My fingers are stained black and red. I have just fitted the new ribbon in my mother’s old Lettera 35 – tomorrow afternoon, together with my friend Fabrizio Borgio, we’ll challenge the heat and the fishbowl-grade humidity doing our Burning Typewriters challenge, and we’ll write a story each, in public, in Nizza Monferrato.
I hope someone will take pictures.

And I’m not kidding about the heat – here’s the forecast…

Meanwhile, a story proposal I mailed about four weeks ago got a positive response, so I am re-writing/revising the story.
Which leads to an important suggestions for writers: talk about your plot ideas with your family.

These days have been so hectic (yeah, big change, what?), I had completely forgotten I had submitted a story proposal, and when the editor mailed me back saying he’d happily read the story, I found out that the plot that was oh, so clear and cool and ticking like clockwork in the early days of July, has now become rather murky.
Sure, I have the outline, I know what’s going to happen, but I am missing pieces.
Oh, drat.
But luckily, my brother – that is not into the writing business, but that I often use as a sounding board¹ – remembered every fine detail I discussed with him.
So it’s back to work, with my sights set in a market that admittedly does not pay much, but would reward me with a big boost to my street cred.

So, the rule is – always back up your files on a USB thumb drive, and always back-up your ideas by discussing them with a member of your family.

And now, happily, back to work.