This one that’s coming is going to be a busy weekend.
There is the Comics Fair in Rome, Romics.
There is the book festival I Portici di Carta, where two kilometers of the main street in central Turin willbe turned into a book stall.
And in Milan there’s StraniMondi, the coolest science fiction convention ever, where all the cool writers and readers hang out together in harmony.
And I’m sure I’m forgetting a pair of book or comic or gaming related events that will take place over the weekend.
And I will attend none of these.
Because I will be joining the Savages in Pinerolo, the home base of the old Savoy cavalry and the seat of the Pinerole event – not a convention, more like a bunch of roleplayers spending a day doing what they like: playing. Continue reading
Category Archives: My Projects
In half an hour
I have no idea what I will write, or why, but anyway, I’ll start a session of online writing in half an hour.
HERE
OK; I cancelled the link.
Here’s a quick overview of what happened.
I decided to tackle an open call for a short story themed “Temporally Deactivated”.
I started at 9.10 pm or thereabouts, and I stopped at 11.35, more or less.
I decided to do it like “a rookie’s first day on the beat”, and sort of winged it.
I knew the general direction I wanted it to go, but I found out my POV character was a woman only on the last paragraph.
It’s part of the fun of this free writing thing.
I had a few bad spells and I went down at least one dead end, but I was able to put 3000 words in the bag, with a proper beginning, middle and end.
Now I will let the first draft rest for a while, and then go through a second draft.
Then I’ll mail it to the editor, and see if they bite.
Thank you to the readers that were there to see what I was doing.
I hope my writing was not too ugly.
Remember, it’s all right to write a rubbish first draft if then you are able to edit it beautifully. That will be the real challenge.
Writing: at night, every day, in public
The bit about using Google Docs and sharing the link for people to watch is turning into something interesting.
So interesting, in fact, that I plan to do this at least three nights a week, starting this week.
Tomorrow.
No, OK, I know, I know… I’ll start tomorrow…
But I will. Continue reading
The Last House in the Valley
I’ve just finished translating The Last House in the Valley, the second story in my very loose and occasional Tales of the Frontier.
The first tale, if you remember, was posted last summer, and was called The Demoness with White Hair.
In that case, it was the development of a short piece I had written as a test for a publisher (they never called back).
In this case, it was a story I wrote in a few hours and then handed to my friend Hell for an editing, the lot online and live.
The story some wanker deleted, and wrote Sickening.
Now you might wonder, is it truly sickening? Continue reading
Killing procrastination
One thing we learned, or a suspicion we confirmed, during our experiment last night, is that writing in public (or editing) forces us to be focused, and work fast.
It kills procrastination.
What I mean is, I have a story to write.
I fire up Scrivener. Then I go fetch a bottle of water.
I read what I wrote in the last session. The trick is always stop when you’re hot, mid-sentence, so it will be easier to pick up speed when you start again.
I make some adjustments.
I drink a gulp of water.
I get an email notification.
I check the mail.
Write some more.
Browse my mp3 collection for a suitable soundtrack.
Delete what I wrote previously and re-write.
What about some tea? And maybe a biscuit?
…
And time gets wasted.
But not when your writing file is public, and you have people looking at the page over your shoulder. You don’t want to look like a lazy slob, right?
The sort that wastes time and writes and deletes the same sentence five times over one hour.
You want to show off.
You want to be the Man with the Red-Hot Typewriter, like John D. MacDonald.
Fast and focused, like Harlan Ellison.
This morning Hell said to me (I paraphrase)
Man, 4000 words and a full edit in five hours! Were we to keep that sort of rhythm, I could edit a novel in fifteen hours, and you could write one in thirty.
And that’s true.
Who knows, maybe this is the reason why some people write in pubs and other crowded places.
Now the question is, could I keep it going for thirty hours without crashing and burning midway through?
There’s only one way to know, of course.
But before I set myself up for thirty solid hours of writing on a public file, I think I’ll do a few other experiments.
Like…
This morning my friend Angelo posted me two open calls for two anthologies that are looking for 2000-4000-words stories.
My genres, professional rates, close deadline.
But I know I can do a short in that range in one evening.
So tonight I’ll give it a try.
I’ll post the link at the bottom of this post after dinner, and I’ll spend the evening writing the first of my submissions.
I’ll just make sure I lock out unrequited contributors.
HERE IS THE LINK, COME AND TAKE A LOOK
[started at 9.15, ended at 11.15 – 2000+ good words and a complete first draft]
How did it go?
Do how did it go?, you ask.
And I say, my experiment of online writing, followed by an in-depth editing session by my friend Hell was quite instructive.
As I said in my previous post, to give myself some constraints, I picked up the Smith-Waite tarot I received a few weeks back as a gift, I shuffled it1 and picked three random cards: The King of Cups, Temperance and Death.
Nice start, what?
Then… Continue reading
Writing in public, ready to start
And here I am.
In about one hour I’ll fire Google Docs open and I’ll start writing a story.
I’ll share the link on my socials so that people will be able to follow what I do.
I’ll be doing it in Italian, because after I’m finished I’ll hand the document over to my friend Hell, and he will do an editing, live, for everybody to see.
And that’s the fun part, and the interesting part, because nobody ever did it before – go in cold, write the story, have the first rough draft edited, in front of everybody.
It will be fun.
And I have no idea what I will write about. Continue reading
Karavansara 