Last Saturday I did something I should have done one year ago: I broke open a new IKEA copybook (white pages, sturdy cardboard cover, rubber band strap to keep it closed), and a new BIC black-ink pen, and I started writing down everything I know about my Aculeo & Amunet stories.
Everything.
A timeline for the stories written and being developed.
Another timeline for historical events and characters.
A short but thorough fact-file for each major character.
A list of locations.
Notes on stuff like currencies and other odds and ends. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Aculeo & Amunet
Translating and Re-Writing
I already mentioned how writing my first Aculeo & Amunet story in Italian was a weird experience – how the characters changed, how their speech patterns altered.
How, in the end, the characters changed because of the language.
Now, I’m translating the story for my English-language readers.
Only, I’m not. Continue reading
Cursing in Latin (and Ancient Greek)
There’s a lot of fun to be had writing historical fantasy.
For instance – in my Aculeo and Amunet stories, Amunet tends to be pretty sharp-tongued.
She’s nasty, arrogant, and swears a lot – especially in the earlier stories.
Now, I’m no fan of gratuitous profanity, and yet as everything else in a story, profanity too can be used to define a character, to underscore a scene or situation.
It’s a tool, just like any other.
And because Amunet is a lady – and as somebody said, I fancy her a lot – I like to use this tool in a somewhat elegant, classy, lady-like fashion.
So, how does one go about making his female character say “F*ck!” a lot, but with class and elegance? Continue reading
A Letter from the Old Man
Some very very apocryphal Aculeo & Amunet – with a wink at my friend Claire.
File under “metafiction“.
Or something equally fancyful.
Amunet dropped the rolled-up parchment on the table in front of Aculeo.
“You read it,” she said.
He picked up the roll but kept his eyes on her, as she moved to the window, her expression sour.
“Why me?” he asked.
She shrugged, and pretended to look out in the street below.
“Because I know what he’s going to say,” she said finally. “And I hate men that grovel.” Continue reading
Writing the blues away
Ouch!
The post for today did not go online as planned, due to a web glitch while I uploaded it.
This is bad!
Here’s the belated post.
Sorry sorry sorry.
I’m going through a writing bout – partially caused that my professional life has come to a complete standstill after my PhD dissertation.
So I’m sending CVs around, and writing like there’s no tomorrow.
Because, in all fairness, there could be no tomorrow.
To me, ebooks and author-published stories are really today’s pulp racks.
Which means I suddenly understand in a very hands-on way what being a hack in the golden age of the pulps might actually feel like.
A heady mix of dread and exhilaration.
Ideas come freely, and writing them is easier than usual.
As long as this lasts, I’m on a roll. Continue reading
Aculeo & Amunet serialized
A quick one.
As I said, things are moving fast for my Aculeo & Amunet stories.
I’m happy to report that the new A&A story, Severed-Heads Valley, will be published in six monthly installments in the Peripheries of the AncientWorld newsletter, starting this month.
Severed-Heads Valley is a 6000 words story taking place in late 277 AD, somewhere in the mountains of Northern Iran.
Hard-up for cash and stuck in a caravan town, Aculeo and Amunet accept to track-down the runaway wife of a horse merchant.
But they’ll get more than they bargained for.
Of course.
The Peripheries newsletter is a free resource for fans of my stories – you can subscribe here.
The newsletter will hit your mailbox once a month (ideally, on the last weekend of the month), and will include exclusive contents, behind-the-scenes, cover reveals, assorted sillyness and whatnot.
And no, we will not sell your data or your soul to anyone.
Check it out.
Changing languages
I’m having a weird experience – I’m writing the first Italian-language story of Aculeo & Amunet, and it’s tough going.
Now the plot is fully outlined and the action pieces are set-up.
I’ve got the historical background and some of the imagery.
And of course the characters are my own, and I love to write about them.
It’s the way they speak.
The dialogue is stilted.
The rhythm of the exchanges between my characters is heavily connected with the language I write in.
In Italian, Aculeo and Amunet are still witty and fun, but they are… different.
Aculeo is tough but lacks class, and uses too many words, Amunet comes across as too soft and vaguely querulous.
This is not good.
The reason is, probably, that English is a much more concise and economic language – to me at least, maybe because it is my second language and I first experienced it through narrative and songs and not through everyday use.
I think Aculeo and Amunet in English.
I hear their speech in my head in English.
The general effect: scenes that are clear and “as well as written” in my mind slump on the page and read horribly.
All in all, this is a bad problem – writing this story in Italian is slower going than I imagined, and it cost me so far two full days: I should have closed my story on Friday night, and here I am still writing and rewriting, only 50% of the way in.
The editor waiting for my story is not going to be pleased, and this is subtracting time from other (paid!) projects.
Now, at around 3000 words, I’ll scrap the last 500 I wrote, and I’ll try and complete the story in English.
And then, I’ll translate it.
It will be easier, faster, and I’ll connect again with my characters.
But as I said, this is getting weird.
Karavansara 