Memoir
Just One More Day
A Memoir of Falling and Getting Back Up
From childhood poverty to international business success, from devastating loss to addiction and homelessness, and from relapse to recovery, Just One More Day: A Memoir of Falling and Getting Back Up is the true story of how far a life can fall—and what it takes to build it again from the ashes.
Complete memoir · approximately 126,000 words
The Story
Sometimes surviving starts with one small promise.
One freezing night, lying on a Vancouver sidewalk with nothing but a piece of cardboard beneath his head, Sheldon Kornyk made himself a promise.
Not forever.
Not next week.
Just one more day.
Years earlier, that ending would have seemed impossible. Sheldon had grown from a boy raised in poverty into a software developer, entrepreneur, father, and the founder of a company that eventually reached far beyond Canada. What began with an idea and a computer grew into a sophisticated business-software system used by manufacturers across North America.
Success carried him around the world. He signed distributors in Australia, opened a software-development office in Romania, negotiated contracts ranging from thousands of dollars to more than half a million, and built the kind of life he had once only imagined. There were first-class flights, family adventures, a home, a boat, and the satisfaction of believing he had finally outrun the uncertainty of his childhood.
He hadn’t.
As personal losses, betrayal, grief, and financial collapse began tearing apart the life he had built, Sheldon searched for relief from pain he no longer knew how to carry. Crack cocaine offered silence—briefly. Then it began taking everything. The man who had once crossed oceans for business eventually found himself homeless on the streets of British Columbia, sleeping on concrete and struggling simply to survive the next day.
But recovery is rarely a straight line.
Through treatment, relapse, and the difficult work of rebuilding trust one day at a time, Sheldon begins to understand that recovery is not a finish line or a single moment of transformation. It is built in ordinary choices: showing up, asking for help, reconnecting with family, facing the past, and choosing—again and again—not to disappear.
Honest, deeply personal, and at times unexpectedly humorous, Just One More Day is a memoir about falling, getting back up, and discovering that a life does not have to become extraordinary to become worth living. Sometimes survival begins with one small promise: just one more day.
About the Memoir
Recovery, consequence and the ordinary work of rebuilding
Just One More Day: A Memoir of Falling and Getting Back Up follows a life from childhood poverty through ambition and business success, devastating personal loss, addiction, homelessness, treatment, relapse, accountability, and the difficult work of rebuilding relationships, trust, and an ordinary life.
Told with candour, humour, and an unwillingness to sanitize the hardest parts, the memoir does not treat recovery as a neat ending. It follows the setbacks, responsibilities, relationships, routines, and small decisions that come afterward—when surviving has to become living.
Manuscript Details
Title: Just One More Day
Subtitle: A Memoir of Falling and Getting Back Up
Category: Memoir
Length: Approximately 126,000 words
Status: Complete manuscript
Beyond the Memoir
What happens after getting sober?
Kornyk’s developing nonfiction project, OK I’m Sober, Now What?, continues the conversation beyond the immediate crisis of addiction. It considers the practical and deeply personal challenge of building a life that someone genuinely wants to remain sober for.
Professional Inquiries
For literary representation, publishing, rights, media, or other professional inquiries regarding Just One More Day or Sheldon Kornyk’s work.
