Short and sweet post, on Black Gate Magazine, by Violet Malan, about literary fencing and swordfighting done right.
It’s called How to Put the Sword in Sword and Sorcery.
Quick tips, excellent reading and watching list.
I’m stealing a leaf from Barry Reese here*.
In yesterday’s post on his blog, Mr Reese posted the first two episode of the old 1964 Hanna & Barbera series, Johnny Quest – and he sent me down memory lane, big time.
So I dug around the web, and found out a 2 hours 20 minutes documentary on that old series that enthralled me as a kid.
The thing is available in small installments on YouTube.
And it’s great.
And I’m posting the link here.
Excellent article about some essential writer’s skills.
It’s been a while since I have been writing regularly, but things are looking if not up, at least relatively level, so I’m slowly getting back on track.
Lots of dead weight to drop, gotta find new horizons, thatsort of stuff…
Right now, apart from working on two non-fiction projects, I’m looking for possible markets, and preparing to contribute to the second season of the collective Italian web-novel 2 Minutes to Midnight.
It’s fun, and it’s a great exercise, working on a round robin.
AND, I’m jotting down notes for a one shot modern horror tale, and for what could turn out as a series.
I was revising my hypothetical series stuff, before I started writing this post.
A series.
Adventuring, swashbuckling, some yog-sothoteries.
In other words, sword & sorcery.
Two main characters, moving from Alexandria (Aegypt) towards the heart of Central Asia, in the 4th century.
HIstory used as a generic backdrop, not as a central issue – so I’ll be playing fast and loose if the need be.
I’d like to set the earlier stories in the Mediterranean area. Continue reading
Important link!
It’s a just cause.
A quick link to the Internet Archive repository for the electronic version of Harold Lamb’s biography of Genghiz Kahn, Genghis Kahn the Emperor of all Men.
Lamb was a superb author of historical adventure, and a great biographer.
The Internet Archive allows download of the book in various formats (ePub, Moby, PDF etc)
Ok, short (?) post stimulated by this post by the always stimulating Seth Godin.
And yes, it does have to do with writing.
Now, I like Seth Godin’s piece a lot, I love his suggestions, the post in question gave me a lot of ideas, but it all collides in a rather unpleasant way with my experience.
I tell myself it’s because I’m in Italy, and he’s in the great big world out there, and yet, it is not a completely satisfactory explanation.
The idea is…
If you’re an up-and-coming band building an audience, then yes, free, free, free. It’s always worth it for you to gig, because you get at least as much out of the gig as the organizer and the audience do. But when you’ve upped and come, then no, it’s not clear you ought to bring your light and your soul and your reputation along just because some promoter asked you to.
Great.
I love that.
But, what if up-and-comingdom is the default setting of your environment? Continue reading
Karavansara 