Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Artistic inspiration: Michael Whelan

Yesterday, while taking a break from writing, I was browsing the Facebook updates and I stumbled on an image that I remembered from my high school days.
This one.

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It is an illustration for Poul Anderson’s story Tiger by the Tail, part of the Dominic Flandry series.
It’s been thirty-five years, yet I still remember when I first saw it, and I still get the same feeling, the same thought…

I must write something like this one day or another.

The artist is the multi-award winner Michael Whelan, and I’m surprised and pleased at the number of my favorite books he illustrated. Here’s a small gallery of my favorite paintings by him.


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Doing research on the fly

No, I don’t mean the study of entomology.

I said I’d keep you posted, so here I am.
I love what I am writing – it’s an espionage thriller, so I’m not completely out of my depths.

I’m currently taking a pause after two hours and some.
I have 2000 words – prologue, first chapter introducing two of the three main characters, and a bit of the second chapter.
Much of the “bit of the second chapter” will have to go – because I’ve just seen a way to write it more dynamically.
But it’s all right, and I am about to award myself a small ice cream.

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I could have written more, but I had to do research on the fly.
And so I thought I’d do a short post on the way I handled it.
Maybe someone’s interested. Continue reading →


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20.000 in 6

Uh, WOW!
The big news is, a pitch was accepted for a story, and I have to deliver the first draft by September the 1st.
That’s 20.000 words tops, in six days.
Roughly 3500 good words per day.

I know I can make it – the pitch was accepted based on a pretty solid outline, so I know what’s going to happen, where, how, to whom.
It’s basically just a matter of sticking to schedule and do the mechanical work of pouring the story out of my somewhat overexcited brain, and onto Scrivener.

But I am happy as a child, because this is a HUGE opportunity, and it’s going to be lots of fun.
And hard work.

If you see my blog activity slack in the next days, you know the reason why.
But I’ll try and keep you posted.
Wish.
Me.
Luck.

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Cities of the Imagination

It went like this: first my friend Hell (yes, they really call him like that) did a blog post about the city he writes about, the city he was born in, Taranto. Then my friend Alex did a piece about the city he was born in, and about which he writes about, Milan.
And so I did a piece on the city where I was born, and about which I sometimes write about, Turin.
The piece that came out is weird and melancholy, and I even forgot to give it a title, and you can find it here translated through some web gizmo that I’m sure will make it even more surreal.

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But the fact is, I have written a lot more about London, Paris and Shanghai that I ever did about Turin.
And so, why not do an alternate universe sort of piece, about the towns I write about in my fiction?
My cities of the imagination, if it does not sound too pretentious, and with all due respect for both Italo Calvino and Schuiten & Peeters. Continue reading →


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Things are not what they seem

Jim Thompson said,

“There is only one plot—things are not what they seem.”

901b0c53655174228f0d3537ff46948c--bond-girl-mont-blancWhich sounds a little extreme, maybe, but it actually works, you know, and it kind of gave me a sense of relief last night.
Let me tell you about it…

I stumbled on some comic book fans venting their disappointment at a recent Tim Burton movie featuring the ever gorgeous Eva Green. The cause of their irritation: the movie is set in a school for kids with special talents.
Which makes it obviously a rip-off of the X-men movies.
Sarcasm ensues.
But… really?

Continue reading →