Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: My Projects


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Doing research on the Frontier on a 10 bucks budget

Of the 200-and-odd books I read over four years while working on Hope & Glory, India – A History, by John Keay was the first stop. I had tried approaching the textbook for my brother’s course on History and Civilization of India and the Far East, but found it too massive, and written in a language unknown to the living. Keay’s book was fun, well documented, and it was in a language I understood.
I had to start somewhere, and I started from there, and later I also read (and enjoyed) Keay’s book about the East India Company.

So now that I am doing a bit of in-depth background research for my work on the Frontier RPG, I decided to splurge on research books all of 10 euro: the price of a night out for a pizza at Casablanca’s, what passes for a night on the town here in our house.
And half of my budget went for John Keay’s China, a History – that is a lot heftier than its Indian counterpart, but hopefully just as fun.
Once again, my brother’s university books about Chinese history are there on the shelf, but what the heck, for starters I want something as user-friendly as possible.

I will also throw into the research pot another of Keay’s books that’s here on my shelf, his old but wonderful When Men and Mountains Meet: The Explorers of the Western Himalayas, 1820–75, because it’s certainly on topic.

The other half of my budget went for Abraham Eraly’s The Mughal Throne, that I had missed in my previous book haul when researching Hope & Glory.
Amazon Italy has a few copies of the Italian translation, by a very high-end “serious” publisher, discounted to half price because they are a little worse for wear.
This way, I got my copy for six bucks, including delivery, and the volume is perfectly fine (the white cover is a little dirty, but really, that’s not an issue for a reading copy).

Thus armed, I’ll spend the next four weeks reading and taking notes. So far I’ve played fast and loose with my Stories of the Frontier, but now it’s time to start doing things properly.
And as I often repeat, I like doing research.


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Worthless

Today an old gaming supplement I wrote a few years back was reviewed by an Italian webzine. It was described as “rough and noisome”, but I understand that these are currently considered compliments in the national panorama of fantasy fiction and gaming, in which being “ignorant” has become something we are supposed to be proud of.
So it’s OK.
Always good to be reviewed, especially if it’s a generally positive review.

Alas, the book in question, that I pitched, designed and wrote in 2015, was presented as somebody else’s project, to which I was attached as “compatriot”, essentially a second fiddle on somebody’s else’s gig.

For someone who is trying to make a living writing, seeing one’s work attributed to someone else is the ultimate sign of one’s worthlessness.
It is not pleasant.

And mind you, I know and respect the person that was indicated as the originator of my book – we are friends, and I like his work. And he was fast to point out the error, and the reviewer corrected immediately.
It all ended in a good laugh.
After all, what’s so bad about such a thing, right?

And yet all this basically means that nobody bothered to check out my book in the first place, not enough to read the title page and see who was the author. As I said, a measure of my worthlessness, and of my work’s.
It is not pleasant at all.


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Playing along the Frontier

So you are working not on one, not on two, but on THREE big huge projects, each on of them with a deadline ticking. One project is fun, another is just what you always wanted to write, and the third you hate every minute of it but is paying the bills, so bend on that oar and push!
What do you do, then?
Simple, you invent a fourth big huge project just for yourself.

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What a way to relax: 5000 words in one afternoon

I am currently working on a couple of big projects that are taking up a lot of time and energy, and I am doing all I can to keep my weekends free to recharge my batteries. One of the two jobs is causing me a lot of stress and anxiety – something that had never happened before, not this hard. So finding the time to relax is essential.

On the other hand, there is an open call I received at the end of last year that I really like, and I really would love to be part of the connected project. All I need is a 5000-words story, a swashbuckling romance with a twist.
And anyway I always said I find writing relaxing – especially if I am writing for my own, and not for my clients.

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The Blue Nightingale, a new Tale from the Frontier

I have just posted a new story to my Patrons, the fifth short in the Tales from the Frontier series – a short fun piece, written in a single sitting and set this time on the other side of the Abode of the Snow, in the not-exactly-Chinese-empire of the northwest.

A story about honor, duty and common sense, called The Blue Nightingale.
Because it’s good to be my patrons.


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Plots, Nefarious or Otherwise

Sitting here wrapped in blankets, drinking hot tea and popping aspirins to try and get back on track after two days spent on the road and in the cold, I find that there is little I can do but plot future stories.

I sent a detailed pitch to my Italian publisher, but I’ve yet to hear back from them, and I have here two open calls that would be madness to miss – so I sit, and drink tea, and plot.
This is the phase in which I do not write, but rather I pile ideas upon ideas, and let them simmer.

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