Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Writing


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Of Seances and Egyptian Goddesses

And so we did it.
Oh, what a night! (yes, just like the old Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons hit.)

Part 1 – The Seance

Google Hangouts acted up a bit during my hangout session with my Italian supporters from Patreon. A lot of

“Can you hear me?”
“Are you there?”
“I can Hear you, can you hear me? Give me a sign if you can…”

Next time we’ll use a Ouija Board. And there will be certainly a next time, because it was a lot of fun and, for me, a mighty injection of good cheer and positive attitude.
Writing, we have said it before I think, is a lonely business, and we often wonder at what’s happening out there, with our readers. Well, Patreon and this hangout thing is certainly helping bring writers and readers together in a fun way.
We’ll do it again.

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Part 2 – The Boy’s Night Out

In the end that guy was right, and three thousand words were on the page after about two hours.
Ooops.
In the end, I ditched my plan for a 2-characters/3000-words story, and let Nennius Britannicus and the boys take the story where it needed to go.
End result: 6000 words in 5 hours, making lots of pauses. Good going.

This, despite a 2 AM call from a call center somewhere, with a guy trying to sell me a table & chairs set for my garden. Continue reading →


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Twelve hours to go

Tonight’s the night.
No, not a rather sucky and sinister Rod Stewart song.

patreon_iconAt 9 PM, local time, I will set up a hangout with my Italian Patrons, to have a chat after months the guys support me. I’m really excited about this, because I owe big time to these people, and it will be great to finally talk to them, and discover what they like, what they think.
It will also be a way out of this hole of a backwater country village in the Astigianistan hills.
I can’t wait.

Then, at the stroke of midnight (actually 11 PM UTC), I’ll fire up Google Docs, and I’ll do my first session of public writing.
One-Two-Three: One problem, Two characters, Three thousand words.

Gray Vintage Typewriter English Language Day Social Media Graphic

So here’s some preliminary notes on how I’m preparing myself for the event, in case you are interested. Continue reading →


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Erle Stanley Gardner’s Trick

The writer’s life would be ideal but for the writing. That was a problem I had to overcome. Then, I read in the Guinness Book of Records about Erle Stanley Gardner – the world’s fastest novelist – who can dictate up to the rate of ten thousand words a day. That was for me. None of that romantic stuff with a typewriter. I had better uses for those two particular fingers.

The quote above is from a 1972 movie called Pulp, featuring Michael Caine as a rather sleazy pulp novelist that gets involved in a complicated – and in the end pretty ludicrous – caper with mobsters, killer and what else.

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The bit about Erle Stanley Gardner is true. Continue reading →


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Paid to fail

Something funny just happened, like, one hour ago.
As you can imagine, I am trying to spread the news of my public writing session this Saturday (less than 72 hours to go!): it’s a publicity stunt, it’s an experiment I want to try, it’s going to be fun, I like the idea of entertaining my fans and acquiring new ones, I want as wide an audience as possible.
. One problem.
. Two characters.
. Three thousand words.
I set my time for the thing to five hours – and one commentator on my Italian blog pointed out that five hours is a lot of time to write a three thousand words story from scratch, in English.
There is always someone who’s faster on the draw than us, out there, always someone whose kung fu is stronger than ours.

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So I said I’d be happy to reduce my time, down to a minimum of two hours, as long as someone is willing to pay me 100 Euro for each hour I cut.
Shell out 300 quid, and I’ll do it in two hours.
And I’ll do it.
But apparently that’s too much.

And because it is my absolute conviction that, like Steely Dan said, you gotta walk it the way you talk it, I’ve set up a donation button on my Italian blog, and I will cut ten minutes for every 25 Euro the punters will pay me, or 30 minutes for a single special discounted 50 Euro donation. Down to a minimum of two hours.
This is, after all, the age of crowdfunding.

And I do love the idea of being paid by those that wish to see me fail.

I’ll keep you guys posted about the developments.
Saturday night is going to be pretty interesting, I guess.


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As Easy as 1-2-3

I’m checking out time zones.
As I explained in a post a few days back, I’m going to do a public writing experiment – I’ll write using Google Documents and share the link with the public, so that you will be able to look over my shoulder as I do it.

Gray Vintage Typewriter English Language Day Social Media Graphic

I do not know if it will work, but I am willing to try.
With a modicum of luck, it should take me about five hours to do the trick.
Or I will crash and burn, who knows. Continue reading →


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Testing the Hemingway App

Improve-your-Writing-Skills-with-the-Hemingway-App-06I’m experimenting with the Hemingway App.
I found out about it early this morning, and I decided to give it a spin.
The Hemingway App is free, and promises to improve my English, so, why not?
I am using it to check this post, and I’ll add the software’s observations between square brackets, so that you an get an idea.
[for instance, this phrase was flagged as hard to read – and the verbs in this sentence were tagged as passive voice] Continue reading →