Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Odds & Ends on Patreon

They say we should always steal from the best, and they are right. Case in point: writer and game designer Shanna Germain has just launched her Patreon page, and among the perks she is offering to her Patrons there is a curated collection of cool stuff – free or inexpensive – that she likes, and that she thinks her Patrons might like too.

And that’s a great idea, and one worth stealing.
After all, I already do something similar with the Karavansara University and in Italian with my strategie evolutive book club, and a weekly collection of cool stuff for my Patrons sounds like the perfect thing to expand my Patreon offer.
I might call it Odds and Ends.

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Hotel rooms and airports

There’s this story I heard a few days ago, that goes like this:

Q: How do you know that a stand-up comedian is being too successful?
A: All of their new jokes suddenly are about hotel rooms, airports and comedy venues.

The risk of success is, you start working on your successful routine and you lose touch with everything else. Staying in touch with what’s out there, with everyday life, with people and events and ideas is absolutely indispensable to keep having fresh ideas.

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Off with a bang

Yesterday, the crowdfunding for the Italian-language edition of my game Hope & Glory was funded, with still over a week to go for some little extra – we’ve got a brace of stretch goals to unlock. Considering I had been told less than two weeks ago that it would be a disaster and we’d never make it, this is a great moment for me, for my partners in crime in developing the game, and for the team that worked on the crowdfunding.

And less than one hour ago I learned that my science fiction short story Sapiens has been accepted for publication in a magazine. This is a professional sale – the first this year, and the third in the batch of stories I have submitted between October the 1st and December the 31st. There are still eight stories in the loop being evaluated, and I have three more slated for submission by the end of the month.

Let’s hope this is not a flash in the pan, and that 2019 will see more of my stuff reaching the public.


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Stoic Week Day 3: Friends and relations

Say to yourself first thing in the morning: I shall meet with people who are meddling, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, and unsociable. They are subject to these faults because of their ignorance of what is good and bad. But I have recognised the nature of the good and seen that it is the right, and the nature of the bad and seen that it is the wrong, and the nature of the wrongdoer himself, and seen that he is related to me, not because he has the same blood or seed, but because he shares in the same mind and portion of divinity. So I cannot be harmed by any of them, as no one will involve me in what is wrong. Nor can I be angry with my relative or hate him. We were born for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. So to work against each other is contrary to nature; and resentment and rejection count as working against someone.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.1

The third day in the Stoic Week hits close to home – and Marcus Aurelius reminds me of a thing I’ve been repeating like a mantra for the last two years: as a writer, I am in competition only with myself, and I am (or I should be) part of a community.

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A shout out for Ghamak

And now for my next trick, I will do something completely different.

One thing I learned in my early days in the trenches as a self-publisher is, pushing my colleagues’ work costs me nothing, and it is good both for my readers – that discover something new and interesting – and for the colleagues, because this way they my reach a new audience.
And I cash in some good karma.

So, I will start pushing my friends’ work here, once in a while – new books, Patreon pages and what else. And right now I will start with something really different – Francesco A. Pizzo’s Patreon page for his Ghamak project.

Take a look at this…

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Stoic Week Day 2: Virtue

Second day of the Stoic Week, and things get complicate with the arrival on the scene of Marcus Aurelius, emperor and philosopher, and the question whether we should seek fulfillment within ourselves or through external factors. The instigating quote is…

If you can find anything in human life better than justice, truthfulness, self- control, courage […] turn to it with all your heart and enjoy the supreme good that you have found […] but if you find all other things to be trivial and valueless in comparison with virtue, give no room to anything else, since, once you turn towards that and divert from your proper path, you will no longer be able without inner conflict to give the highest honour to what is properly good. It is not right to set up as a rival to the rational and social good anything alien to its nature, such as the praise of the many, or positions of power, wealth, or enjoyment of pleasures.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 3.6
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