Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Where Ideas Come From: Blunderbuss

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, or if you follow my other blog, or are on my Patreon, you know that I usually have a lot of projects going at the same time.
Writing, translating, courses.
My timetable is in a constant state of flux, and projects get announced, started, sidetracked, shelved, rebooted, cancelled1, dropped, picked up, dropped again, etcetera.

The main reason for this is, bills keep coming, and with them the financial ghosts my late father left behind, that appear in the mailbox once every few months, unexpectedly, and set us back a few hundred euros for overdue taxes, unpaid fines or what.
So, paying projects are priority.
Always.
And projects that do not pay for their keep get shelved.
Which means of course that sometimes I have to leave behind ideas that I really like to do some thankless job that covers expenses like, right now.
This is not complaining, or whining or cursing Fate during a thunderstorm like Elric used to do. It is a simple assessment of the facts at the time of writing.

protect-business-idea-without-patent

This said, ideas keep coming, and I like to post them on the blog because it’s a nice way to stake a claim, and also a way to pressure me into doing something with the stuff.
And who knows, maybe someone’s interested.
After all, How do you get your ideas is still the most frequent question we get asked.
So, consider, if you will, the following. Continue reading


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Writing for money and other sins

A little rant, if you please…
Two days ago I was hanging out with some writers – better writers than me, by far.
The Club Villa Diodati first meeting was very exciting – lots of ideas, lots of anecdotes, and fun
And sadness, too – because giving an objective look at the genre and its health in our country is somewhat depressing sometimes.
But meeting and comparing horror stories with colleagues is good, is healthy – it helps a lot.
And then I heard this one.
One of the writers on the panel – great all-arounder, the sort that can do kids’ comics, and thrillers, and historical novels, and the lot – told us that she had been described, a few days ago, as…

a writer that writes for money

Like it was the ultimate damnation.
Writing for money, what horrid lack of class, isn’t it? Continue reading