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Living with Typos and Errors in Writing

October 17, 2022

As it’s often said, if you want to discover a typo in your text, simply publish it; it will make itself visible immediately. The truth is, typos and other errors in writing are inevitable. They are a necessary evil. Should we fix them? Yes. Should we worry? No.

I see this with many processes. In photography, you get people agonizing over the sharpness of their lenses – going as far as wasting their time photographing diagrams. The miracle that is language – a living organism – has produced a fantastic word for such people: measurebator.

Also in music, there are people who worry over the most minute details – their strings, their pickups, and whether the fretboard is of this or that wood.

Do these matter?

Allow me to reply with my standard example: Slash sounds better with a Gibson Les Paul and a proper amp than with a Hello Kitty guitar and a toy amp. But not having a Gibson Les Paul is not the reason why I don’t sound like Slash.

Again: Yes, we should fix typos when we see them. But there are far more important things to worry about.

typos and errors in writing
This is one of my best photos. It’s technically flawed (for reasons beyond the scope of the post), but it serves its artistic purpose. Similarly with texts, typos, and other errors in writing are of course annoying, but not a deal breaker
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No Ads, no Corporate Masters

September 5, 2022

The phrase of the title, “No Ads, no Corporate Masters”, is of course a wordplay on “No Gods, no Masters”. It’s also a phrase I use on Home for Fiction, for example whenever you try to access any of the apps (we’ll talk about this more in a moment) .

It’s a way for me to remind you that Home for Fiction displays no ads, and it’s controlled by nobody.

But why all this? Why do I refuse to put ads on Home for Fiction? The short answer is, for the same reason I’ve refused corporate masters (and as you’ll discover in this post, I’ve had many such… suitors): Because I can’t compromise on what Home for Fiction is – in terms of content as well as aesthetics.

The longer answer is something I decided to write this post about.

Note: Years have passed, and certain things have changed regarding Home for Fiction. I’ve tried really hard to make things my way, moving in an increasingly more artistic and less materialistic direction. For instance, I tried various ways of keeping the Home for Fiction apps free, but people abused the offers. I am officially defeated. My idea of keeping them free turned out to be naive, and I simply can’t afford to pay for the server resources required. I only wanted to make apps I liked, that’s it.

Everything below this point should be seen as a snapshot of history and might not reflect current reality.

no ads no corporate masters
“No ads, no corporate masters” can be both lonely and liberating. There are no shortcuts – you can be either free or content; being both is impossible
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Authors Talk: Mikhaeyla Kopievsky

August 1, 2022

Another “Authors Talk” post. 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 Mikhaeyla Kopievsky, author of Tasmanian Gothic. A list of useful links to Mikhaeyla’s work can be found at the end of this post.

Tasmanian Gothic, Mikhaeyla Kopievsky
Tasmanian Gothic, by Mikhaeyla Kopievsky
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