Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Numbers

Facebook informed me today that one year ago, on the 26th of August, I sold a short story. It was (as I posted at the time) the 15th sale of the year, out of a total 55 submissions.
I was quite happy.

As luck would have it, today I submitted a story to a magazine. It’s the 33rd submission of this year.
Which gave me pause.
This year I have written/submitted roughly 40% stories less than last year.
That’s a lot of words, and a lot of missed opportunities.
The question is – why?

I blame my Client From Hell, that just today asked for a fourth rewrite of the book I am ghostwriting for him – and taking the opportunity to once again point out what a useless git I am.

Three rewrites of a 100.000-words novel (and the associated fatigue, stress and unhappiness) make for 22 stories not written and submitted.
This is the harsh mathematics of the thing.

But on the plus side, of the 33 submission of 2020, I sold 11 so far.
There is a small sign of improvement.


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The adventure movie renaissance that never was

This post is essentially me writing trying to put some order in my ideas.
(also, it goes online with only two recycled images, because my connection is playing up)
Take it for what it is.
My friend Lucy did a post, on her blog, about The Mummy, the 1999 movie featuring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. She pointed out hos it was originally planned to be a low-budget B, and then turned into an 80-million dollars blockbuster that made an inordinate amount of money but failed to launch a true and proper old-style adventure movie renaissance.

And she’s right. Consider all the low-budget (but fun) Indiana Jones clones we got in the 80s – movies that tried to re-capture the thrill and wonder of the original Spielberg film with lower budgets and inferior talent. Where are the Mummy clones post-1999?

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I’d kill to write a story about these two characters

Autumn is obviously approaching, as ideas are once again flooding what’s left of my brain, and the need to organize the days becomes essential if I want to have a chance of doing everything and maybe be able to pay the bills. So…

  • morning – my ghostwriting project
  • lunch – put some order in the affairs of the podcast
  • afternoon – close the edit of the historical essay
  • dinner – a movie?
  • after-dinner – personal writing projects

Nice and smooth.

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Digging through Prime Video

Today I was feeling particularly lazy, and I decided to finally go through the Amazon Prime Video catalog. I have been a Prime subscriber since the word go, and I used it a lot to save on mailing expenses. But I’m buying mostly ebooks these days, and the few items I get through the mail maybe do not justify the continuing draining of about ten bucks a month from my bank account.
Ten bucks a month is 120 bucks a year – that’s a month of basic supplies or an electric bill.

So, the money Amazon Prime Video’s been getting need to be put to work – which means movies, TV series and music. Like, a lot of them.

And the first impact with the Prime video catalog was rather… uneven.

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Bandit, Samurai, Pirate

I was doing my homework for the next episode of Paura & Delirio, digging out information about the Toho classic Matango (aka Attack of the Mushroom People), and I was checking out the credits of actress Kumi Mizuno, that pretty much owns the movie from the word go.
And it was there, in the list of movies these gorgeous ex-model was cast in, that I found The Lost world of Sinbad, starring Toshiro Mifune, from 1963.

And if you are reading this blog, you know me … a lost world, Sinbad the Sailor, Toshiro Mifune AND Kumi Mizuno, all in a single package?
In TohoScope?!
I mean, check the poster … the Giant of Amurkand … the Rain of Flaming Death … the Whip Dance of the Virgins!
I have to see this. Like, now!

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An old friend, found again

One of the perks of being (occasionally) a game creator, is the trickle of revenue coming my way via DriveThruRPG, whenever someone buys a copy of Hope & Glory. I am not swimming in gold, but this means I can afford to buy a new game once or twice a year – it is much more convenient for me to spend these money as credit against purchase rather than cashing them in (expenses would erode an already modest figure).

And so I went and bought me a game that’s been on my wishlist for a long time: Trinity Continuum, the revamped/redesigned/refurbished new edition of the old Trinity games. A system and a universe I am very fond of, and that now is back in print with a new, streamlined game system.

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Some considerations about the new Poirot coming in October

I have just seen the trailer for Death on the Nile, the new adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel, featuring Kenneth Branagh in the role of Hercule Poirot, the famous Belgian detective. Ca va sands dire that the trailer looks like a million dollars, the cast is suitably stellar (Gal Gadot!), and I’ll probably watch it one way or another when it comes out.

On the other hand I have often written about how much I like the original Death on the Nile, in which Peter Ustinov was Poirot, and that boasted an equally star-studded cast.

And this prompts a question: why remake Death on the Nile?

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