for thinking people
February 7, 2022
This post continues – after quite some time – the “Authors Talk” series. You can think of it as an author interview and, indeed, that is the name of the blog category. However, I prefer to see it as a friendly chat between fellow authors. Today I’m having this virtual discussion with David Maxwell, author of The Drift. A list of useful links to David’s work can be found at the end of this post.
January 10, 2022
The beauty of art – true art, where you simply don’t care about marketing, audience reception (or even intended audience), and the like – is that the artist can reach realms of unimaginable freedom. My Medēn art project is such an artistic work. It’s still in progress, and it will never finish – a project such as Medēn can never finish.
But that’s not the only peculiarity about it, as you’ll soon discover.
Part of true, liberated art, is that the artist can choose what to share, when, and in which shape. Should art be free? Should it be sense-making? Maybe true meaning is only sense-making when it doesn’t make immediate sense.
In any case, I’ve decided it’s time to turn on the faucet, allowing some colorful water to trickle down the canvas.
Stream-of-consciousness? Conceptual fusion? Perhaps no more (or less) than an experiment. Medēn is here and now, and yet it’s always been. Medēn is what it is, ultimately; we all are.
December 13, 2021
Goodreads has been around for quite some time, and a lot, a lot of writers and readers are there. It feels like it would be a great platform for a writer to promote their books, receive feedback and reviews, and all that. And yet, my experience has been such that I’ll have to say, no, I don’t think Goodreads is worth my time.
Don’t get me wrong, I can’t say I haven’t benefitted from it. I’ve made some good friends and I’ve read some great books thanks to Goodreads. But the overall time I’ve had to invest, plus the way certain things function make me think that Goodreads is worth less than the overall effort and time you put in it.
This is tricky to quantify and explain, which makes the whole process rather insidious. To put it this way, it did take me some time to realize it. It’s also the reason why I bother talking about it; in an effort to help others.
So, let’s take a deeper look at all this. I’ll talk about my experiences with the platform, and why I think Goodreads isn’t worth my time. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Come to think of it, your mileage will very likely vary. But the reasons are still important.
