My Projects | Karavansara

17 February 2019
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Occasional ghosts

One of my various sources of income as a writer is a series of history articles I am writing for an Italian magazine – pieces about characters and events from the history of Turin and of the Piedmont area. It’s a fun job that so far has helped pay the bills and the house insurance in particular, and it hinges on two of my long-standing interests, history and doing research.

Right now I have a nice list of future topics to explore and today I went into the tragic life of a young woman – a member of the Savoy upper class that lived a tragic existence in Turin and met a sad end in the 18th century. What is usually called “a footnote on the pages of history”, but of possible interest for the readers of the magazine, as it’s part of the local history and, indeed, of the local folklore.

Because as I did some research today about the character of the late Elena Matilde, her ghost appeared in the documents and chronicles – bringing my historical work into the field of the occult and the paranormal. This angle is not what my client is interested in, and yet I will add a few paragraphs on the subject. Because maybe my readers do not believe in ghosts, but they might be fascinated by how a tragic incident hit so hard the popular imagination, that a ghost story arose in the aftermath.

16 February 2019
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

The other Van Helsing

I was watching Brides of Dracula last night. The 1960 Hammer movie directed by Terence Fisher does not feature Dracula at all – the Count is name-checked in the title and in the spoken intro – and given for dead – and the main vampire in the picture is Baron Meinster (David Peel), on the rampage in search of young women’s blood in an out-of-the-way corner of Transylvania. It’s a good fun movie, with a lot of original touches, despite the presence of a very dodgy bat. And of course there’s Yvonne Monlaur, that is absolutely gorgeous, in the role of student teacher Marianne Danielle – the damsel in distress of the piece, all the way from Paris to Transylvania to get in a whole lot of trouble.

And we get Peter Cushing, reprising his role as Doctor Van Helsing. Maybe.

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15 February 2019
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Odds and Ends #7

I just posted the 7th collection of Odds and Ends for my patrons: this time around, very cheap books (a SF classic and an intriguing post apocalyptic espionage thriller series), two short movies, a bundle of cyberpunk gaming material, a guided tour of Rome, and a machine to make your own environmental noises.
Because it’s good to be my patrons.

14 February 2019
by Davide Mana 9 Comments

Still my favorite song

One day I will write a story. It will be called Still my favorite song, that is a quote from a song by Burt Bacharach, called It was you. I often use old songs to find a title for my stories and my works. My weird western gaming supplement for Deadlands is called Messico & Nuvole, and that’s the title of a song. All the Hope & Glory novellas have a title based on a record or a song, and Hope & Glory itself references Edward Elgar, of course.

One day I will write Still my favorite song, that is a story about a guy that after thirty years still has dreams in which he meets his first love. I could quote Donald Fagen’s The Goodbye Look, given the premise, and call the story An old lover dressed in grey, but Bacharach is more fitting. Fagen is too cynical.

In the story, whenever this guy is going through a rough patch in his life, he gets these dreams, and finds himself in a deserted city, a stark black and white city in a sort of Norman Bel Geddes modernist style, and there he meets his old flame, and they spend some time together, exploring the empty city, and talking. Then he wakes up, and he has only a sketchy memory of what they did, where they went, what they found out, what they discovered. But it feels good.

The dream thing goes on for a few nights, then the affairs in his real life get better, and the dreams are gone, only to return, months or even years later, when something goes wrong in his life again.

This goes on for thirty years. Then one day they meet in real life. She’s happy, she has her own life and everything. They have a cup of tea and a talk, like good old friends would. And talking together, they find out they have been dreaming the same city. They saw the same landmarks, went to the same places, and she has been meeting him there just as he met her.

I don’t know what will happen from that point on, in my story. I want to write it to find it out.

One day or another I will write Still my favorite song. Not right now, but I will, I know I will. After all, don’t they tell us we should write based on our own experiences?

9 February 2019
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Odds and Ends #6

I’ve just posted the sixth selection of Odds and Ends for my Patrons in the Five Bucks Brigade. This week, dining like it was 4000 b.C., a way to prevent your cat from thrashing your books, a roleplaying game by Umberto Pignatelli, an Oscar-winning animation short, and the opportunity to defend the Frontier against Xur and the army of Ko-Dan.
Because it’s good to be my Patrons.

9 February 2019
by Davide Mana 4 Comments

The guy you love to hate

Parabellum Serenade is at the halfway point, and there is a believable prototype of a cover, and the plot is thickening. What I like about this story – maybe I already mentioned this – is the way in which all the pieces are falling together in the right place without me having to do any major effort. I only have to type the story as it unfolds.

My modus operandi is as follows: I devote half an hour before falling asleep and about another half an hour after I wake up to stay under the covers and run through my head the scenes of the novel, like they were a movie. Usually the post-wake up session orders and cleans up, and adds detail to the pre-snooze ideas. Then I only have to sit down and write down the scenes I saw. Revising what I wrote yesterday, I do a first clean-up and some minor adjustments.
And the story grows.

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8 February 2019
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Like an old girlfriend

This is a complicated story. It starts at the turn of the last century, as a 20-years younger myself is trying to create a character for a series of stories. I had just read Bram Stoker’s The Jewel of Seven Stars, hot on the heels of Kim Newman’s Seven Stars, and I wanted to do something similar.
In case you missed it, Stoker’s story (that you can find here both in the 1903 and in the 1912 versions) has been filmed a number of times, and many fans fondly remember the very loose Hammer Films version, known as Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (because Hammer knew how to sell movies), and featuring the delectable Valerie Leon.