Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Tag Archives: writing


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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 →


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Writing with Pinterest

piniconAs I mentioned a few days back, I’m exploring Pinterest as a tool for writers.
And as we know, the Pinterest nation is 70% women – this already makes Pinterest attractive, but let’s not talk about looking for a girlfriend…

For the uninitiated: Pinterest is a social media and tool based on the pinboard metaphore.
You collect items of interest around the web, and organize them in graphical, themed pinboards – providing images, videos and sounds, text (Pinterest allows for 500 characters comments), links.
You can share your pins, collaborate on pins with other pinners, and “steal” pins from other boards.

An early attempt at putting together a writing-oriented pinboard was the Mock Elizabethan board I manage together with my friend Chiara.
We both share a passion for the Elizabethan Era, and it seemed a fun project collecting weird and unusual modern Elizabethan references in one place – as a game, but also, who knows, as a source of inspiration for future writing project, maybe even the joint project we’ve been talking about for years now, and still haven’t found the time to get going.

Continue reading →


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Translating myself – slowly

220px-Robert_E._Howard_in_1923Back in 2009 I planned, almost completed and partially published a cycle of three alternate history stories centered on the character of Robert E. Howard, with H.P. Lovecraft as a co-star.

In The Ballad of Bobbie Howard, I imagined a universe in which both the author of Conan and the Providence Recluse are women.

Then, in The Shape of Things to Come (yes, I know, not very original, as a title), I imagined a universe in which both Howard and Lovecraft surviving their early demises, and living a long and productive life – REH as a Hollywood screenwriter and HPL as the director of Weird Tales.

Finally, in Lone Star, I wrote about a balkanizad post-depression America, in which Texas rebels led by Howard face their final showdown against the troops of President Lovecraft, leader of the pretty fascistic Eastern Coalition. Continue reading →


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What’s My Theme?

This post is sort of an appendix to the last things I posted about writing on my Italian-language blog.

In a nutshell – when I’m planning a story, I jot down some basic ideas, a logline, a theme, some capsule sketches of the characters.
Then I outline.

Theme PosterNow, the theme is the issue.
And this not because some out there might decide to write without setting down a defined theme for their narrative.
I mean, it’s all right – each one defines his or her own technique.
No, what apparently bugs some readers is that a theme, for a genre story, is seen as superfluous or – even worse – as a Bad Thing.
This strangely widespread opinion is in part an anti-intellectual trend, in part a consequence of “message” having been used too often to justify bad storytelling.
And there’s also this weird idea that any writer defining a set of themes for his writing, is trying to push an ideology, or trying to sell something. Continue reading →


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Sho’dontell

They say you can’t run a blog about your writing – or, indeed, about someone else’s writing – without a post about the ubiquitous dogma, the One to Rule Them All… Show Don’t Tell.
And who am I to snub traditions?

toolbox-set-for-carShow Don’t Tell is probably the most basic, simple tool in a writer’s toolbox.
I talk about tools and toolbox, and not about rules, because of this story, which many take as an undisputed truth, about rules being unbreakeable.
Now I don’t know how it is out there where you are sitting right now, but here where I am, there is a growing cult of this sho’dontell thing*.
Like most cults, this is based on an oversimplified and partial understanding of its central tenets.
And because this post is being written first and foremost for me, as a pro-memoria and as a way to set my thoughts straight, I am non interested here in finding the cult-leader, or laying the blame on this or that blogger, critic or writing guru.
What I would like to write, here, is the tool’s handbook, the pocket cheat sheet for the Show Don’t Tell utility. Continue reading →


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Friday Night Fright

the-killerJust got back from the emergency ward of the Nizza Monferrato Hospital.
A superficial varicose vein in my right leg punctured, causing abundant bleeding and no less panic.
I am proud like a little boy scout* for the fact that not only I was able to stop the bleeding by applying a finger to the hole, but was also clear-headed enough to talk my father out of a panic frenzy for him to be able to drive me to the hospital.
From the whole ordeal, I came back with the following useful information:

  • that old pulp cliché about being clear-headed and cool even in presencce of abundant bleeding – your own bleeding – is true, at least for me
  • fresh blood is slippery as hell, even on a relatively rough surface (I’ll have to keep that in mind for future reference)
  • your own blood does not feel warm at all on your own skin, it feels dowright cold (ditto)
  • only Chow Yun Fat can stop abundant hemorrhage with a band-aid
  • flirtatious nurses that think you’re ten years younger despite the bleeding are a verified cliché, too

Oh, and now I own a blood-spattered copy of Richard Cohen’s (excellent) By the Sword, which sort of feels all right.

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* I never was a boy scout


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How I became a hack, part three

Yes, just like that...

Yes, just like that… sort of.

One day I’ll write a book called Mistress of Yamatai.
It will be a Burroughs-esque actioneer.
The story – a freak accident involving some ancient Japanese relics causes out hero (an anonymous orientalist) to slip back in time (and possibly sideways, too) to the ancient land of Wo, where he’ll have to face unspeakable lovecraftian horrors and shamanic magic, fight blood-thirsty barbarians and woo fiery-spirited, ample-breasted Himiko, the Mistress of Yamatai.
A classy thing, in other words.

I’ve got the story outlined, the characters sketched – the zip file including the lot resurfaced a few days back, after a slump caused a pile of old CDs to spill fan-like on my desk.

One day or another, I’ll write the book.
I made a promise.
In the meantime, here’s the story about Himiko, the Mistress of Yamatai, and about her Curse. Continue reading →