So, I did a piece about Raygun Gothic for my Italian blog – why not do another here for Karavansara?
Now, I am not too hot on tags and labels and subgenres.
All the various “-punks” that came after cyberpunk – steampunk, dieselpunk, atompunk…
OK, they can make itr easier to find a book on a shelf, and make for great parlor games, but obsessing about such stuff is dangerous.
So, if dieselpunk is just pulp misspelled, then raygun gothic is basically atompunk without the rust. Continue reading
I am about to launch my first crowdfunding.
Everything’s set, everything’s ready.
As I mentioned in a previous post, some friends had this idea, of setting me up on a crowdfunding platform (Produzioni dal Basso, an Italian website) and then sit back and watch as people throw me change while I write a story.
It was a shock treatment to get me move my backside – I’ve been toying with the idea of crowdfunding or Patreon for almost two years now, and without a good push, I’d probably still be fidgeting.
Instead, now the deed is done.
Or at least, the whole system’s been set up. Continue reading
A short post about writing, sort of a service post, one of those I have decided to enlighten you with my wisdom sort of posts that serious writers do on their million-views blogs.
Blog gurus say that your post, to be effective and successful, must tackle a real-life problem of the readers, and provide a solution.
So, here goes: say that you have to write, and you don’t feel like it.
The clock is ticking, the wordcount-meter is dead, and you’d rather go peel some potatoes for tonight’s dinner than sit at the keyboard and write.
What do you do?
Now, I don’t know what you do, of course – and I’d like to know, so please tell me!
In the meantime, I can tell you what I do.
And maybe what works for me might work for you, too. Continue reading
So it went this way.
For my fiftieth birthday, a lot of friends decided to conspire to get me a birthday gift.
They operated in separate groups, pursuing different aims.
One of the gangs of knaves I call friend had this idea: commission me a story (in Italian) and offer it on a crowdfunding platform.
Neat, what?
And so this is what I will do in the next two months.
In the next ten days, I will study the crowdfunding platform handbook and see what I can and can’t do.
I’m thinking of perks for the backers, extra contents, the works.
If we want to do it, we might as well do it as professionally as possible. Continue reading
And so I didn’t make it.
I didn’t finish Children of Shadow in time for the Sword & Sorceress submission (12 hours left, not enough).
The fact that I spent the best part of a day walking up and down a golf course is certainly one of the reasons why I wasn’t able to nail the box of the new Aculeo & Amunet story shut.
By the time I was home yesterday night it was well past nine and I was completely spent.
There is a thing I was discussing with my friend Hell Greco1 two nights ago, that really has something to do with the unfinished Aculeo & Amunet story, that I thought may interest someone out there.
Or maybe not, in which case, skip this post. Continue reading
It has been observed—I forget where or by whom—that only kids have heroes. I’m not entirely sure that’s true, but I do think you have to stop being a fan in order to become wholly a professional. You can continue to admire and delight in the work of another writer, but if you’re slavish in your devotion, if you’re stuck in the role of full-blown fan, your own growth will be limited.
I can really relate to that.
It’s taken from The Crime of Our Lives, an excellent book by Lawrence Block, collecting the author’s essays, introductions and columns about his colleagues and his experiences in the field of genre fiction. It is not as one might think, an autobiography (and I realize the title of this post is misleading), but a collection of personal reminiscences about other people1.
It’s quite a good read – but then, I am a fan… or rather, I admire and delight in his work, without giving in to slavish devotion, and I consider Block’s Telling Lies for Fun and Profit one of the best books about writing I ever read2. And I did read a few.
OK; a moment of utter silliness…
Last night I saw a piece in New Statestman – you can find it here – about Facebook and what Facebook knows about us.
The basic idea is, you click “Like” on Facebook, their computers collect and collate the data, and they build an in-depth profile they use to aim their advertisement at you.
Yes, Facebook advertisement… those weird ads about stuff you couldn’t care less that pop up once in a while.
So, basically, you log in on Facebook, and then direct your browser here
https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences
and start laughing.
Because, admittedly, you realize how far we are from artificial intelligence – and how close we are to artificial dorkness. Continue reading
Karavansara 