Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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The Ten Virtues of Tea

japanese-tea-ceremony1So my next short story will be set in India (aha!) and will be a steampunkish mystery caper sort of thing somewhat related to my GreyWorld project.
So far I only have an idea or two, a single character sketch and a deadline – and a very strict deadline it is, because the story will be submitted to a publisher.

Also, I have a theme: my story will deal with tea.
And I like this, because I am a tea drinker, and drinking tea is part of my writing process… because it’s a good way to take a pause, and think about something else. Continue reading


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West Berlin

Time for a true confession.
There’s been a few posts, here in the old C Block of the blogsphere, about the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It’s been 25 years, you see.

My friend Claire said she cried, watching the news.
Others have been telling us where they were, what they were thinking, how it felt.

So, it’s time to come out and tell exactly what I thought when I saw the broadcasts from Germany, 25 years ago. Continue reading


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Supporting cast

It sometimes happens that I fall in love with my support characters.

Now, every series should have a handful of characters the hero can call upon when he gets in trouble – as heroes will.
Not properly a sidekick, more like a recurring character.
Think Marcus Brody and Sallah in the Indiana Jones movies.

indy_34

Such characters provide support, continuity, and quite often an element of comedy that the hero can’t bring himself (being heroic AND funny is hard work indeed, for both hero and author).
More generally, they can voice the feelings and the thoughts the hero, for a number of reasons, can’t.
They can act as conscience, provide wise suggestions, or quite simply hand the hero the tool he needs, when he needs it.

Continue reading


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These are not the characters you are looking for

18fc6q4rejarypngI was reviewing my creative process (or the sort of blind blundering I call that) trying to optimize it in order to get more good words on the page*, and I found out a few interesting bits about my modus operandi.
And I thought, why not inflict my newfound knowledge on my blog readers?

When I start a new story, I generally open my copybook (or a txt file) and I start jotting down ideas.
Basic premise and concept, quick sketches of the main characters, a list of places, maybe a very rough logline.

Sometimes it’s like doodling – I sit waiting for my turn at the doctor’s or at the post office, and I just write down stuff.
Maybe I’ll never use those ideas, maybe in a few weeks, or months, or years (provided I can still find the file or the copybook) they’ll come in handy. Continue reading


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A world of popular mechanics

GSPinup002A few nights back I was talking about dieselpunk with a friend.
Now, I’m getting rather tired of the -punk subgenres – which are certainly effective commercially, but often are just new names for well-established fare.
And dieselpunk is in this sense a heavy offender, as basically an awful lot (if not all) dieselpunk is just pulp adventure with the number plates changed.

Anyway, we were discussing dieselpunk, and one thing led to another, and talk turned to baroque esthetics, brass fittings, engines as objecct d’art, 1940s style pinups, black scary uniforms and Soviet architechture, and a lot of other stuff, all of which, to me, is not indispensable in defining dieselpunk as literature – it might define dieselpunk as an aesthetics, but not as a narrative genre.

So, what does?
Even better, what, in the dieselpunk subgenre, allows me to write stories I could not write in any other subgenre? Continue reading


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Writing update and future plans

07845kj_23A short report on the state of my writing, in case someone’s interested.

The final revision of the definitive edition of my Italian-language, non-fiction, “pulp history” book Il Crocevia del Mondo (Crossroads of the World) is done.
Now I’m reading handbooks and websites to learn how to go about putting the thing up on the Kindle Store.
Once it’s done, I’ll be curious to see how it fares.
Hopefully, I’ll arrange for the publishing in July, and for a blog tour promoting it in september.

My Corsair project, about a pulp adventurer at play in the Mediterranean between the wars has just shifted and mutated into something a bit later – say set in the early 60s – but still with the same set-up and the same cast.
A tentative story (working title The Girl from Uncle) is under way – I promised it to my friend Chiara (who’s an UNCLE fan and suggested the story’s opening), so I can’t let it lay for long.
ETA for the Girl is august.

There might be an Italian-language story coming – even tho’ I said I will not write fiction in Italian anymore – should the Alia project take wing again.
The original idea was doing a space opera-themed anthology, but already I heard stuff about stories involving elven warrior-princesses, so maybe the space opera angle is gone.
Pity.
The deadline is september – I’ll have to dream up something.

I’m also grappling with a naughty story for an adult market, but that’s a hush-hush thing, so no more details.
But it’s really a learning experience – they say write what’s unfamiliar and does not make you feel at ease, well, in this case I nailed it.

And finally something burst trough my neocortex two days ago, and is currently haunting me and my keyboard – once again a pulpish thing, an attempt at playing my own take on the mystical adventurer cliché.
Something borrowing from both Indiana Jones and The Shadow – taking what I consider the best bits from the characters, and trying to find a balance.
H.P. Lovecraft’s spirit is also hovering by as I write.
I blame my recent readings for this unespected but so far highly satisfactory writing bout – the first 300 words screamed out of my fingers and onto the screen, and they kick some butt, if I say so myself. The rest is a little more tricky, but when one starts so good, it’s a crime dropping the story.
I’ll probably post more about this, as writing what’s bugging me helps me solve the bugging bits – and I may as well do it in public.
I’ve no ETA for this one, but I’d love to try and making it available through the web at a popular fee (say 99 eurocents).

And the as yet undisclosed translation project is still going – as you can see from the meter here on the right.
It’s tough going, but it’s a fun project.

And this is it, I guess.
More news as stuff happens.
Cheers!


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Let’s face the music, and dance

This is not exactly the post I had in mind – I’ve been posting an awful lot about writing, recently, and I guess my readers might like some variety.
But, bear with me, this one is really a spontaneous, straight away thing.
And it somewhat connects with the post I did about themes.

ModernTimesEndingIt all started because the post my friend Chiara did on her blog, about happy endings.
And because of a long talk I had with The Guys*, about women, broken hearts and expectations in a relationship.
So, yes, expect something weird…

Let’s start by stating that my friend Chiara does not believe in “perfect” happy endings.
The dread “What Next?” is there to unsettle the balance.
And I somewhat agree with her – happy endings tying together neatly all the loose ends and de facto stopping thestory, are not my kind of thing, either.
But, on the other hand, I am highly suspicious of “downer endings” – those which basically tell us that it was all for nothing, life sucks, and nothing ever goes as planned**…
I am suspicious because it feels (often) as a way for the author to wink at the reader, suggesting they both are so world-weary and blasé they can laugh at such romantic notions like happy endings.
Sometimes the tragic ending is as dishonest and manipulative, and fake, as the best (…) happy endings out there.

And yet Continue reading