Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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The formula

This morning I spent a few minuted talking with a friend and colleague about a book he has abandoned halfway through and about which I never went beyond the Amazon preview. In about of self-assuredness, I mentioned the fact that a book like that I can write in two weekends. Which was not meant literally, but close to it. Let’s say I can crank out ten thousand words a day – two weekends, starting on Friday evening, would mean 50.000/60.000 words in two weekends.
Nice and smooth.

I mentioned this to another friend, about half an hour ago – she’s writing a series, and she was taking a break, and we exchanged a few messages. The point of the discussion was – the time-consuming part is not typing (and she’s a much faster typist than I am), but coming up with good ideas.
Ideas about plot twists, character traits and interactions, ideas about dialogue.
Good ideas and the research to stimulate and back them are the critical point, and they are time consuming.

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The Mako Mori test

The Bechdel Test has been used in these last few years as an index of the degree … something.
Basically to pass the Bechdel test, a story (originally a movie, but it works for any narrative) must feature two female character, both with a name, that share a dialogue in which they do not talk about a man.
It’s been pointed out that the Bechdel test – that originally started as a joke in a satirical comic strip – is a useful tool to spot gender inequality, but beyond that, it’s very much a matter of hand-waving.

A story can pass the Bechdel and still be a pile of drivel, while a story can fail it spectacularly and still be a good, solid, fun and significant story.
Case in point?
Debbie does Dallas passes the Bechdel, Fistful of Dollars does not.
Ouch.

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Girls flying airplanes

Today I read something that made me feel very old, and rather uneasy. On my friend’s Lucy’s blog she was talking about the latest Marvel movie, the one featuring Captain Marvel, and she observed that while comic-book-based films have a number of drawbacks, she still welcomes a movie that might inspire some young girl to become a jet pilot or an astronaut.
And I was drinking to that, when somebody commented…

I can’t see what’s good about suggesting to a girl to become a pilot

And my head hit the desktop with a deep, hollow Tunc!, like a wooden bowl.

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On the first long walk of 2019

Today has been a good day. Nice weather, sunny with a light breeze, and we spent the day with a visiting relation that surprised us. And I mean surprised us as in “Oh, my good, our house is a dump!”
But we survived, and spent the day rambling about the countryside.

I have tons of work to do, actually, and “wasting” a whole day completely screwed up my schedule – never mind it’s Sunday – but on the other hand it was not a day wasted. It was a day spent to clear our systems after a long winter spent locked up in our house, trying to keep the cold away.
For us, this is the beginning of the best part of the year, before the torrid summer months.

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Bullet to the moon

I first saw First Men in the Moon, the 1964 movie when I was a kid of six or seven, and I enjoyed it enormously. I was after all a kid of the Apollo generation, and stories about journeys to the moon were in the news back then.

In case you missed it, First Men in the Moon is a Nigel Kneale adaptation of an H.G. Wells novel published in 1901, directed by Nathan Juran featuring special effects by Ray Harryhausen, and the original novel (that you can download for free from Project Gutenberg) was an inspiration to both C.S. Lewis and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
It’s the story – you guessed it – of an Victorian mission to the moon, courtesy of the inventions of professor Joseph Cavor.

Now it turns out the actual Apollo moon landing will provide the theme for this years’s Play gaming fair in Modena – and there will be a selection of moon-themed goodies. including not one, but two Hope & Glory… things.

Moon-things, if you will.

And yes, I am currently doing four writing jobs at the same time, one of which is a brief Hope & Glory scenario about the first men in the moon.
That old movie I first saw as a kid will provide some ideas, but there’s a lot more brewing.

Stuff like a secret volcano base and a moon-gun ready to shoot a band of courageous adventurers on a one-way trip to our pale-faced satellite.

My weekend just turned a lot more strange than it was.


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Odds and Ends, Blue Moon Edition

I have just posted a special “Once in a Blue Moon” edition of Odds and Ends to my patrons. This month has FIVE weekends, so we’ll get one extra issue of this column for all of my Patrons. And we have a collection of Chinese SF, a complete Odyssey package, an elegant and unusual period comedy of manners, all you need to play backgammon and a kickstarter for Old School gamers.
Because it’s good to be my patrons.