My Projects | Karavansara

25 March 2015
by Davide Mana 3 Comments

Chapbooks

One of the best bits of writing is getting a box full of copies of the book.

A rather disheveled courier just braved the rain and the wilds of Astigianistan to deliver the first batch of the print run of my essay on geological time, La Misura del Tempo Geologico.
The box was in very poor conditions, but the books were fine.

The paper version of La Misura del Tempo Geologico is a fine white and blue chapbook.
It looks like a copybook and it feels like a copybook, and it’s just great, because it was designed for schools, for teachers and students.

In less than one month I’ll be facing an audience, talking about the beginning and the end of time, pyramids and dinosaurs, and why evolution is real.

And there will be a pile of these nice chapbooks for sale.
It will be good.

11 March 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

A way point, and new projects

The first half of the first draft of my new novel is in the hands of my editor, while I hammer out the kinks in the second half.
The going is good.
I like the story, I like the characters, and I’m writing about good ideas in a way that I like.
Nice and smooth.

As it usually happens when I’m very busy doing a lot of things, nice ideas start popping up almost everywhere, and it feels really bad to put them on the backburner, or to bury them in my tiger-striped notebook, waiting for a moment to work on them.

So, while my science fiction novel is rounding the half-way buoy and my steampunk game is getting in shape, I’m setting aside two other ideas, not knowing when I’ll be able to work on them. Continue reading →

3 March 2015
by Davide Mana 6 Comments

Taking care of my hands

The main drawback of spending eight hours a day typing is the increasing finger and hands pain.
This is a real problem.

Cracking the joints is counterproductive – in the long run, it can have very bad consequences.

So, apart from firing up WorkRave and timing my daily routine to minimize traumas, I’m currently going through my old massage handbooks to find a few quick and easy solutions.
Granted, arthritis cannot be solved by simple massages, but at least a symptomatic solution can be found.
This is not my first post on the subject, but I think the matter can be of interest to writers and intensive keyboard users out there.
So, here goes. Continue reading →

2 March 2015
by Davide Mana 3 Comments

Between the desert and the deep blue sea

I’m going through the final push on the first draft of my new novel, a science fiction work that has gone under the working title of Matter/Energy, and later under the tentative title of Nothing Exists Alone.
It’s a big, sprawling hard SF story, which touches upon politics, and environmental sciences, while telling basically a (hopefully!) thrilling adventure yarn. It connects closely with my passion for oceanography, and takes place almost entirely beneath the sea.

And during the weekend I went back to Frank Herbert’s Dune, because I needed to fine tune my writing¹ – and Herbert’s novel is a prime example of what I’d like to do, in terms of economy of writing.
Even though I’ll never be as good as Frank Herbert, of course. Continue reading →

17 February 2015
by Davide Mana 5 Comments

Character Profile – Felice Sabatini

“Don’t overestimate me.”

Things are moving fast. Time to talk about the hero of The Ministry of Thunder, the big guy himself, Felice Sabatini.

The official version states that the character of Felice Sabatini came to me after I found out about the Chiang Kai-shek government contracting a squadron of Italian fighter pilots in the 1930s, in a strange dress rehersal of what would be the adventure of Claire Chennault‘s Flying Tigers.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it – but it’s only part of the story.

Let’s see… Continue reading →

16 February 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

New Story Cover and #Giveaway

So, as you read this I’m writing the last 1000 words or so of my new story, a prequel of sorts to The Ministry of Thunder.
Then I’ll inflict it on my wonderful editrix¹, and once she’s cut it with her steely knife, and I’ll have revised it, I’ll turn it into a .mobi and an .epub file – so everybody will be happy.

The short story will be given away for free to the friends that will join us on the 19th (or 20th, depending on your time zone), for the online Ministry of Thunder party on Facebook.

We’ll be celebrating the new paperback version of The Ministry of Thunder, and the Chinese New Year.
And give away as many copies of the new story as possible.

Not sure yet?
Well, maybe you’d like to take a look at the cover of the new story. Continue reading →

14 February 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Tientsin, 1934

Know what?
I’m writing.
And believe it or not, despite what I said before, I’m back in China in the 1930s.
But not in Shanghai.
Somewhere up north and east instead.

Tientsin – which today is called Tianjin – was a Treaty Town, back before the Second World War: the eight countries that had fought against the Boxers in 1901 each got a piece of the city, and maintained there a concession enjoying extraterritorial status.
And this included Italy. Continue reading →