Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Writing


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Crows & Foxes

About one year ago, before all hell broke loose, and before I found myself trapped into the Ghostwriting Job from Hell, I started working on a project I called The Conversations of Crows and Foxes.
I even announced it on my Patreon.

Then, as we know, everything went to hell in a handbasket, but the idea remained – I’d love to write a series of imaginary folk tales, using them to explore a secondary world, a fantasy land different from ours, but not too different.

As it usually happens, the project has laid dormant for twelve months, but today I received a copy of this photo…

… and it looks like it’s time to get to work.

It makes you wonder what they are talking about, right?


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Back to high school

Today’s challenge is writing a 5000-words horror story that’s due for submission by Monday. I have the story outlined, and I’ve set down the first 2000 words – which also means the story will probably be closer to 6000 than 5000 – but it’s OK, because the top hard limit is 10.000 words, so I’m fine.
And yes, I have been told that all this talking about word-count and required lengths and other “technicalities” detracts from True Art(R) and impoverishes my Muse(R), because imagination should be free-flowing and unbound.
I have been told that.
By people that never published a single line of work.

Incidentally, I believe that discipline and restraints help creativity.
So, on we go with my horror story, and as the two characters are about to face the monster and fight for their lives, I’m taking a pause for a cup of tea.

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The long and short of it

The Shortlist for the BSFA Award‘s been published, and I am not in it.
Ah, what a pity.
But this was my first, if marginal, nomination for an international professional award, and it was great as long as it lasted. It means I’m doing something right, sometimes.
For the rest, as the Buddha said, expectations are the root of suffering, and indeed I held no expectations – for this reason I say that not making the Shortlist is a pity, but actually not a disappointment.

On the plus side, the interview I gave one month ago to the local newspaper and apparently was lost or otherwise disappeared and vanished, will now probably resurface. And they’ll get my name right this time.

Back to writing.


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What a week!

Sometimes life gets better than fiction – and mind you, I write thrillers, fantasy and horror, stuff featuring pigmy zombie cannibals, so that “better” must be taken with a grain of salt.
A big grain of salt.

Last summer, while the pandemic was all the rage and the nation was going in and out of lockdown, some of my power bills got lost – never delivered, for some reason or other. I tried to get in touch with my power company, and got dead letter on the whole front – no reply to my mails, perpetual muzak on the phone.
I worried, but not that much – I mean, services companies always find a way to get their money, right?
So I waited for a signal.
I paid the bills as they came, and waited for developments.

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Bilingualism is good(-ish)

If you’re here you probably know in a perfect world I should be out there chasing dinosaurs (if, admittedly, very small dinosaurs – I am a micropaleontologist) but due to a number of events, I am currently paying my bills by writing. And it’s working out fine. True, right now they have cut my electricity, but it’s their error, not mine – the bills have been paid.

Has I have said often in the past, if you want to make a living writing, you need to write a lot, and you need to sell on the English-language market: more opportunities, more readers, better payments (or, compared to what often happens in Italy, even just plain payments).

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Hey, this seems to be working!

This week I pitched a new story to an anthology, and wrote and submitter four short stories to as many magazines and anthologies. And this is very good, because as I mentioned, the last weeks of 2020 and the first weeks of 2021 had been a bit slow, and I was having a hard time writing.

And the fun thing is, I have developed a new modus operandi that, at least with 3000-words stories (this being the word-count of my four submissions this week) seems to work just fine.
So, why not write about it?

Here’s what I am doing.

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The fun of being absent-minded

Today my plans were thrown in disarray because as the clocks struck midnight – or thereabouts – Amazon delivered the latest ebook by Aliette de Bodard, the novella Fireheart Tiger, that I had pre-ordered when it had been announced.
I tend to use preorders on Amazon sparingly, because my credit card is usually on a rollercoaster, and it’s unpleasant to receive the email saying “funds insufficient”. But it’s a good feature.
Of course, then I forget about the preorder, and the book turns into a surprise package.

I also had a brief discussion about miss De Bodard’s penchant for novella-length fiction – something some local readers find unpleasant, while I think it’s absolutely perfect. As I grow old, I find short stories and novellas to be a lot more to my taste than super-massive trilogies – and indeed, short stories, novelettes and novellas are also what I like writing, not just reading.

So, my planned day of writing was derailed by the new book – but I managed to write 2000 words of a new short story, a Gothic tale featuring a ghost (of course) and a monster, and a sinister finishing school for young women. Now I’ll let the story rest, and then I’ll revise it and send it to the prospect market for which I’ve written it.