An unwritten rule of writing… well, it works for me, at least, is that in the moment you see deadlines looming massively on the horizon, and you have lots of stuff to write and deliver…
a . a number of other projects suddenly catch your interest
b . you get a ton of great ideas worth developing
c . you get buried in great books to read
As I said, I don’t know if it’s only me, but the problem seems to be widespread. Continue reading
One of the problems of reading (mainly) English-language books is that a certain section of the world remains under-represented.
Events and characters are somewhat edited out of history if they did not directly intersect the history of the English-speaking people.
This becomes painfully true when we focus on the Victorian era, or more generally on the time in which the red was widespread on the map, and Britain ruled an empire.
Case in point: Pierre Gabriel Édouard Bonvalot.
An explorer and geographer, Bonvalot explored cCentral Asia in 1880-1882, his expedition financed by the French Ministry of Education. A second expedition in 1886-1887 saw him move east from Russian Central Asia to Sinkiang.
Now, I did not know anything about Bonvalot – which is mighty embarassing, considering I wrote a non-fiction book about explorers in Central Asia. I can plead non-guilty pointing out that my book covers only the first half of the 20th century.. but let’s face it, it’s embarrassing anyway. Continue reading
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Editor is a word that scares me, when it is applied to myself.
And yet…
I am taking care of a new anthology, to be published by Horrified Press, as part of their Silent Fray line of physical horror books.
My project is called Ladies in Red, and it goes like this… Continue reading
I can’t waste time any longer – in five days I’ll start writing the first draft of my new novel, an adventure yarn that is called House of the Gods and comes with a nice nice nice contract attached, which I have already signed1.
The story is fully outlined, the basic research is done, I have a folder full of clippings, links, and Wikipedia pages.
And pictures.
I’ll start working on it next monday, and I’m planning 5000 words per day, for ten days.
It won’t be so smooth – I’ll pick up speed as the story proceeds.
But I’m seeing it happen in my brain, like a movie I’ve watched too many times.
Now I’ve only to put to paper (or file) the plot of the movie, like I’d tell to my brother, or to a friend.
Nice and smooth.
So, in these final few days before I dive in, it’s time to get in the mood.
And because House of the Gods will feature dinosaurs2, I’m going back again to Robert Bakker’s The Dinosaur Heresies.
If it was good enough for Michael Crichton, it’s good enough for me. Continue reading
As I mentioned, this and next week I’ll be doing a few posts about John D. MacDonald.
And because I have to start somewhere, I’ll start with Miranda.
Because Miranda is almost perfect, and it’s one of the scariest things you’ll ever read.
Miranda is a short story MacDonald wrote in 1950 and sold to 15 Mysteries Stories – that, as you can guess, was pretty much what it said on the cover: a 25 cents pulp mag featuring 15 mystery stories.
Nice and smooth.
The mag had been called Dime Mystery Book back in the early 1930s, and later the name had changed to Dime Mystery Magazine, and then in 1950 it had become 15 Mysteries Stories. Continue reading
OK, so on the 24th of this month it will be a century since the birth of John D. MacDonald.
Born in Sharon, Pennsylvania in 1916 (of course), John D. MacDonald was a great genre writer… and you can easily take away that genre bit in there.
John D. MacDonald was a great writer.
He had started in the pulps in the 1940s, and later he moved to Gold Medal, the classic purveyor of paperback originals.
And while he is mainly remembered today for his thrillers, he wrote a number of science fiction stories, and a straight fantasy (today they’d cal it urban fantasy, probably) called The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything. Continue reading
I’ll take this a rather circuitous way – but you should be used to it by now.
I was given a book as a gift, for my latest birthday – Thich Nhat Hanh’s How to Walk.
I always was a long-distance walker.
When I was a student I used to walk instead of taking a bus, to save the money and buy books, or records. Later, when I started driving (I was a late starter), I tried to keep walking, and recently, after years of inactivity, I picked up hiking again.
This, coupled with my long-standing interest in zen, made me really curious or reading that particular book.
And I found it very good – simple, down to earth, and filled with great intuitions.
And there’s a passage, in it, that goes like this…
Sometimes I say I walk for my mother or that my father is enjoying walking with me. I walk for my mother. I walk for my teacher. I walk for my students. Maybe your father never knew how to walk mindfully, enjoying every moment like that. So I do it for him and we both get the benefit.
I was touched deeply by this one because I read it about one month after my father passed away. And it touched me also because I had already done that – twenty-five years ago. Continue reading
Karavansara 