As I mentioned, starting with October and my third year on Patreon, I will be offering new perks and benefits to my patrons, both as a way for thanking them for being there, and to try and lure more innocent souls inside my lair. So here’s another peek at how it will be… in the future!
I’ve added the podcasts and the Open Outline to the 5 Bucks Brigade level, now it’s time to offer something new and special to the guys in the 10 Bucks Lounge, the brave souls that bet 10 dollars a month on my work. Time to give something back to them.
The next thirty days (give or take a handful of days) are going to be the hardest for me in the last three years. I say this without any particular emotion – if there’s one thing I’ve learned in these three years as I managed to make a living writing, it’s how not to succumb to fear and anxiety. The panic attacks are a thing of the past. It’s gonna be hard, and I’ll get out of it at the other end, one way or another.
And I’ll be working a lot – I’ve stories to finish and deliver, a new book to get going, I’ve started writing the sequel to The Ministry of Thunder (more about that later), I need to take care of my health and I’ve decided to make my Patreon page grow. I’m also starting an experiment about which I’ll be writing here and elsewhere in the next days. I’m keeping busy – because that’s a good way to weather the hard times. So I’ve spent a while today brushing up on the skills I’ll need to add a podcast to my Patreon page.
Well, two podcasts, actually – one in Italian and one in English, because my Patreon page is bilingual, and it’s good to be my patron, independently of what language you speak. Double the work, but also double the fun.
The first in this new series of Podcasts (because the Karavancast is currently sleeping) will be online on the 30th of September because it happens to be the International Podcast Day, and it will be accessible to all my supporters. I’m planning a guerrilla podcast, recorded on the go and in the open, with no scripts, minimal post-production and a length under 15 minutes. I still need to find a suitable title, and a list of topics. Suggestions are welcome.
Back when I was in school, the last days of August were days of frantic work, doing the home-works that had been waiting for three months in my copybooks. Now it’s thirty-odd years since I last had any home-works to do, and yet these are frantic days nonetheless. I have to close a big translation I need to deliver by the 31st – I’ll probably deliver it tomorrow or the day after that. Then there’s another important translation to deliver on the first week of September. I am working on the two Contubernium stories I have mentioned yesterday, and I have two other short stories in the works – one horror, one a straight detective mystery, possibly the start of a new series, with an eye on a very specific market. And I have a novella that’s long overdue, and that I’ll start working on next Sunday night. The plan is to write 3000 words each night. This way, I’ll have it ready in ten days. Ready, that is, for a rewrite. I plan on delivering it by the 15th of September.
I have also other things brewing – like adding an audio channel to my Patron page, and setting up a proper drive to attract more Patrons. But these are things that will happen in the second half of next month.
And there’s the projects that are awaiting confirmation – but those are still in the limbo from which deadlines come screeching bloody murder at the end of the month. I think I hear them calling right now, and I better go.
I spent the whole day writing, clocking about 8000 words. It was not even that hard – the one true problem was the heat (we are again over 30°C with swimming-pool grade humidity and not a breath of air). I also found the time to take a little walk after sunset, and I submitted two stories. One already came back with a list of required changes.
But yesterday night it was fun – we went out and met a writer friend, and spent the evening sitting out of a bar, drinking cool lemonade and talking shop. The Doobie Brothers were wrong. It’s not hiding your heart. It’s these breaks, when you spend an evening rambling about everything with an intelligent person, staying away from the PC, internet and your current WIP(s), that keep you running,
But there are some drawbacks. For instance, I came home last night well convinced I’ll write a mystery novel this coming winter. I’ll do it the way Stephen King does: six pages a day. Work two solid months, you get 360 pages. The trick, I guess, is to have a solid outline, and extensive notes when you set out on this journey. I will do it.
THE world is undergoing immense changes. Never before have the conditions of life changed so swiftly and enormously as they have changed for mankind in the last fifty years. We have been carried along—with no means of measuring the increasing swiftness in the succession of events. We are only now beginning to realize the force and strength of the storm of change that has come upon us.(H.G. Wells, The Open Conspiracy, 1928)
The first full review of Hope & Glory is in and it is just great – you can read it here, on the Ars Rolica blog. It’s in Spanish, but as usual Google Translate is your friend.
The review really made me happy and I was particularly happy of the fact that the reviewer started out cautious and a little diffident, but finally was captivated by the setting.
All the elements are perfectly interwoven with each other and, as I said before, once that initial caution is saved, it is very easy to get carried away by the exciting combination of genres that Hope & Glory presents.
… and I thought, we made it!
I am extremely grateful to Ars Rolica for their great and in-depth review of our game; I am sure I can speak for my long-suffering partner in this adventure – Umberto Pignatelli, that had to put order and numbers on my somewhat sprawling world – and the guys that did art and graphics. Thank you, Ars Rolica!
There was also a bit that caused me to pause, and laugh, and then an idea for a post, and here I am… Continue reading →
It’s September the 30th, and Karavansara has just topped 6000 views this month.
This is the highest number of views since we started, six years ago. It’s actually six times the number of views we had on our first month. So, first of all, thank you for being my readers.
The average number of views per months has grown from 33 to over 200 over six years. This means that Karavansara is growing, but it is still a small blog, and that’s fine. But even keeping it small scale, there is room for improvements.
In the next months I’ll work to keep the numbers growing, of course, but without sacrificing the quality, if any, of my contents. I’d like of course Karavansara to be faster, better, stronger, and I’ll work on it – just as I’ll work to increase the number of my Patrons on Patreon, by improving the contents I’ll offer as rewards.
It’s going to be a busy autumn.
The first full review of Hope & Glory
Karavansara 