Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: My Projects


by Leave a comment

What’s my niche?

So an idea came up, a sort of half-proposal about doing something new and different for 2020. And I’m always happy to do something new and different, exploring different ideas, different media, different platforms etc.
And honestly, it would be a fun project. It would take about one day per week, and it’s something nobody’s done yet in my country.

The problem is, it runs the risk of branding me, of fitting me into a very tight and specific niche.
Which every marketing guru says it’s a great thing, but I’m afraid it’s just not me. As I said above, I like exploring and trying new ideas, new paths.
becoming a specialist was never my target – not even in academia.
I always looked for interdisciplinary projects. That’s why I never got funding.
And as a writer, I do all sorts of different stuff, fiction and non-fiction, in Italian and English, fantasy, science fiction, horror, straight adventure, historical, thrillers…
I have been told repeatedly this variety is damaging me.
“You should be the SF guy! Or the fantasy guy! Find your niche and milk it for all it’s worth.”
But I am all over the place. So sue me.

So the question is – should I invest my time and very very limited resources to try and jump-start a new project that could type-cast me?

Well, the type-casting/tight branding thing is certainly a big con.
But what about the pros?

  • I’d get to experiment with a new medium.
  • I’d get to work on new themes and ideas I always liked.
  • I might reach a sector of the public that so far I have missed.
  • I would have the opportunity to use a set of skills I have and have never used fully so far.
  • I would have fun.
  • I could make a buck.

So, in the end, my answer is – why not?

Ah, the Christmas week is going to be BUSY!


by Leave a comment

Three for December (plus two)

Like every month, I have received a series of open calls from various magazines and publishers that are looking for submission, and so I am ready to start the game of writing on spec.

Right now I have on my list

  • A post-apocalyptic story, in the Mad Max tradition, but somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
  • A vampire story (this would me my second vampire story ever… wow!)
  • A folk horror story that will be hypothetically set here in Astigianistan.

All these are in the 4000-8000 words range, and are therefore quite feasible. I plan on writing one per week this month.

Then there is the opportunity for a new weird western – the first one sold nicely, now why not go back and explore the same setting again?

Finally, there is the matter of the story I’ll need to write for my Patrons and that, due to my commitment to the Seven Lives project, will feature a cat in some way or other. Maybe a story of the Corsair?

Apart from this, I am working on a new RPG setting that is very promising and is at the same time different enough from my themes and close enough to my interests to make this job quite interesting. But that’s for the future.


by Leave a comment

Guillotine Wind, a preview

In a few days, my patrons will receive their copy of Guillotine Wind, a novella that celebrates the second year of my Patron page and is also part of the Seven Lives project. The stories in the projects will reprise characters from some of my series – we’ve had a Buscafusco story already, then we’ll get a new Corsair story,a new Aculeo & Amunet story, and so on.

Guillotine Wind is something special, because it is part of a series (of two series, actually), but is also a first in its series. The debut story.
Straight historical adventure, ready to roll.

Yesterday my Patrons got a chance to see the first chapter of the new story – a rough, unedited draft.
I am now sharing this here with you because, who knows, you might get curious and decide to check out my Patreon and the story.
Enjoy!

Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

Curse of the Golden Bat

One thing I learned from Ian Fleming is branding my characters.
Which sounds kinky – and quite fitting, given certain tastes exhibited by Fleming in his time – but what I mean is simply calling stuff by their brand name, as a shorthand to convey certain details to the reader.
Bond shaves with a Gilette razor, lights his cigarettes with a Ronson lighter.
Before it became the product placement we see in movies, it was a writing trick to give substance and weight, and definition to what were otherwise cursory descriptions.

This works quite nicely with weapons – “he drew a gun” is different from “he drew a Remington .44” at least to some of the readers. And maybe those readers will be happy, and that’s a good thing.

I am finishing the first Pandora story – that will be called Guillotine Wind, by the way – and the branding issue came up again.
Cigarettes, in particular.

Turns out that during at least the early phases of the Russian Civil War, the Great Powers were quite happy to supply the White forces with anything they may need – money, weapons and ammo, uniforms, medical supplies and, of course, cigarettes.
And cigarettes came from Japan.
So, what is Pandora smoking?

Continue reading →


by 2 Comments

Dangerous with a gun

The ting writers are asked most often is “where do you get your ideas?”
Harlan Ellison said he got them from the Idea of the Month Club in Schenectady, Neil Gaiman said you should not ask such questions because writers, being evil and scared of such questions, would mock you in a writerly manner.
I usually say “everywhere”, and just to give you an example… well, here’s an example.

I shared today on Facebook an article about Kinessa Johnson, an Afghanistan veteran that is currently hunting poachers in Africa.
It’s pretty straightforward: they try and kill endangered species, they become an endangered species.

A friend commented my post, wondering if she could do the same.
To which I replied, basically, why not?

Continue reading →


by 7 Comments

Enter the Women’s Black Hussars of Death

I am hard at work to finish the first Pandora story, and as I finally got to work on the last act, where the action heats up and things start to go bang! (because kids nowadays want explosions, you see) I have had the dubious pleasure of meeting the Women’s Black Hussars of Death – one of those things that will probably be flagged by critics because they are too pulpy and implausible, but actually were a real thing during the Great War and the Russian Civil War.

Yes, say it aloud… The Women’s Black Hussars of Death.
Why they never taught me this sort of stuff when I was in school?

Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

Reading, writing, waiting

So we are now back to Orange Alert, and it seems that we will not be flooded after all. We spent the night and the best part of the morning in the danger zone, but the levees have held, and while the Belbo is very high, the worst is over. There’s been a few landslides, the road we followed in our microadventure a few weeks back is now completely flooded, but there’s been no serious damage to people or property.
We had a few brownouts during the early morning hours, but now we’re fine.

We spent most of the time taking turns in bed, and reading or writing.

I’ve added about 2000 words to my new story – the one featuring Pandora Marchincowska, that is likely to turn into a novelette and that I need to finish by the 30th – and I’ve finished reading a novel, started and finished a novella, and I’m currently reading a beautiful book about coral reefs.

I will tell you more about the books I read in the next post.

Meanwhile, two of my stories have been rejected (it happens), and I’ve started outlining my next submission.

Life goes on, no matter what the river does.