Richard Drab

Richard Drab

My name is Richard Drab, born in 1958. For many years, writing, music, technology, and above all the joy of discovering new things and turning my own ideas into reality have been an important part of my life.

I have actually been writing for a very long time. Over the years, I have created far more texts and stories than I have ever published. Today, my hard drives and archives contain hundreds of unfinished, well-developed, and in some cases almost completed novels, stories, concepts, and book ideas.

Many of these stories were written over the years alongside my professional life. Some are almost completely finished, others were left after only a few chapters, while still others exist as extensive drafts, notes, or carefully developed story concepts. Very often, I simply did not have the time needed to take a novel all the way to its final version, revise it several times, and prepare it properly for publication.

But I never forgot these stories.

Retirement has therefore marked the beginning of a new chapter in my life. I finally have the opportunity to return to this large collection of manuscripts and ideas. I go through old files, rediscover stories that have sometimes been waiting many years to be continued, revise them, develop them further, and bring them up to date with the possibilities available today.

Sometimes it is quite remarkable to open an old story again after many years. Some ideas still work just as well as they did when I first wrote them, while others need a completely new direction. Characters that existed only in a file for years suddenly come back to life, and an almost forgotten draft can become the beginning of a new book.

My goal today is to gradually bring as many of these stories as possible to a publishable standard while continuing to write new books at the same time.

There is certainly no shortage of ideas.

In fact, the manuscripts and concepts already stored in my archives would probably be enough for more books than I could ever finish and revise. But perhaps that is exactly what makes it so fascinating: there is always another story waiting to be rediscovered and finally told.

One place plays a particularly important role in my writing:

Venice.

My love for this extraordinary city goes far beyond its famous sights. Whenever possible, I try to spend time there myself. I do not want to know Venice only through books, historical sources, photographs, or the internet. I want to experience the city.

I walk through its narrow streets, cross small squares and bridges, visit churches, palaces, islands, and lesser-known places, and try to notice the small details that can later bring a story to life: the sound of water against an old wall, a narrow alley away from the crowds, an ancient doorway, a hidden courtyard, the light early in the morning, or the special atmosphere that settles over Venice when the city slowly becomes quieter in the evening.

For my novels, I do not want Venice to be merely a beautiful backdrop.

I want to learn as much as possible about the city, its history, its people, its traditions, its secrets, and its lesser-known places. Whenever I can, I research these things directly on location and later allow those impressions and discoveries to become part of my stories.

I want my readers to do more than simply know where a character is standing.

I want them to feel as though they are walking through Venice alongside that character.

But writing is only one of my passions.

I also play the saxophone and have a strong interest in music. Here too, I am interested not only in playing the instrument itself, but increasingly in the possibilities that arise when music, learning, and modern technology come together.

Computers and programming have also been part of my life for many years. Among other things, I work with PHP, web development, and a wide variety of my own projects. In recent years, artificial intelligence has added another fascinating field to explore.

I see AI primarily as a tool.

It opens up new possibilities for developing ideas, experimenting, and creating projects that in the past would have been extremely difficult for one person to realise alone. I am particularly fascinated by the way my different interests can increasingly be connected: writing, music, programming, the internet, and artificial intelligence.

As a result, I do not work only on novels and stories. I also develop musical projects, web applications, learning concepts, and many other ideas that often begin with one simple question:

“Couldn’t I try doing that myself?”

That sense of curiosity probably describes me better than anything else.

For me, retirement certainly does not mean doing less. Quite the opposite: it finally gives me the freedom to work on many of the ideas that have accumulated over decades.

And whenever I look at my archives, filled with hundreds of unfinished and almost completed stories, I know one thing for certain:

I am not going to run out of stories anytime soon