Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Writing


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Better Never Told: day 3

Third day, and five thousand words done, and it was harder than I expected.
In part because all of a sudden I found myself lost, with the classic “where do we go from here?” moment of panic, and in part because my friend Marina (that will be a beta reader when this adventure is over) found a way to distract me at about 500 words from the finish line.
But I made it.

Now Rose, the main character, is fully rounded, and motivated.
We know her background, and know she won’t give in when faced with darkness.
The seeds of future discoveries have been planted, and evil has made its first incursion in the ordered and quiet life of Rose.
Now the dread “first third” of the novel lurks – and tomorrow I’ll have to write 6000 words, and that’s gonna be a true challenge – the first glimpse of the hardships to come.

But I’ll make it.
If I’m not too distracted – because Marina pointed out to me the new Humble Bundle, that for fifteen bucks drops in your hard disk every strip ever published (and a lot never published before from Berkley Breathed’s Bloom County.
And you also help a charity. Isn’t the internet beautiful?
That’s why I wasted half an hour tonight: to get me my share of Bloom County, one of my all-time favorite series. I’ll be downloading digital comics for weeks, but it will be worth the wait.

BloomCountySDCC

As a side note, I wrote today’s 5000 words without a musical background.

Now a short break, and then I’ll prepare a post for tomorrow.


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The Road of Kings: Conan and Italian Opera (probably)

Sometimes good ideas are not.
Foreign-sounding names for characters, for instance.
Apart from the vaguely Welsh/Gaelic/Tolkienoid elves and the alphabet soup of Lovecraftian monsters (of which my favorite, if apocryphal, remains “Shuub-Wankalot”), a name can make or break a character.
A basic trick I was taught long ago when naming secondary characters in my fantasy stories is to select a geographic area that somehow has the same feel of the place from which my character comes, get a map, jot down a few place names, and then tweak them a little, moving vocals around or cutting and pasting names.
Et voilà, instant names for characters.

The method can backfire spectacularly – in the 1959 version of Journey to the Center of the Earth we meet Frau Göteborg, as portrayed by gorgeous Arlene Dahl; the scriptwriters thought that, if London and Washington are legit family names for Brits and Yanks, then Swedish ladies could be called Göteborg, the second largest city in Sweden. They were wrong.
Much hilarity ensued when the movie was distributed in Sweden.

MBDJOTO FE010

The name is Goteborg, Frau Goteborg.

But there’s an even more spectacular example of “foreign” sounding names backfiring. A case in which a fine, no indeed an excellent writer, played fast and loose with naming conventions, and probably having listened to a few opera records too many, created a surreal experience for some of his readers.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Karl Edward Wagner’s Conan and the Road of Kings. Continue reading →


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Better Never Told: day 2

Day two is gone, I did my 4000 words, and I also met a little problem.
Nothing technical, really.

Just like on day one, I started at 6 pm, and in half an hour I hammered out a nice 500-words scene. Then I stopped, I took a walk – I had been working at a translation all day long – and then prepared dinner.
CoverI was back at the keyboard at 7.40, with Imelda May’s latest album, Life, Love, Flesh, Blood, going as background.
And I got a call from a friend. I set up her blog about eight months ago, but sometimes in these months she decided she did not like the way it looked anymore, so she tried to change it herself, and basically made a mess.
As a result, I spent until 9 pm doing virtual help desk duty.
For free.

So, rule for survival: when you are writing a novel in seven days, tell your friends and family what you are doing.
They will not care anyway, of course – after all, you are just sitting there and making stuff up, it’s not like a phone call, a chat session, a quick drive to the 7-11 or practicing the Heimlich maneuver to their pet goat is gonna cause you any distraction or waste any of your time.
No, they won’t care, but if you tell them, at least you won’t blame yourself for not telling then.

Anyway, at 9 pm I cracked up Imelda May and got rolling, doing two sessions with an half an hour break, ending at 11.40 with 4200 words in the bag. This brings the total word count of the first two days at 7450, giving me a bonus of 450 words – about half an hour of leisurely writing.

Tomorrow I must hit 5000, and things will start getting serious.
But the morale is good, the story seems to be going in the right direction, and tomorrow I’ll unplug my phone and my web connection, to be on the safe side.


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Better Never Told: Day One

OK, first day done, and it was quite fine – so far so good.

Kitchen egg timerI did not change my routine today: I was able to go to the post office, do some shopping, cook lunch and then take care of my mail and socials.
I translated 3000 words on a project I’ll have to nail shut in two days, I helped my publisher revising a translation I did for him, and then I wrote a post about writing and prostitution for my Italian blog (don’t ask). I even did my Duolingo exercises (and I am now on 8th level in both Spanish and French – great way to dust off old skills, Duolingo).

I set up a file for Better Never Told on Scrivener, creating eight text documents: one for the front matter, and the other seven one for each day.
I plugged in my earphones in the PC, and I started listening to some music, to avoid external interferences.
Today’s choice: Liege & Lief by the Fairport Convention, and Hourglass by Kate Rusby (so maybe this is the reason why she is mentioned in the story). Continue reading →


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42K words in 7 days? OK, let’s do it.

It must be an April sort of thing.
In April 2012 I wrote a novel in six days – I started on the 25th of April and finished on the night of the first day on May.
deathisnoobstacleI did it because I wanted to test what Michael Moorcock said in the lengthy interview he did with Colin Greenland, published as Death is no Obstacle.
Moorcock talked about writing a fantasy story in three days – and I planned taking twice as much to be on the safe side.
I was also pretty fed-up with the talk about art, inspiration and the writer being some sort of mutant that taps some unknown source of writing power and blah blah blah.
To me writing is skill, dedication and hard work. It’s a craft, it can be learned. There’s nothing mystical to it.
In 2012 I got a lot of support from the readers of my Italian blog. I was also told I would fail, because I lacked the training.
But I did it, and the 40.000 words novel I wrote in 2012, Beyul Express, became the first part of what was later published as The Ministry of Thunder – writing it was fast, revising and editing it took a lot of time.
Well, now I have the training. And I have the Dean Wesley Smith structure, from Writing a Novel in Seven Days.
So that’s what I’m doing – starting on the night of the 24th (Monday) and finishing on the night of the 30th. Continue reading →


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Wine, sex and folk horror (and other things)

Despite the general sleepiness that comes with Spring, I’m trying to clear my desk of my backlog of stories, articles and translations I need to deliver to my clients, and in the meantime I’m trying to work on a pair of submissions and a couple of self-published things.
The new Buscafusco story is 75% done, and I’d like to nail its box shut by the end of the month.
acheron_the__ministry_of_thunderAlso, the Dean Wesley Smith book Writing a Novel in Seven Days is making me itchy to try. As I mentioned, I did it once already, and the novel I wrote in eight days later became The Ministry of Thunder, of which I am well pleased, as are my readers (eight 5-star reviews! hooray!)
Now I’m wondering if it would be feasible to try and do a 42.000 words story about Aculeo & Amunet.
And then there is the bit about local traditions and folk horror. About six months ago I promised a friend a novel a-la Dan Brown to stimulate interest in the territory and lure tourists in these hills. Part of that project became the Buscafusco series, but the idea of a horror story set in the Piedmontese vineyards sounds more attractive every day. And as per original plan, might make enough people curious to give a minimal boost to local tourism.
Now, as I think I mentioned, the local spook-du-jour are the masche sort of witches/hags of peasant tradition – and my friend Fabrizio Borgio is an expert on the subject.
BUT, in a twist of research madness, I decided to look at another tradition that might provide ample food for stories… even Aculeo & Amunet stories.
Because this is a wine country, and wine means Dionysus. Continue reading →