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I'm writing a book about seven years that took me from 155 kilograms and meth to where I am today. This is where I put down what comes out of that process.

Three kinds of texts.

From the book. Moments I lived through and suppressed for years. Some will make it in whole, others will be cut and stay here only.

On writing. Where I get stuck, and what happens when I have to go back to years I don't want to go back to.

On publishing. What it takes to publish a book on your own. What it costs, what I didn't know about it, and exactly where I am right now.

None of this is a guide. It's just what's happening while the book is being written.

  • But You Are Not an Addict

    The first person I told that I go to an abstinence club was my mother.

  • I Didn't Decide to Write It. I Decided Not to Delete It.

    When I started two years ago, I made myself an outline. I wanted to know which chapters were ahead of me and in what order they would come. I will write about how I organised the writing some other time — right now something else matters.

  • I Can

    This photo is from 10 September 2023. That was the first time in my life I stood in the high mountains.

  • The Weekend I Did Not Write a Single Word

    Over the weekend I was at the Slnko na skalách festival with friends. The whole thing runs on the theme of extreme hiking — talks by people who got somewhere on their own two feet, and a programme built around that. Since hiking changed my life, I could not be missing there.

  • For Ten Years I Thought the Painting Said Something Else

    I took this photo on 8 June 2014. That is my room back then — the couch, the wardrobe, the alarm clock on the little table. And above the couch the painting I had had made a few months earlier.

  • Nobody knew about the meth

    My aunt Majka took this photo on 22 February 2019, a few minutes before we left for the ball. She suggested I go with them. It felt like an invitation to have fun, and I accepted.

  • What the editor found wrong with my first chapter

    Having a finished manuscript is one thing. From there it is still a long way to a book.

  • Getting through today is enough

    Somewhere in the middle of my transformation, Mino said to me one day: "Want to try boxing?"

  • A Few Years Later

    A few years ago I wanted to sign up for a dating site. I was obese back then and I knew exactly what would happen — nobody would be interested. So I went looking for a photographer. Someone who would shoot me "in a better light". I knew it wouldn't be me. I knew I was making myself into someone else. And I wanted it anyway.

  • Same Hills, a Different Man

    It was just in passing, during training. Mino said something like: in the evening we're going for a walk up Skalka. As if it were nothing at all.