Writing | Karavansara

18 August 2020
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

On the road to find out

Sometimes, I think I mentioned this in the past, the best way to relax, for me, is just to fire up a Scrivener file and start typing, letting the ideas flow. A character – or two – some snippet of dialogue, a place, an idea. Just to get back the pleasure of imagining and putting in words a scene.
Yeah, I know, I’m weird.

That’s what I did this morning, because I knew I would spend the afternoon working on a dead end project (but it’s paid, so OK), and I wanted to enjoy my vacation a little more.

So, as a result, by the end of the morning I found myself with 3000 words of a new story, the general outline of a 40.000-words novella (but it’s likely to get longer), a working title, a list of characters, some reference images and I found the time to research…

casting calls for actors and for dancers
bra cup sizes and their differences between UK and US
the career of V.C. Andrews and her post-mortem career (and her incredibly expensive ebooks)
witchcraft in 20th century America
TV advertisement practices in the early 2000s
burlesque and exotic dancing
architectural terms

And it was a smash.

And while I have a lot of stuff in my file, part of the fun of this thing is that I am making it up as I go along, letting events branch out, and giving my characters ample manoeuvring space.
It’s like following a road just to see where it leads.
And right now it saeems to be leading in a fun, unusual direction.

So now I’m planning to write this baby, in my spare time, and with half a mind of getting it out for Halloween – this being a Gothic ghost story and all that – self-published, maybe both in Italian and English (I am writing it in English) possibly under a nom-de-plume.

Nothing very hush-hush – I might even go for “Davide Mana writing as … “
Because it’s a Gothic Ghost Story but it’s my sort of G.G.S.

But on second thought, not straight away. I’ll save that for the second edition – let’s give time to my anti-fans to buy the book and rave about its quality, maybe even post a few reviews and try to get in touch with my alter-ego to ask for (unpaid) stories. It happened in the past.
And then let them find out…

16 August 2020
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

The reader’s block

Yesterday I wrote 12.000 words – yes, OK, I cheated, because I recycled 5000 words from an unfinished work I had here sleeping on my hard disc, but anyway, 7000 words in one day, during which I also managed to read a few chapters of a book, cook dinner and prepare a special dessert this being the 15th of August… well, it perfectly shows how a lack of stress can benefit us all.
Because yesterday I wrote 12.000 words (OK, OK, 7000) because the day before yesterday I delivered the final chunk of my Ghostwriting Job from Hell, and I was told to take two days off “before the next rewrite”.

Having other things on our mind is a source of stress, and it can make it difficult, almost impossible sometimes, to do what we actually like a lot.
And we’ve all had a lot of things on our minds, these last few months.

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10 August 2020
by Davide Mana 1 Comment

Learning from anime

I’ve had this idea, about a series of posts about what I learned about storytelling from various media I used to spend my time with as a kid. This was in part inspired by a chat I had this morning with my friend Lucy, but it’s a little more complicated than that.
As a kid I watched a lot of movies and TV series, cartoons both western and Japanese, I read comics, I read novels and short stories and non fiction… each of these shaped the way I think about stories, and I think it might be fun to try and take a look at all these influences.

And I’m starting with anime because… ah, because we need to start somewhere, right?

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9 August 2020
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Creative mumblings

Among the many things I’ve been toying with, while I am trapped in a time-consuming, soul-killing writing job, there’s a ghost story. I’d love to write a “proper” ghost story, more or less novella-length, set in modern day and with a classic structure.
I even have a working title – The Cold Spot.

And this morning, while I was doing a modicum of chores, I set my brain to thinking about it, and a question came up – would I be able to do something different with such a story?
Because, really, writing classic ghost stories in a world where the readers can get Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House or Peter Straub Ghost Story or, indeed, M.R. James’ collections, the risk is an exercise in futility.

Now there are two indexes, so to speak, by which I can measure a story, these being, for lack of better words, fun and significance. A lot of highly entertaining books are like a glass of water – they pass and leave no trace.
Others leave a sign, and offer us better insight in the world we live in.

It would be good to do a fun, significant story.

But on the other hand, there are moments what we need is just a tall cool glass of water, to bring us back to life.
So maybe all this is just a part of me trying to avoid the fact that I should sit down and write the damn thing, and get it out of my system.
It would be nice to have it in time for Halloween.
Or for Christmas.

But first, I have to clear my table.

5 August 2020
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

An obsession with notebooks

I was reading an interesting piece by writer and adventurer (or the other way around) Alastair Humphreys, about his tools as a writer, and I followed one of his links down a rabbit hole of posts, tweets and photos about notebooks.

The photo of Humphrey’s soaked notebook above reminded me of my time in the field as a geology student. The basic tools of the trade of the geologist in the field are hammer, compass and notebook. The basic destiny of the geologist student in the field is to get soaked.

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4 August 2020
by Davide Mana 1 Comment

Buying fans

A few days ago I decided to invest part of the money I made with my last story sale to buy me a fan. During the last three years both the fans we had here at home died on us, and the one that’s left is one of those huge wind machines they use during concerts to keep the musicians cool on stage under the floodlights. It’s a blast. Literally.

So on Friday I started browsing Amazon, while I transferred some money from my PayPal – where I had been paid for the story – on my credit card, because Amazon won’t accept PayPal, which is a nice little medieval thing, like when the Sultan in Istanbul would not accept the coins of the King of France, but would happily cash in the money from Italian Merchant Republics. Makes you wonder about the future of our civilization, right?
So, I have a credit card I use only for Amazon, and I fund when needed.

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3 August 2020
by Davide Mana 5 Comments

Little unplanned-for adventures

Two nights ago, I sat in the courtyard during one of the most impressive electric storms I ever witnessed. Clouds chased each other in the sky, the roll of thunder echoed over our village, and flashes of light made the countryside and the deserted streets of Castelnuovo Belbo look like a Hammer movie set.
I was half-expecting to see a carriage drive up the lane, carrying Peter Cushing or, with a little luck, Ingrid Pitt.