Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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New year’s clean-up (and hot soup)

The idea of going out for a pizza and some talk with my friends on Twelfth Night was good, because I needed to recharge my batteries – and as a result I wrote two stories in two days afterwards. But I also caught some kind of seasonal bug, so now here I am eating hot veggie soup, wrapped in seven layers of blankets.

And because I am too wrecked to do anything intelligent, I am tweaking a few of my things: I’m cleaning up the Patreon profile, launching a new Pinterest account specifically for this blog, and I might do some smaller changes to Karavansara.
Like, a new header, or something.
No hope of sleeping anyway.
Don’t panic should you see things change and then change again in the next few hours.


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Second submission: flash fiction

I’m well pleased with myself – not only I sent off the second submission of the year (I’ll have to put a counter here somewhere), but it’s a 1000-words flash fiction, a format I am always very uneasy with. I tend to be a long-winded sort of guy. I like long dialogues, and that’s not necessarily the best thing to do in a flash.

One thing I found works just fine is to have a strong idea of the conclusion. I’d go as far as to say that the last line should be the first thing to write, in a flash fiction.

Anyway, the story is now in the hands of the editors – and their judgment will be final. In the meantime, I’ll start working on the next short-short story. It would be nice to have it finished by tonight – 1500 words, no more.


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Something new: the Takeaway Interviews

It’s been now more than one year since I first decided I’d reprise on Karavansara the old cycle of interviews that I had done on my Italian blog, called “Pizza, Chinese or Kebab”. The idea was to interview writers, game designers and other people of a creative bend. Then things got out of hand, as usual, and time passed. But now here we are…

The new series will be called The Takeaway Interviews, and I will try and get involved a few people whose work you can find in English – be it stories or games – and a few artists.

The first interview is being edited, and I have a long list of targets – but if you want to suggest someone, please do in the comments, and I’ll see if I can reach them.


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Where’s the remake? Krull (1983)

One day someone will compile a list of all bad ideas in movie history, and very close to the top of the list there will be, I am certain, the words “Let’s make the next Star Wars.”

Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious and setting yourself a big bold target, but the problem with “let’s make the new (whatever)” is that the ghost of whatever it is you are trying to outclass will haunt your production. Which can be bad. Really bade.

Case in point, a movie that was supposed to be “the next Star Wars”, and suffered for it, a lot: Krull. And I re-watched it the other night.

Continue reading →


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The first submission of the year

I have just mailed off to the editor the first submission of the year, a 3100 words story called The Melancholy of Princess Bilkis – a Tale of Zothique. As I have mentioned in a previous post, this is for me the opportunity to publish a story in celebration of Clark Ashton Smith, an author I greatly admire.

I wrote the whole story last night, starting at 1 am and finishing at 7 am. As soon as I finished my story, LibreOffice, which I used for the final edit and revision, froze three times in ten minutes, each time forcing me to recover the text and start anew. And then my PC hung, and restarted itself.

Let’s consider these hangups a sign that my story is good, and will probably sell, and the ghosts that haunt my house once again tried to make my life a little harder.


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Stoic Week day 7: Nature

The final day of the Stoic Week takes us to the Stoic view of Nature, which is at the same time naive and perceptive. We will need to reconcile it with our own modern view, which is in itself an interesting exercise.

The works of the gods are full of providence, and the works of fortune are not separate from nature or the interweaving and intertwining of the hings governed by providence. Everything flows from there. Further factors are necessity and the benefit of the whole universe, of which you are a part. What is brought by the nature of the whole and what maintains that nature is good for each part of nature. Just as the changes in the elements maintain the universe so too do the changes in the compounds.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.3

We know, living on a world in which resources are rapidly waning and that is slowly turning into a trap from which our civilization might not get out alive, that Nature is not so benign and constant in nurturing us.

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A reminder for my Patrons

And for everybody else, too: the first batch of recommendations in the Odds and Ends series was posted yesterday to my Patreon page. It features:

  • two books (one heavily discounted, the other free)
  • a book bundle
  • a documentary you can watch on Youtube
  • a free online course for book lovers
  • a virtual field trip to ancient Egypt
  • and a free game app

Check it out if you are my Patrons and you missed it, and if you feel like, please give me feedback. I’m having quite a lot of fun sifting through the web for items to include in these posts, but I’d like to know what you’d like to see.

Thank you!