Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Writing


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Another sprint

I’ve devoted a lot of space recently to my writing, which I realize is boring to a lot of people out there.
Sorry ’bout that. This is my last writing-related post for a while.
Fact is, you know, that talking publicly about what I am about to do forces me to stick to my guns, and actually do it. It’s good motivation.
So here is what I am about to do: I am about to spend tonight revising the last bits of Hope & Glory – the plot point campaign called The Flight of the Ostrich in particular.21844978
Then I will drop everything else for two days and spend those 48 hours doing a short story about Aculeo & Amunet.
I have a few ideas I need to sort out, I can do that tomorrow morning while I am queuing at the tax office, and then I’ll start writing, and in two days I’ll have a 6000-words story, and I will submit it to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress 32.
I learned too late that the submission window for the anthology closes on the 14th of the month, that is this Sunday. And on Saturday I am away for a job, probably.
So I will have to do a sprint-writing thing, and by the evening of the 11th at the latest I need to have my story.

The anthology guidelines specify

Stories should be the type generally referred to as “sword and sorcery” and must have a strong female protagonist whom the reader will care about.

0c6581662f0d6b2882dded6b8741c36dWill the reader care about Amunet, when she is usually so keen telling us she does not care about anybody but herself? Hopefully so.

I’d really love to get into the Sword & Sorceress anthology – apart from being an excellent market, it is also an excellent showcase for an author.

And if I’ll get tangled in some other thing and I’ll miss the deadline, because it is a well known fact that we must expect the unexpected, well, I’ll have another Aculeo & Amunet story, and I will look for other markets.

The good bit about writing is that nothing gets wasted.
But enough talking about writing!
Wish me luck.


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The wisdom of the hack

81sjDZU2pxLI’ve been asked by a friend a few suggestions about setting up a pulp-themed scenario for a roleplaying game.
And who am I to deny the masses my wisdom?
Especially when the masses acknowledge me as a pulp guru?
So here’s what I wrote him…

Writing pulp means pleasing your audience by giving them what they do not expect while promising them what they expect.
In roleplaying, your players are your audience, so the first thing is to know your players, their tastes and expectations. And then surprise them.
Easy, right?

The balance between familiarity and surprise is mainly achieved through the manipulation of clichés and tropes, with a few gimmicks to put the pressure on. Continue reading →


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Planning new stories

Now that my 42.000 words are almost in the can1, I’m thinking about what next?.
And today I chanced upon an online article that gave me an idea.
The piece, found on ListVerse through a shared link on Facebook, is called 10 Mysterious Discoveries That Still Puzzle Archaeologists, and it is worth a read. There is also a companion piece that I found equally suggestive, called 10 Stolen Pieces Of Art That Have Never Been Found.51J873XK3QL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_
No self-respecting fan of Indiana Jones could read such a list without getting ideas, right?
And I was reminded of a book I have here on my shelf, called The Seventy Great Mysteries of the Ancient World, by Brian Fagan.
That’s a database of great story ideas, right?
Granted, some of these mysteries are very technical and exciting only for someone in academia, but a lot of the stuff is good pulp-worthy food for adventure.

So, what about starting a series of stories about archaeological mysteries? Continue reading →


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A bag marked swag

I’m just out of a day in which I wrote about 15.000 words, so I’m a bit intoxicated by the fatigue and all that, and I’ll be rambling. You’ve been warned.
And I’ll start this with a song, a song I already posted in the past (I’m pretty sure about it), but believe, it’s on topic, and you should listen to it before you go on.

It’s good, isn’t it?
I love this song, and I was absolutely surprised and delighted when a while back I caught an interview of Paddy McAloon, the author and singer (and the guy that plays all instruments on this track), and he was saying that this song is not about jewel heists, but actually about writing.
And I thought, damn, yes!1
And not just because I’d love to be the Cary Grant of imaginative fiction, but because it’s right. Continue reading →


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Better Never Told, day 5

Day five came and went and I finally cashed in my extra words.
A number of practical issues came up today, and in the end I started writing at 8 pm and finished at 2 am, including a number of pauses.

Then the story got lost.
It was not supposed to happen, as I had my set pieces in order in my mind and only to put on the page, but it did not work out.
I stumbled into a single glaring logical hole at the core of my structure, and as a result, I had to backtrack and try to set things straight.

Now backtracking is never a good idea – the standard practice should be to go on writing, and just make a note, directly in the text, about the changes that will be needed in the previous chapters, to be made during revision.
That’s what I should have done, but I was foolish and I backtracked. A character shifted from thirty years of age to fifty, and more infodumps were sneaked into the structure.Fire-Rescue-Equipment-Sign-NHE-6885_300
End result: 6300 words written in almost six hours, and then I really could not take it anymore, and I cashed in my 700 words bonus,
The total word count now is 25.004. No more bonuses, no more extras.
Tomorrow I will need to write 8000 words, and 9000 on Sunday.
And then it will be done.
Wish me luck.


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Marathon or 100 meters?

The whole point, of course, is not to suck.
No, OK, let’s me get this from the start.
I was discussing with a friend, 36 hours back, whether what I am doing with my 42000 words in 7 days challenge is like running a marathon or running the 100 meters.
In other words, is it a matter of endurance or is it a matter of speed?
From what I saw so far, it is both and none of them at the same time.
Last night, I’ve been able to write 2800 words in two hours – my standard “cruising speed” when writing being roughly 1000 words per hour, this means 40% more than my usual.
On the other hand, what’s allowing me to go on is not speed, is the need to reach the current target.
It’s a matter of staying focused, and keep writing. Continue reading →


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Better Never Told: day 4

Today was the first really hard day of this challenge.
penne-allarrabiataI was expecting a heavy day, and it was just so. I started writing late, wasted some time due to an unexpected disaster (a small flooding of my kitchen due to a broken bucket) and other engagements (including cooking my killer *penne all’arrabbiata+ for dinner), and basically I started at eight and finished at 2 am, in four sessions of writing.
But it’s all right – I wrote 6100 words, further increasing my extra fund of words.
Today’s part might be deemed somewhat “infodump-y” by some, but after all there is a point in which I must give you a bit of background.
The story currently clocks at 18.700 words, and is going in the right direction.
I have the next plot points laid out clearly in my mind, and tomorrow we’ll go for the 7000 words mark.
It occurred to me that by doing this incremental thing, I’ll be writing more in the next three days than I wrote in the first four so far.
The balance, so to speak, of the story, is about to shift. Tomorrow we pass the halfway-point, and the novel begins finishing.
Or something.51+BO6eijoL

The soundtrack for today’s writing was provided by Renaissance, with their album Scheherazade and other Stories, which is quite good, and it suited the – limited – action of today’s chapters.

Now a cup of tea, and then I’ll try and write a post for tomorrow.
No, better – a mug of chamomile infusion, and  I’ll write a post tomorrow morning, so I won’t risk it disappearing again.