Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Writing


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My first writing contest

I do not normally take part in literary contests – I’m too old to benefit from a newcomer’s award, and I am too young and too little known (and too alive) to run for a career or in memoriam award. Also, I had my fill, back when I was in university, of people that strutted around with a peacock tail of award certificates for their stories and poetry – usually awards handed out by the corner stationery shop or the local bakery.
I am also extremely wary of the “if you win we will publish you” awards from publishers – because that’s too often a publisher just doing their job (you know, publishing) but making look special what’s basically an open call.

Prejudiced, yes I am.

And yet, one of my works was longlisted for a major award a few weeks back (it did not go beyond the longlist) and today for the first time in my life I submitted a story of mine to a major writing award – the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award.
That is sort of a publisher doing their job but calling it special sort of thing.
But I did it anyway.

Why?
Well, basically because a friend posted on his Facebook profile the award announcement, and I happened to read it just as I had here on my desktop a short story, in the historical fantasy field, that might fit the bill.
There is no entry fee (which is good) and there’s a prize in cash.
And Baen is the publisher of a few of my favorite authors and books. It would be nice to be part of that.
And it would be silly not to try, right?

So here I am, at the tender age of 53 and with a good list of publications, waiting for the results of my first literary award.
It’s a weird world, uh?


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Buzz on Tint Journal

Tint Journal, is theĀ online literary magazine for English as a Second Language (ESL) creative writers, and in the spring issue that’s just been published you will find my flash fiction Buzz, together with other 24 pieces by authors from all over the world. The map shows were we all come from.

I am very proud of being in Tint Journal, as my status as a bilingual writer has always been somewhat a gray area – something I am sure I have mentioned in the past.
But here we are, Buzz is here exactly because of my bilingual status.
And it’s a great thing being on Tint Journal, because this is my first “literary” publication. Yep, just like the real guys, I’m writing literature.
The story is illustrated with a very evocative work by Patricia Falkenburg, and if you are willing to run the risk, you can also listen to the story read in my own ugly voice.
The lot, for free – but I urge you to support Tint Journal on Patreon.


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Something I hated for over thirty years

Last night, chatting with my players online in a lull of our weekly game, I mentioned the fact that right now I am not able to sit down and read a good book. Or even a not-so-good book.
Fact is, I am working on the double to fulfill a number of writing contracts.
And this is good.
But at the end of the day, my brain is so spent, I can’t read anymore – I can’t focus on what’s on the page.

I am writing on the double – almost literally – a story I’ve sold to a very high profile anthology, and a story I hope to sell to another very high profile anthology. And in the meantime, I am working on a ghostwriting gig.

And here’s the rub – to write my client’s book, I need to transcribe a few hours of interviews. The sort of work that Erle Stanley Garnder handed out to an army of typists. But alas, I am no Erle Stanley Gardner, and I must do my own typing.

I always hated it.
Back when I was in university, the Petrography course was one of the great watersheds in the Geology curriculum – you followed the course, and then you failed the exam. Repeatedly.
And so you took the course again the following year. And you failed the exam again. And again.
The course was four months of lessons. Three days a week, eight hours of lecturing per day. Even while you were doing the practical on the microscope, the teacher was lecturing you.
So people started bringing recorders to class – and then, to type down the recorded lessons.
And I hated it.
Because it’s not true, what they say, that by listening to the tapes while you transcribe the text, you memorize it better.
It’s a long, boring, soul-crushing chore.
And that’s what I am doing now.

But hey, it’s a well paid job, so no complaining.
Only, I’d like to be clear-headed enough, after dinner, to enjoy a good book.
Or even a not-too-good book.

In the end, I passed that exam.
Petrography was my last exam, and I prepared it while working by night in a phone switch station – ironically, taping calls to ensure quality control.
How I did it?
I ditched the suggested book the teacher told us to use, and found a good book instead.
Bang, done. And no tapes involved.


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Not a country for writers

Last night my fried Hell (yes, they really call him like tat) got royally pissed off at Lavie Tidhar, the multi-award winning author of Central Station and many other great books.
Hell is an excellent writer and an equally excellent editor – indeed, he served as co-editor on a few of my projects. He’s got a fun series of SF novels set in the fictional desert town of Perfection, in a future world in which everything’s slowly unwinding, and humans co-exist with sexy robots and mutant desert foxes. He’s self-publishing his work in Italian.
Hell’s work’s been often compared to Tidhar’s in terms of complexity, irony and energy, and the two authors were born one month apart from each other.
Only, you all know who Lavie Tidhar is, and none of you ever heard about Germano Hell Greco. How come?

Continue reading →


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Beginnings

In the last year, keeping my Patreon up to date has been hard – in part because of the general sense of fatigue that weighed me down, in part because of the need to try and sell everything I was writing, in order to cover the bills and buy food.
So yes, I have been a very bad Patreon Creator – and I have lost a few Patrons because of this, and I am really sorry, because these are people I have let down.

But now things are, if not looking up, at least no longer looking sideways, and I’ve just started a new series of Patrons-only posts, in which I will pick the opening of a novel or short story, and analyze it, to see what the author did, what work the first lines do in the economy of the book.

These are short posts, that I will upload both in English and Italian, and are a fun way to look at writing technique and, maybe, discover new and old books.
Being short, I can manage to put up two per week, for as long as I have novels to examine. Half the posts about the openings will be uploaded in the weekends, and go to all my Patrons, and the other half will be available only to the stalwarts of the Five Bucks Brigade. These I will post during the week.

For starters, I have posted the opening of C.S. Forester’s classic adventure novel, The African Queen, for all my supporters, and the opening of Daniel Kehlmann’s Thirty Years War fantasy Tyll for my Five Bucks Patrons only.