Just a very quick note to let all interested parties that the fourth episode of AMARNA is now also available on Amazon.
Get it straight away on your Kindle through this link.
Enjoy!
Category Archives: My Projects
Read like a writer
I said I would be reading a book, and I am.
I am reading Joseph Brassey’s Skyfarer, that I got me in paperback for the price of a pizza, and is proving to be quite fun. Highly recommended, based on the initial premises, and I’ll tell you more once I’ve finished it (won’t be long, it reads like a breeze).
The only problem, I had to turn off the “little voice” in my head.
I guess you all remember Magnum PI, and his little voice…
Magnum: [narrates] When I write my book on how to be a world class private investigator, I’m going to include a chapter on listening to your little voice. Everybody has one, and mine was saying to stop Marcus and find out the real story behind his new car. Of course I didn’t, which is another chapter, things I should have done, but didn’t…
OK, so my little voice starts talking as I start reading, and points out all the neat things the author did with his story: nice turns of phrase, killer characterization, great dialog.
“See,” my little voice tells me, “that’s how it’s done. You should try it too! Take notes, you fool! Learn from the good ones!” Continue reading
AMARNA 4 on Gumroad!
And not a minute too soon!
The fourth episode of AMARNA finds Valerie Cazaret and her allies in Tel el Amarna, the lost capital of the Heretic Pharaoh.
It is time for Valerie to get some answers…
… and to face some new menaces.
The story is beginning to end, and things are going to become interesting.
Well, more interesting than before.
The zip file for sale on Gumroad includes the mobi, epub and PDF versions of the ebook. You only have to unzip and upload the file you prefer on your ebook or software reader of choice.
Enjoy!
Oh, and just in case, you can get the first three episodes in a single zip, and at a special price – just click HERE.
I split the party
Don’t split the party is one of the basic unwritten rules of roleplaying games, and one that players usually learn the hard way.
Splitting the party makes it hard on the game master, and it weakens the party itself – and a weak party plus an irritated game master is a recipe for disaster.
But I did it.
As i was writing the fourth episode of AMARNA – currently being edited – I did split the party.
Valerie and Tenn on one mission, Charles and Lavinia Throckmorton on another. And because we are following the story through Valerie’s first person narrative, we basically miss the whole Chuck & Vinnie part of the adventure.
Which is unavoidable.
Or is it? Continue reading
The killer whales of the Peruvian desert
I’ve talked about books about ancient mysteries and how I used to read them when I was a kid, and how I sometimes still use them as sources of inspiration for stories and games.
Easter Island, lost continents, ancient astronauts, spirits of ancient Egypt… and of course the Nazca Lines.
I went back to the Nazca Lines because the first chapter of Livyatan, my new book currently in the very early stages of development, opens in somewhere between around 500 BC, when we first catch a glimpse of the monster.
I remembered the obsession of the Andine Cultures for the killer whale, that they portrayed in a number of statuettes, and that was probably a deity/nature spirit for them. And I also remembered there is a killer whale among the famous Nazca geoglyphs.
So, I wanted to use this as a hook for my story. Continue reading
If only I had this back when…
I’m roughly halfway through the fourth episode of AMARNA (yes, I’m late), and I am taking a break to award myself a cup of tea and two biscuits, and to read a book I got with the latest Write Stuff bundle on StoryBundle.
The book is called Writing a Novel in Five Days While Traveling by Dean Wesley Smith.
I already told you about my current effort to increase my output – so that any book about increasing speed and writing in weird conditions interests me.
Also, I like Dean Wesley Smith’s attitude and approach to work, so there. Continue reading
Sailing the South Seas with Henry De Vere Stacpoole
It’s weird this way in which the world of adventure seems to be connected.
What with the latest posts about Corto Maltese and all the rest, I went and started re-reading A Ballad of the Salt Sea, and instantly found a connection with Folco Quilici’s documentaries about the Pacific (and 1955’s The Last Paradise), and other bits and pieces of that adventure-oriented culture in which we children of the Apollo-Missions-generation found ourselves immersed – and quite fun it was.
And also, I found a name I vaguely remembered, but could not place – then I read Umberto Eco’s article included in the hardback 2006 reprint of Pratt’s graphic novel ante litteram, and all lights turned on all of a sudden.
The name of Henry De Vere Stacpoole.
Who was this guy anyway? Continue reading
Karavansara 