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literature

Worried about Copyright? You’re Wasting Your Time

September 9, 2019

book, copyright, literature, marketing, meaning

Part of evolving as a writer (and a person) is to learn from silly past mistakes. Another way to learn, more subtle, is to learn from your silly past preconceptions. Writers worried about copyright is a great such example.

Just in case it’s not clear, let me be explicit about it. If you’re worried about copyright – and authors typically worry about someone stealing their idea – you’re wasting your time. Completely.

There are several factors behind this. You might be familiar with some, not so with others. Motivation for this article came after someone in an online discussion (elsewhere, not on Home for Fiction), asked for help with their novel, but was reluctant to supply information. Why? You guessed it: they were afraid others (me?!) would steal their idea.

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Can Good Writing Be Taught?

August 23, 2019

Writing

excellence, literature, writing

One of the key themes in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is to which extent our morality is a product of our environment. Are you born bad, or do you become? This might sound like an irrelevant point for our topic – can good writing be taught? – but in fact it’s directly relevant.

The reason? Instead of asking, can good writing be taught, we can rephrase the question and wonder: Are you born a good writer, or can you become one?

Want yet a third reformulation of the same question? Is good writing a matter of talent or skill (that can be practiced and taught)?

Obviously enough, this is a critical thing to know. If good writing cannot be taught – in other words, if you are only born a good writer – then you either have it or you don’t. In such a framework, someone who is not born with the talent, cannot be a good author.

If this sounds a bit too peculiar, and you resist it, your instincts are right. However, the opposite isn’t quite true either. There is such a thing as talent in writing, though probably not in the way you expect. Ah, how wonderful… There are never any simple answers, are there?

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A Poem for the Fall (excerpt from the Self versus Self Project)

August 12, 2019

Fiction

fiction, LGBT, literary fiction, literature, poetry, self versus self, sexuality

I know, I know, it’s still summer. At least in some parts of the world. In the southern hemisphere August is the last month of winter. And in Finland, summer is the time of the year that it can be sizzling hot or snowing. It’s all a mater of perspective. This is what this poem for the fall conveys.

Note: what follows is an excerpt from my Self Versus Self project, that contains a narrative poem and a literary-fiction novel. It’s not available for sale, but see the bottom of this post for info on how to download it for free.

Fall can be a time of melancholy; or elation. It’s all a matter of perspective. This is what this poem for the fall attempts to convey

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