Halloween, Halloween… it’s weird when you find yourself doing more posts about Halloween than you will ever do about, say, Christmas or New Year’s Eve.
It’s like Halloween has become the Web’s main festivity.
A festival of ghosts, spooks and dead people.
Seems fitting.
So, why not suggest a reading list for Halloween?
And considering we are cheapskates, why not a list of free ebooks?
Let’s see… Continue reading
Here we go again.
As I usually do when the season changes, I went and enrolled in a number of online courses.
The reasons are the usual:
So I joined three courses
. one on podcasting, that will go to complement the two courses on the subject I have followed so far, in the hopes of launching something of mine sometime in the next months.
. one on digital wellbeing, that is on the way in which the digital age impacts our mental and physical health, that can have both practical uses and provide ideas for stories.
. a basic course in Mandarin Chinese – because it is wise to learn the language of the new masters, and after all, this is Karavansara, right?
Should you be interested in learning something new, online, for free, here you’ll find a huge list of university-level free courses, in a variety of languages and on a variety of subjects.
And then there is the equally huge list of online courses and MOOCs provided by Open Culture.
And talking about my exciting life as a writer…
I was talking yesterday with my friend Alex, and we were discussing how there are great authors, very prolific and very active, that we love, but tend to forget.
I guess it happens to you, too,sometimes – you spot a new book by a certain writer,and all of a sudden you recall his other books, the ones you devoured, and liked a lot, and even re-read, and…
How the hell I forgot about this guy?!
And you feel guilty, go on a new buying/reading spree, and then the cycle begins again.
Happens to me every time. I have a long list of authors I am treating like this, but as I can’t remember their names right now, I won’t list them here.
But to give you an example – Gordon Dickson used to work like that for me.
Loved his books. Often forgot to check out for new stuff from him, then “discovered” him again. Continue reading
I’ve been told I should do a series of posts about the funny and exciting and weird everyday life of a full-time writer.
Maybe not even posts, because nobody bothers with reading a blog these days, but maybe find a cartoonist and start a daily strip about the funny and exciting and weird everyday life of a full-time writer.
And admittedly it would be fun. Continue reading
My friend Shanmei is writing another historical mystery (we talked about her first mystery story here).
The book is set on the route between Italy and China at the turn of the century, and is loosely based on her grand-grandfather’s diaries and letters.
Looks good.
A few days back, Shanmei asked her readers what level of historical accuracy they think is needed for an historical mystery like the one she’s writing.
And of course, that’s the sort of question one should never ask – the writer decides, and takes responsibility – but some of the answers she received got me thinking.
They were, more or less…
A high level of historical accuracy tells me the writer worked hard.
That is, of course, rubbish.
But an interesting kind of rubbish, so let’s examine in closely. Continue reading
Karavansara 