My Projects | Karavansara

9 November 2018
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Art requests and a new series

One of the best bits of this writing business is sending cover art requests to the publisher.
Oh, it’s a bother, because, well, I grew up with those incredible Whelan, Sanjulian, Frazetta, Maitz covers, and so my imagination tends to run amok when I have to describe my dream cover to the artist, but it’s also lots of fun.

… and then we put a big sabretooth tiger skull in the right corner…

And it usually only takes two or three attempts.
But this time it took only one.

Which is a rather circular way to say that my sword & sorcery story, tentatively called Heart of the Lizard, is getting a cover, and is, therefore, “a thing” – or it will be soon-ish.

Hopefully this will be the first in a series of 20.000 words novellas, and it will feature a larger cast compared to my usual works.

Right now I am hard at work on the text to surprise my publisher and hand him the finished story one week earlier than promised. And I still hope to find time to write a few other things this weekend.
Who needs to sleep anyway?

8 November 2018
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Prudence interrupted

And so I ended up writing an origin story.
It all started whit the plot for the wrong story I told you about.
I had a character and an idea, and a possible story, and last night I spent some time playing with the bits and pieces I had.
In the end I had to drop the work halfway – an urgent request arrived from a client, for a quick-and-dirty translation, and you know how that goes. Bills to pay and all that – paying jobs get the priority over on spec projects.

But in the meantime I had got some feedback from my Patrons, that had a look at my preliminary notes. Continue reading →

7 November 2018
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Oh, damn!

So I spent most of last night listening to some music (I’m currently on a Shiina Ringo/Tokyo Incidents bender) and fitting together the little pieces of a short story based on the guidelines I posted yesterday.
You know, the one about the wrong sort of leading lady.

It was not easy, it required a lot of staring at the screen and playing solitaire and what not.
But finally, I got all the bits and pieces in place, and the mechanism worked like, well, clockwork, while still leaving me enough margin to improvise and keep the narrative lively.

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Continue reading →

6 November 2018
by Davide Mana 1 Comment

New tools

logo_todoist_schema I just started using a tool that is likely to improve and streamline somewhat the way I attack my workload. It’s pretty popular, as far as I know, and it’s called Todoist.
Basically it is a list-making tool, a scheduler.
You put in the stuff you have to do, with dates and details. You can flag and prioritise the single entries, and it’s got a lot of nifty bits.
You can use it on your smartphone (I don’t) or on your PC, where it appears as a plugin for both your browser and your mail client.

I usually key in

Title, brief description of each interesting open call
The URL with the complete call description
The deadline

And this is helping me a lot. Continue reading →

5 November 2018
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

More writing, more stories

Some people make their plans for the new year in December, but I still have this schoolboy attitude, to me the new year begins in September.
Or something.
Anyway, I think I mentioned my idea about writing more stories, and submitting them to magazines and anthologies and publishers. Sort of a good proposition for the coming year.
Well, the experiment is working.
In the last thirty days I have submitted five stories to as many publishers, for a total of about 20.000 words.
Two thrillers.
Two science fiction shorts.
One horror story.
This not counting the things I wrote for my Patrons, and my other stuff that I will self-publish, or my gaming material.

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Not bad, but it could be better.
What I would like to do would be to double that number, settling for 10 stories per month, roughly 40.000 words, while keeping the bouncing stories circulating.
It’s a tough call, but I think I can do it.
Right now, I’m revising a story I’ll submit tonight.
Then I have five more calls aligned over the next two months.
It’s a start.
The trick will be do this while still working on my other stuff, my stories and games and translations.
But after all, that’s the way it’s got to be if I want to pay my bills and get out of this place.

I wish to thank my friends, my readers and my supporters that have pointed out new markets, new resources and new open calls to me.
You know who you are guys, and you are helping me a lot.
Thank you.

5 November 2018
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Pulp fairies

Cenerentola_AR I have just mailed my publisher a 10.000 words story called Away with the Fairies, a hard boiled, noirish retelling of The Three Fairies, a rather gruesome version of the old Cinderella tale from the 17th century.

In the original story, a girl meets an ogre, travels to the underworld and meets three fairies. They reward her for her kindness. When her evil stepmother tries to befriend the fairies and get herself and her ugly daughter a reward she is punished.
The girl then meets a prince,m and they fall in love, but the evil stepmother interferes again, and the prince is about to marry the ugly stepsister.
But a fairy cat intervenes, and in the end stepmother and stepsister die a very ugly death, and everybody else lives happily ever after. Continue reading →

2 November 2018
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Nailed it!

I am happy to announce that I suddenly nailed a perfect idea for the mainstream/realistic/whatever novel I’ve been asked to write for a major editor, and that will be the subject of my NaNoSortaWriMo.
The idea is solid and fun, and while certainly appealing to a mainstream audience, it will still be my sort of story. Just a little less action and a little more structure.
But it opens with a scene involving a mechanical velociraptor.
Because you know me.

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