There were sixteen Italians in Tietsin in 1901.
These are the things one learns doing historical research.
And one can also get an article out of it, and sell it. Because bills won’t pay themselves. Continue reading
Two nights ago something happened that has to do with the book I am writing and that I think I will inflict you.
You have been warned.
Basically, and this is no secret, I am writing a big sea-monster story. A bunch of researchers get on a boat and go looking for a monster. Many shenanigans ensue.
There are four “building blocks” to this story, four pieces I must get right for the story to work.
The first is the monster. Continue reading
I’ve been interviewed.
I don’t know when or where the interview will be published, but it will be in Italian anyway, and for all I know my bits could be cut in the end.
But, something interesting came up during the interview and I thought I’d expand on the subject a bit here on Karavansara because… well, because as I said the question was interesting, because I think it might be worth expanding upon and yes, I love talking about myself and what I do.
So, like that man said, I suffered for my art, now it’s your turn… Continue reading
As it usually happens, once I get to the bottom of a story, and I have it packed and delivered – to a publisher, or to Amazon or Gumroad – I basically collapse like an old wreck.
It’s not anything extraordinary – it happens to a lot of writers, and I think it can be applied to any creative job, or any job at all, in which you have to keep your brain on constantly.
I actually read and studied what happens during the writing process, and it is a fascinating topic.
Let me tell you about it. Continue reading
Excellent old article from LifeHacker
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, or if you follow my other blog, or are on my Patreon, you know that I usually have a lot of projects going at the same time.
Writing, translating, courses.
My timetable is in a constant state of flux, and projects get announced, started, sidetracked, shelved, rebooted, cancelled1, dropped, picked up, dropped again, etcetera.
The main reason for this is, bills keep coming, and with them the financial ghosts my late father left behind, that appear in the mailbox once every few months, unexpectedly, and set us back a few hundred euros for overdue taxes, unpaid fines or what.
So, paying projects are priority.
Always.
And projects that do not pay for their keep get shelved.
Which means of course that sometimes I have to leave behind ideas that I really like to do some thankless job that covers expenses like, right now.
This is not complaining, or whining or cursing Fate during a thunderstorm like Elric used to do. It is a simple assessment of the facts at the time of writing.
This said, ideas keep coming, and I like to post them on the blog because it’s a nice way to stake a claim, and also a way to pressure me into doing something with the stuff.
And who knows, maybe someone’s interested.
After all, How do you get your ideas is still the most frequent question we get asked.
So, consider, if you will, the following. Continue reading
My friend Yuri hates me, or so he says.
The problem emerged after my public writing session last week. Basically I sat down for five hours typing, and two days later I had a story to sell1. Yuri mentioned on Facebook the fact that he’d been staring at a blank page for a while, and therefore he hates me.
My answer to that was that he’d spent too much time thinking. You’ve got to start typing, I said. If after five pages you still don’t know where your story is going, then you have a problem.
Another friend of mine, Paolo, butted in, saying that following my rule, he’d never have written one of his recent stories – a big hard sf tale.
A good starting point for a discussion, but Facebook is not a good place for discussions of writerly survival. So, let me see if I can put this thing in some order here, and try to explain what’s going on.
This might be the first of a series of posts, I don’t know. Continue reading
Karavansara 