Home For Fiction – Blog

for thinking people


Home for Fiction is Two Years Old: Looking Back and Dreaming Ahead

November 22, 2019

Time flies like an arrow (fruit flies like a banana). It was exactly two years ago when the first post of the Home for Fiction blog appeared. A lot has happened since. The blog itself has grown a lot in terms of readership, and I’ve made apps, I’ve written books, and I’ve even composed music – I certainly didn’t expect that when I began this journey.

Ultimately, however, I’m definitely not the kind of person who focuses on numbers. I’m a fiction writer, after all, and writing fiction is not about accurate figures, but about abstract beauty.

And so, to put it bluntly, I write and code what I feel like, and I simply do not care about audience receptionAren’t you disgusted when you see creators - writers, coders, painters - begging their audience? Few things are more pathetic than degrading yourself for audience reception (be it in terms of attention or money), and that’s especially the case when dealing with audiences plagued by unfathomable stupidity. I have basically stopped responding to so-called reviews left for my Android apps, because I’m exhausted by dealing with people complaining that… the app is coded in English, not their native language..

Presently, I feel like blogging and coding. However, both the blog and the Android apps might disappear one day, if I feel they no longer serve their creative purpose.

We can’t discover new oceans if we don’t have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

home for fiction
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore” — André Gide.
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Should Art Be Free? On Rights and Motivation

November 16, 2019

Visiting Home for Fiction today and tomorrow, you might see a banner advertising that my book The Other Side of Dreams is free on Amazon for a couple of days. What you perhaps didn’t know until now is that all my art is in essence free: All you have to do to get a free digital copy of any of my books is to ask for it*. Should art be free? This will be today’s topic.

* It’s even easier nowadays: Simply visit this page on the main Home for Fiction site, for an immediate free download! For some of the reasons, partly contradicting some of what you’ll find below, take a look at my explanation why I decided to offer my books for a free download.

The dialectics balance between the “rights” of the author and the “rights” of the public. We’ll have to define both concepts in order to make sense of this.

In a way, the answer to the question “Should art be free?” is a matter of motivation and expectations: What is the motivation of the audience to implicitly demand free art, and what are the expectations of the author?

should art be free
Should art be free? It depends on the artist, the art, and the audience
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How to Make a JavaScript “Horoscope” Generator

November 10, 2019

Relax, I haven’t gone crazy. If you thought someone like me suddenly started believing in horoscopes, you’re wrong. Yes, in this post I’ll show you how to make a JavaScript horoscope generator. But the post is about linguistics, programming, and maybe psychology; not astrology.

If anything, my goal making this JavaScript horoscope generator was to show how ridiculously easy it is to produce accurate-seeming phrases that appear to apply to everyone’s individual situation. Simple answers to complex questions, really.

There’s actually a bit of literary background in this, believe it or not. There is a scene in my book The Other Side of Dreams, where the protagonist makes fun of a Tarot card reader:

Indeed, Ahmed thought, he could tell Anna pretty much everything the woman had said, without using any cards. “You are coming up a difficult fork in the road of your life, considering your options. Part of you would like to be more daring, but you are aware of the importance of being cautious. You are inspired by strong feelings, and you will be rewarded in love thanks to your tenacity. Remember to be true to yourself, although you should also be diplomatic, especially considering matters related to business, money, or agreements.” There, it can’t get any easier than that.

And so, I decided to combine my background in languages and my interest in programming. This JavaScript horoscope generator was the result!

JavaScript horoscope generator
I promise you, this JavaScript horoscope generator will not tell your fortune – because there is no such thing. Parenthetically, the code you see on the image is part of the actual code used in the program.
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