new job | Karavansara

17 August 2021
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Non Disclosure Agreement

I have just signed a contract for a big-ish writing job, something large and fun and different that, with a modicum of luck, will come out next year and will carry my name on the cover (or somewhere inside).
Something I cannot tell you about, for a publisher I cannot disclose, part of a project that shall remain unnamed.
Aren’t non disclosure agreements a wonder?

But I can tell you this is one of two big jobs I have lined up for the autumn (the second being still pending), a big fat 80.000 words writing adventure that I will have to plan carefully and execute with speed, elegance and panache.
Or something.

It will mean reading a lot of interesting books for research (a couple I have read already early in the summer), and then write, write, write.

So, the basic equipment is here and is ready

a BIC pen and a copybook
a stack of books
a folder filled with ebooks
Scrivener
a virtually infinite supply of tea

The vacations are over.
Time to get to work.

And also time to find a way to post updates about my work here, without telling you about what I am writing.
This is going to be fun.

11 May 2020
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Witches

I have just started working on a new project, translating a book of essays and stories about witchcraft and witches. I at in the very early stages of the job – as in, copying and pasting the original text in Scrivener and breaking it up into chapters – but the book is quite good, the author is an excellent person, and we are going to have this baby ready for Halloween.

After months of gruelling work for the Client from Hell (R), this is going to be like a vacation. It’s a complicated job – lots of local terms to render in English, a few adjustments to be made after consulting the author – but at the same time it feels like taking a much deserved (and needed) vacation.

2 March 2020
by Davide Mana 4 Comments

Stuff will happen

And so this afternoon me and my brother filed the necessary paperwork and were enrolled as librarians in the local public library. This is considered a voluntary public utility service for the community – that is, it is an unpaid job.
But, hopefully, fun.

The Castelnuovo Belbo Public Library is a huge affair, having received a few years back a donation of over 8000 volumes, that are still mostly to be catalogued and put on the shelves. From what we saw, cataloguing technology is solidly pre-1990, but we’ll work on it.
And the building housing the collection is considered one of the best public buildings in the whole Belbo Valley and by extension, of the whole Astigianistan.