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Why I Decided to Offer All my Books for Free

February 20, 2023

book, capitalism, creativity, fiction, freedom, literature, writing

I’ve offered my books for free “always”. All you had to do was email me and ask for a free, no-strings-attached copy. Perhaps you remember one earlier post, on whether art should be free. There I said how I preferred this way over permanently listing my work online for free because I wanted my readers to make the effort and be proactive in showing they want my work.

Quite a few people have done this over the years – and we’ve had some pretty great discussions in the process. However, after deciding to offer all my apps for free some time ago – for reasons you can read about here – I began wondering whether I should do the same with my books.

The answer was obviously, yes – you might have noticed the blog menu has a new entry, “Free Books”. And this post explains the reasons.

Books for free — I want to reiterate something I wrote in my “No Ads, no Corporate Masters” post: I’m not perfect, but whatever I make is *mine*.

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“Kill Your Darlings” May Mean Well: It Is Still Awful Advice

February 13, 2023

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

affect, book, creativity, criticism, literature, writing

You have surely heard this advice: “Kill Your Darlings”. It might mean well, as its motivation is to help you remove unnecessary text. But there’s a crucial detail: Why on earth would “darlings”, text associated with something you like, actually be unnecessary?

To be fair, I need to make a differentiation here. “Kill Your Darlings” means one thing in nonfiction and another in fiction. The dynamics are different, for reasons we’ll see in this post. But here is the sneak preview: Because “Darlings” is associated with something you like (we’ll see more details and definitions in a while), it refers to affect. And there is quite a bit of difference between nonfiction and fiction when it comes to affect, a way of feeling.

Though I will briefly speculate on what “Kill Your Darlings” may mean in nonfiction, most of the focus of the post will be on fiction. I’ll first start with some definitions – what “darlings” are, and what “Kill Your Darlings” really means. Then, we’ll take a brief look at why killing your darlings is awful advice when it comes to fiction. Finally, as I said, I’ll end the post with a brief speculation regarding what killing your darlings involves in nonfiction.

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Humans Are Predictable (and That’s Fine)

February 6, 2023

Society

humanity, life, nostalgia, psychology, society

All of us humans are predictable – including this very statement and this entire post. That is, it’s inherently predictable to say humans are predictable. You might have even seen a movie where a character begins to say “You can’t figure me out, I’m really…” and another character completes the phrase: “unpredictable?”

Though I don’t have any data to support my claim, it feels most people would prefer not to be thought of as predictable. Perhaps it’s a concept making us uncomfortable, as it alludes to free will – or lack thereof.

Are humans predictable? I’d say we are. But – and here’s the twist in the proverbial plot – that’s likely a good thing.

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