Any good idea for writing a book?

[fingal]

Or maybe the person who made that Washington comment did it expecting to stir things up. Writing is wonderfully flexible and as long as you love your subject and work hard at developing a flawless technique, other people will want to read your words sooner or later.

I was surprised to read a comment from J. K. Rowling - the author of Harry Potter. She said something roughly like:

'I didn't write Harry Potter with children or publishers in mind. I wrote it to satisfy myself and for my own pleasure.'

I bet you don't believe that do you? The money followed the project, not the other way around. If you sit there thinking of marketing executives and 'my product' you might as well pack it in and go to work in a factory.

I think understanding the publishing industry is helpful, though. I'm not a writer as such (though I write all day for money in a strictly non-literary context) and it's a matter of sticking to your guns and writing, writing, writing ...

And thanks Big Tom, that was nice to read.

[bigtomrodney]

I bet you don't believe that do you? The money followed the project, not the other way around. If you sit there thinking of marketing executives and 'my product' you might as well pack it in and go to work in a factory.

I think you've really summed it up there and not just about writing. Passion is what drives the best products. I think you can see the same in open source and Linux.

[Juan Pablo]

Thanks for your suggestions, amigo. I dont know if I can swim in so deep waters with great philosophers. I was meaning subjects of common interest that can generate reflections.
Alternate approaches are essential because such topics have been developed many many times by other authors.

You don't need to use the whole thinking made by one of these phillosophers but some simple ideas have a great potential to be exploited in different ways and most of them are already applicable to our society. Sure there are some dry concepts that are very hard to understand or develop (principally from classic philosophers) but some of the other ones are easy and fully understandable by 'common' people. Although I don't agree with all the ideas from him, I can recommend Søren Kierkegaard too

[g.ivannov]

Thank you all for your points of view and especially those who encouraged me. I decided to write about "frustrated dreams and possible fixes". Well, I think that our brain software is something that we often neglect and we dont make updates and revisions.

[minthaka]

I was kidding about my father. Althoug he was indeed an excellent chess player, he was far from being world champion. I borrowed the idea from my friend. As small kid he used to lie a lot, and once he've tried to persuade me that his father is the world champion of chess. I've used this example to draw paralels. Lincoln and Washington were good politicians but far from being persons with world wide impact. Martin Luther King hasin my opinion even today a bigger influence. I'm his admiror. I didn't mean to offend anybody, just don't like exaggerated things.
Well I actually have an idea, but don't have time to write down:
It would be a mirror to Da Vinci's code:
Somebody would get involved into the work of a rotary club, and would be interested of knowing what lies behind that network, would discover the connection between rotary clubs and free masonry, would go deeper, and would see the plans of the richest men of the world, who are dwelling in the shadows. Would face the darkest facts that they are closely coorporating with satanist sects, and atop the story he would meet the ruler of this world, the devil himself. After that he would have to run away, the intelligences of the world's leading states would chase him, and he would clearly see the obvious conspiration hidden before...
But I fear, I would be not far from reality, and reality is DANGEROUS!
It would rise a scandal, and a scandal is a good bussiness today.