How does it feel to try and learn Japanese in 30 days from one of those small handbooks called… well, Japanese in 30 Days?
An old copy of one of those books resurfaced as I tried to put some order in my library.
So… why not give it a try.
One lesson a day, every day, for the whole of March, starting tonight.
One hour after dinner.
And I’ll post about my progress.
Prizes and Books
OK, I’ll brag, but not much.
In 2012 I took part in an independent short story competition, called Hydropunk, The Drowned Century.
The competition was for stories set somewhere in a drowned version of the 20th century – high tides, sunken cities, sea monsters.
My story, called Tempi Interessanti (Interesting Times) is set in a Venice-like Shanghai of the 1940s, and features nightclub singing, Triad gangsters, a certain tentacled god and his fish-men cultists.
It was great fun to write, and it won the second prize in the competition – a quite pleasant result, considering the first prize was won by Alessandro Forlani, Italy’s most awarded young SF writer.
The story will be out in 2013 in the Hydropunk ebook anthology, together with the other winners and runner-ups.
In the meantime, I cashed in the Amazon gift voucher which was part of the prize. Continue reading
Music for Writing
Music was mentioned in a comment to one of my rambling “I’a writer, look at the way I do it!” posts a few weeks back.
I said I’ll write more on the subject of music and writing.
Here we go.
While it is not one of my favorite writing tools, I do use music when writing.
Music has, for me, three main functions :
- as a distraction filter (for me, it works far better than Focus Writer and other such software)
- as a soundtrack for my stories and for specific scenes
- and as a tool to help me define characters.
Let’s see… Continue reading
Air to Air
Tomorrow, I’ll do a piece on music and writing.
Right now, I’ll just post some great music.
Enjoy!
Ella K. Maillart
She was the best man of the coupple
I met her for the first time in Peter Fleming‘s News from Tartary, in which the English journalist and adventurer relates his experiences as a happy-go-lucky traveller in Chinese Turkestan (or Sinkiang, or Xinjan, or Tartary).
There was a certain amount of curiosity, at the time – this being 1935 – about what was happening in those territories.
So off Fleming went.
And with him, went Ella “Kini” Maillart, a young Swiss woman that, according to Fleming’s account, was the true man in the outfit.
And it is not hard to believe.
Practical, organized, strong, and fearless, Maillart was the perfect companion for Fleming. Continue reading
Karavansara 