Writing | Karavansara

9 July 2020
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Up from the Facebook depths

Yesterday some twitch in the Facebook engine brought up a post I had made more than one year ago, about a weird idea I had about a story, possibly the first in a series. It was a solid Idea, and I had started working on it and even had an interested publisher, and then – for a change – my day-to-day life had taken a turn for the worse and I had to scrap the project.

Oh, damn.

But yesterday that old post came up from the depth of Facebook, like a stretch of oceanic floor uplifted by some tectonic event – an algorithm shift of some kind, some big data rift – and there it was.
And people saw it, and they started going – damn, man, you need to write this, like, NOW!

And I was looking at those notes, during the lockdown, and thinking that, should I ever be able to nail shut the lid of the coffin of the Ghostwriting Project from Hell, I might as well resurrect that old idea.

Well, turns out there is people out there interested in reading it.
Now just let me get my nails and my hammer…

8 July 2020
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Developing ideas and characters

A nugget of wisdom I found in a book I am greatly enjoying.
Talking about a short story published in 189, the author says she used it to “get a feeling” for a setting she’d later develop in a series of novels, and to try and develop the kind of character that would later appear in one of those novels.

It’s a scheme I heartily recommend. Get paid developing the ideas for your novels!

Indeed, it seems to be an excellent idea, and I have used it in the past, without really knowing.
I’ll have to write more stories, and use them to explore a few of the ideas I’ve here simmering.

7 July 2020
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Permanently dead

I am putting together the preliminary information and notes for a story I will write this week, because Mr Publisher and Mr Editor are waiting for it, and we do not want to keep them waiting, do we?

The story is an adventure thriller with some urban fantasy elements (proper urban fantasy, not vampires shagging werewolves), and it’s planned to develop across a fair portion of Europe as the main character keeps one step ahead of her antagonists.
A pursuit story, in other words.

Continue reading →

4 July 2020
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Fear of finishing, part 2

And let’s admit it, it is fitting that a post about the endless reworking / rewriting / tweaking / revising we do to our work in order to push the finish line as far as possible should have a second part.
I mean, the first was not quite finished, right?

Well, here is where I talk about academia, roleplaying games, and “the funny incidents that happen when you try and make your living as a writer” (remember? this was the topic of the comic book I was told to start posting instead of these useless words I am putting on my blog and nobody reads anyway).

Continue reading →

2 July 2020
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Fear of finishing

I’ve got another bunch of revisions from my current client, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the gentleman is a victim to something we (meaning, we that write regularly, to a market, for a living) should know quite well: it’s the fear of finishing.
I’ve seen people crash and burn because of that.

I do not know what the psychological mechanism actually is, but there is this increasing sense of anxiety bordering on panic that sometimes settles in when you approach the end of a story you are writing. You suddenly feel the need to re-read, revise, re-write, start it all over. What up to yesterday was quite fine, now is not that good anymore.
Because you are so close to sending it off to the editor, or to the publisher, or to the Amazon KDP oompa-loompas, and you can’t do that unless this is absolutely perfect and right now quite clearly it is not.

I believe that becoming a professional writer means also being able to overcome this fear, being able to say “his is enough, this is as good as it will ever be, let’s put it out there and see if it can cope.”

Considering my client is availing himself of the services of a ghostwriter, he should trust me enough to live through this last phase easily.
But this whole project has been based on a hard core of mistrust in my abilities, and as a consequence, right now, my client is panicking, and there is nothing I can do but let him exhaust himself.
I could try and explain it to him again, but he would not listen anyway.

On to writing my own stories to fill the vacuum while I wait.

2 July 2020
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

A forced vacation

Somebody said once that writers never take time off – you’re in the queue at the supermarket, and you’re mentally working on something… ruminating a plot point, stealing a snippet of eavesdropped conversation for recycling in your work in progress, considering what chances are for your next submission.
A vacation – that in my case might mean, sitting in the shade in my courtyard, with a bowl of ice cream and a good book – is not different – that good book I’d be reading? It’s still part of the learning process, still a source of ideas, or a sample of someone’s writing I admire, and I’d like to be able to emulate.
When you make a living writing, your brain never lets up.

And yet…

Continue reading →

23 June 2020
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Imperfect Interview

So I was interviewed online, using Facebook, daring the horror of the nested comments and Mr Zuckerberg less than perfect notification system. It was fun, I was dutifully grilled by the attendees, and I hope we will do it again.