my writing eras: 2004-2024
straight from • the tortured poets department •
The Eras Tour 2024 Warsaw N2
I was thinking a lot about Taylor’s writing process. We know she’s always writing, and I am always writing something, too. Recently, it’s been lyrics and emotional essays, but I’ve always been writing. Then, I suddenly had the idea to share my own writing eras and showcase how my writing has been evolving in time, so here it is:
Laura’s Writing Eras
2004-2008: started my first diary & first online blog
In 4th grade, I started a diary where I shared how I was feeling, who I liked, the TV shows I wanted to remember facts about - random stuff you’d expect from a child/tween.
When I was 10, I launched my first blog, just for myself. I had many different blogs as a young girl, I used to share incredibly personal posts, and I didn’t tell anyone about them. Not my friends, not my family - definitely not my family. Writing about my life without anyone knowing was a great outlet for my emotions. One of the safest outlets I had growing up.
In 2007, I started gaining some popularity, as my blogs changed their “niche” (a word we used then was simply “category”). I had a lot of fun in the Tutorial category, where I would write simple tutorials for downloading fonts, doing simple graphics in PhotoFiltre. I loved the content creation and information-sharing aspects of running a blog in the Tutorial category. Oh, the early 2000’s and the blog.onet.pl domain.
2009-2011: my most unhinged writing to date
Nobody knew I had blogs until I finally started my photoblog in middle school. I would always write the truth about my life but hide in my writing (like, if I wanted you to know something was up but not tell you specifically what it was but hint at it? that was peak girlhood in 2009.) Sometimes, I named names and shared ✨my truest, deepest✨ feelings.
My Photoblog was the place where I shared not only the blogposts, but also the photos. I started taking my own photos in 2008 and experimented with photography a lot. If you’re looking for the essence of the turn of 2000s/2010s, you will find it in my photoblog photography. My photoblog Era coincided with the birth of social media. It was my Tumblr in Polish with some English posts here and there. Maybe at some point I’ll share them with you, here.
2011-2012: my film blog
This is an honorable mention. In high school, I had to create a blog as a final grade project for my IT classes. It was super easy due to all of my prior experience. I decided that the theme of the blog would be Oscar-nominated films. I had become obsessed with cinematography and film history, and I really wanted to share my passion for them in the form of writing film reviews.
What started as a five-entry end-of-year project became a blog that I was writing for almost a year. I still have access to it (on a different platform), and I can always recover those entries and post them here as archives.
I loved writing film reviews, but at some point, I needed to focus on studying more, as my matura exams were coming up. The blog was never meant to become a serious publication anyway, so I put it aside.
At school, I helped run an English subsection on school website, called Shaggy Dog English. I was the editor-in-chief, other students were welcome to submit their works in English that would be curated by me and published on the website. I was selected by my teacher as the head of proofreading due to my deep language intuition and vast knowledge of English. I might still have some of those texts somewhere on my Google Drive. I might decide to share them here someday.
2012-2015: more personal & less public writing
High school graduation and entering the University of Economics in Wrocław in 2013. I closed my photoblog down but still have some saved entries.
I regularly kept my diary, the place where all of my truest self would come to life. Also a great place to vent and to dream. Especially during the first year of college, when I was still studying Finance before changing my major to English - I was so vulnerable I needed to write long, deep entries to figure out why I was feeling the way I was.
While still a Finance student, I started a YouTube channel in Polish and closed it down three months later. Maybe one day we’ll get into that story.
I changed my major to English Language and Literature, at the University of Wrocław, in 2014. I found my home. I started writing 🐾a lot🐾 of academic essays, like up to 3-4 a week.
2015-2017: academic writing & bA dissertation
Didn’t spend too much time writing in my diary, but I started my Instagram and my new blog. The blog didn’t last long, though - I was inspired but completely booked with my studies and student life. I was selected by the Head of English Teaching Methodology School to be the Student Representative at the Faculty Department Team for Providing Quality of Education. In short, I wrote reports about the quality of teaching with students’ comments and presented them to Heads of Schools at the English Department, contributing to the discussions that resulted in, among others, creating new specializations within the English degree.
I really enjoyed my academic writing classes, as well as all the other classes. Whenever I could, I chose writing assignments over exams to get my final grade. I loved every essay, every exam, every presentation. I loved it all. My favorite texts I’ve ever produced were a 2-page response to Philip Larkin’s “Lines On A Young Lady's Photograph Album” for my English Lit class and my 40-page Academic Writing class paper “Haiku-Inspired Poetry of American Modernists – an Evaluative Approach”.
I dreamed about having a YouTube channel in English. Instead, I wrote a Bachelor’s Dissertation on the subjunctive mood in English, French, and Polish. I also tutored other students in Linguistics and Academic Writing, which resulted in them being able to finish their BA dissertations on time and graduate.
2018-2019: Linguistics-focused academic writing & film studies
I wrote only more essays, papers and articles on language, linguistics, literature and culture. I wrote my first ever academic article in Polish, which was published in a post-conference publication. I attended a different linguistics conference, Brno meets Vienna (despite not being from either), and showcased my research on the syntax of Polish coordinate subjects to my peers. I eventually turned in a 96-page Master’s Thesis on this topic in May, 2019.
I also wrote a Linguistics PhD research proposal, which got me accepted as a prospective PhD student at Queen Mary University of London. Sadly, I decided not to go due to my Mom’s passing. Not long after this life-altering time, I started my YouTube channel in English because I realized how short life was.
I processed a lot of my grief through writing, to myself and to my Mom. I kept her diary after she passed and wrote in it, writing to herself and imagining what she would say back.
Since I was not going away to London to study and I was staying in Wrocław, I decided to pursue my cinematic path while in my home country. I got into a Journalism degree at the University of Wrocław (with a Film Studies specialization), all thanks to me writing an MA thesis research proposal “The motif of evil in the TV series Twin Peaks (1990-1991, 2017)” . For the first time in my life, I started studying something at university in Polish. However, I didn’t feel connected when doing traditional and local journalism, which was the backbone of the entire first semester. I changed my mind and switched to a postgrad Business English degree, telling myself that I would help me start my business. And it did.
2020: This website is born
My YouTube channel had started taking off at the end of 2019. My Instagram became my writing soft spot. I made this website by myself in March, 2020, and wrote out all its sections. In August, my business was registered.
I then prepared, taught, created and produced two language & linguistics courses. They became bestsellers and I started having students from day one of the first course release, How to Learn Languages (there’s one module on learning writing when learning a foreign language). My second course, Advanced Grammar University became a place where I could teach from my own experience of using grammar in writing for so long.
My second most viewed video on my channel ever is advice for thesis writing. In addition to Instagram and YouTube, I started writing my newsletter.
I had many journals around me at all times. It was the time of using writing to connect to my inner child, which, when you think about it, was meta on so many levels: me writing to the Laura who was 10, who might have already been writing to herself to soothe herself, too. Pretty wild.
2021-2022: teaching, copywriting & film treatments
In what proved to be one of my darkest times, I focused on therapeutic writing and teaching through writing the most. I created more language-learning videos and produced one brand new pronunciation and accent course, my American Accent Academy.
In 2022, I wrote a film treatment that got me into the Screenwriting program at Warsaw Film School. I started writing short film scripts and treatments. I also co-created a TV-show, which I was writing with a screenwriters’ team formed at the school.
I learned even more about writing in marketing and business.
My journals were my confidants, my Instagram became my second most vulnerable public space through what I shared online.
2023-2024: film and tv scripts & self-expression
I felt new expression through writing poetry, which I kept in my journals and notes apps.
To date, I’ve produced +600 videos across my channels, my Instagram, my courses, and for my clients. All started with writing down the idea, then the script.
In 2024, I officially launched the blog section on this website. This feels like a full circle moment, and one that is completely mine to delight in.
I started in 2004 with my first blog. Now, after 20 years, I am creating my world here, on my home website. From re-sharing posts from the past to writing down my thoughts as they come to me, I know I am now entering an era I know nothing about - maybe except for knowing that I’ll always be scribbling away in some way and sharing it.
And you’ll be reading it 😘
xo,
Laura