What defines a chapter will be very specific to the story it belongs to. In the post, I will leave things like where I stopped my Pomodoro session or other reminders. I will clean these up in the chapters themselves so they are a more readable experience. Reminders for fixes or TODO's will remain in that version of the chapter.
Versioning: This is my backlash from working in IT, I like to keep versions for myself so I can compare before and afters. For each chapter I will keep versions with a status (raw, alpha, beta, gamma, final) together with the large scale changes made per chapter, writing or revise time per version, and the feedback it got.
Creation process: For each story, I'll provide a separate set of 'chapters' which include the creation process and thoughts I had for the story. This will include: outline, characters, world-building, POV, future plans, backstory and more. I will not hold back anything, spoilers will be present here. These will also be versioned.
I would love to hear your feedback on both my writing and my process. You can provide it beneath each post or chapter, or through the mailing page.
Implementing feedback: I cannot promise to implement all feedback but I will check it and reply as soon as possible. I schedule to work through feedback on Sundays.
What feedback is awesome: Of course I'd like to know if you hate or love what I write but specific feedback can help me a lot. Like specific thoughts you had during the reading and what triggered them. Were you expecting something else to happen? Did you see any missed opportunities?
While working on this site, I got a lot of ideas on how to expand functionalities. Maybe someday I will expand it but I need to get writing first.
User profile: The ability to login on a profile which keeps track of progress on posts, stories and chapters. This would be a bigger feature but would make the experience more unique. I could provide a "Continue reading" button on stories, only show unread posts,...
Tracking reading speed: For now I'm using the average reading speed of 250 words per minute. With a simple page, I could track your reading speed and use this instead of the hard-coded one. Also, tools to increase reading speed wouldn't be that hard to implement.
Diff view for versions: This could work like any other diff tool but could provide a line-by-line overview of the changes that were made per version.
Line/paragraph feedback: Pretty big feature but would improve the experience a lot for users and myself. I'd be able to get really specific feedback.

Any other ideas? Let me know, if I get enough nudges for a feature, I'll go implementing it sooner.
I made this website to get my writing habit going and show my work (Show Your Work by Austin Kleon).
At first I searched for existing blog templates or hosted sites but no service gave me the freedom in how I wanted to structure everything. Luckily I've had my share of experiences in web development to build my own thing. Alas visually I'm not that strong but I can always improve that later on.

I also hope to inspire others to do the same thing. This is a gigantic step outside of my comfort zone, chances are this is bullshit, but I'll still aim for the tiny chance this could become something positive for me.

I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done.

Lucille Ball

Beta Reading

My first beta read was in 2017. I tried some other genres but currently I'm only beta reading Fantasy & Non-Fiction. I'm not a native English speaker, but I spot the occasional error. My focus is foremost on story & characters.
The most noteworthy beta reads I have done were for Michael J. Sullivan & Robert Jackson Bennett.
2019
Age of Legend
Legends of the First Empire - Book 4
2020
Age of Death
Legends of the First Empire - Book 5
2020
Age of Empyre
Legends of the First Empire - Book 6
2021
Nolyn
The Rise & Fall - Book 1
2022
Farilane
The Rise & Fall - Book 2
2022
Locklands
The Founders - Book 3