Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Writing


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Are you by any chance the guy that…?

Yesterday something happened that had never happened before to me: I was discussing a comedy sketch with a friend on her Facebook profile, and one of her contacts joined the discussion. It was all very civil and amusing, until this new person I did not know suddenly went…

No, sorry, wait a minute, are you by any chance the guy that wrote The House of the Gods?

And I could only confess that yes, I am the guy that wrote The House of the Gods, but I did not do it by chance, it was premeditated. I did it on purpose.
She went on to say she had greatly enjoyed my novel, and we sort of became Facebook friends and all that.

It’s the first time I am identified by a total stranger as “the guy that wrote the book I liked”, and it’s strange, and funny, and sort of feels like a milestone.
This writing thing is really starting to go the way it should.
Another fifty years, and I’ll be a household name. And beyond that (fanfare) brand recognition!

But I am just being stupidly flippant – it was good, and it saved an otherwise average day.


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Change in perspective

Last night my PC monitor died. So I went to my father’s den – a room we now use as storage – and retrieved another monitor: as an old PC user, I go by the mantra “always salvage the old hardware.” So in about half an hour I had the new monitor up and running. No sweat.

And it’s been a nice step forward – the old monitor was small and cramped, and it had been going progressively darker for months. Not a great problem when writing is concerned, but all my images and covers where someway off. The “new” monitor is an LCD widescreen thing that feels like I’m in the middle of a wide open field. Great.

On the other hand, this will cost me two days of work.
For some mysterious reason, any time I update my system – be it changing the monitor, or updating my Linux OS to the next version – for two days I suffer from working paralysis. Or maybe I should call it Update Related Laziness.
I start toying around, uploading silly new software and dis-installing old one, I try this and that, and basically waste two days playing with the new stuff.
I think it’s a little like breaking in a new pair of shoes: before you take them on a hike, you need to soften and “own” them.
Or maybe it’s just me.

So, let’s get ready for another 36 hours of meaningless doodling.
Stuff like playing Reversi while listening to a podcast.
I wonder what new graphic design software I can try, today…


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Oh, well…

A story I submitted last month just bounced back… because the magazine I submitted it to went out of business. This is the second time this happens to me – in the first case, it was a story I had already sold – between the acceptance letter and the publishing, the publisher went belly up.
I could be cynical and say that’s the reason why you should always aim at paid-on-acceptance markets, but really it’s no laughing matter.

Every time a magazine or a publisher goes out of business, we, as writers and as readers, are a little poorer.

The only up side of this last sorry matter?
I had mistakenly mailed the same story to two prospect markets at the same time. Now tat problem’s solved.


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Three for December (plus two)

Like every month, I have received a series of open calls from various magazines and publishers that are looking for submission, and so I am ready to start the game of writing on spec.

Right now I have on my list

  • A post-apocalyptic story, in the Mad Max tradition, but somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
  • A vampire story (this would me my second vampire story ever… wow!)
  • A folk horror story that will be hypothetically set here in Astigianistan.

All these are in the 4000-8000 words range, and are therefore quite feasible. I plan on writing one per week this month.

Then there is the opportunity for a new weird western – the first one sold nicely, now why not go back and explore the same setting again?

Finally, there is the matter of the story I’ll need to write for my Patrons and that, due to my commitment to the Seven Lives project, will feature a cat in some way or other. Maybe a story of the Corsair?

Apart from this, I am working on a new RPG setting that is very promising and is at the same time different enough from my themes and close enough to my interests to make this job quite interesting. But that’s for the future.


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Hamlet, James Bond and Rick Blaine

A new book in my ever-growing collection of volumes about writing, Hamlet’s Hit Points is somewhat different, because it is a book at least nominally aimed at game masters willing to improve the structure of their roleplaying scenarios, upping their game. But in laying down the foundations of a system to structurally map stories, Robin D. Laws manages to create a tool that works for games, for fiction and for movies/screenplays.

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Guillotine Wind, a preview

In a few days, my patrons will receive their copy of Guillotine Wind, a novella that celebrates the second year of my Patron page and is also part of the Seven Lives project. The stories in the projects will reprise characters from some of my series – we’ve had a Buscafusco story already, then we’ll get a new Corsair story,a new Aculeo & Amunet story, and so on.

Guillotine Wind is something special, because it is part of a series (of two series, actually), but is also a first in its series. The debut story.
Straight historical adventure, ready to roll.

Yesterday my Patrons got a chance to see the first chapter of the new story – a rough, unedited draft.
I am now sharing this here with you because, who knows, you might get curious and decide to check out my Patreon and the story.
Enjoy!

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