January Issue

I’ve just bought the January issue of the two writing magazines I follow and I’ve decided to write my January issue too! I’m going to tell you what is coming next or at least what I’ll try to write or do in the year to come.

What did convince me that this was the right thing to do? And why does the following plan seem to be right?

1.     After the concentrate month of November, all the ideas and projects piled up in a corner of my brain, fell down on the floor and now they’re all confused on the ground. I hope that doing that would help to tidy up at least a bit.

2.     I’ve found on the web a very nice blog, Gamberi Fantasy. It’s a really good and useful blog, but just if you’re Italian speaker! This blogger, tells you in a simple, direct (sometimes rather offensive way, but it’s effective!) what she thinks about fantasy in general. Gamberetta, the webmaster, has a really bad opinion about Italian fantasy. She tells us also some tips about writing, quoting manuals and underlining the most frequent errors in the books she reviews. They’re really accurate and you can learn a lot. The most important thing that got my attention is: do your research. Usually I do, but I have to admit not so accurately! Also I don’t want that someone could think such things about my stuff which is really important to me, so I’ll try to do my best!

3.     I want to be the kind of reader I saw once on the plane. He was next to me and started immediately to read after he took his place. He finished the book during the landing, he put it away and started a new one. When the crew opened the doors he was still reading. Queuing to exit he was still reading. He put away the volume when he reached the stairs. That’s the kind of reader I want to be. Let’s admit that, I suck as reader at the moment!

The three points I’ve just told you were the triggers that helped me to plan what I’m writing next, what I’m doing from January.

First of all, for the few of you who were following “Arilla”, I’m going to upload the last chapters.

I’ll try to translate then “Captain’s log” and put on the blog the journal entries one by one. “Captain’s log” is my Italian book about pirates, but as Arilla isn’t ready yet to pitch an editor, although the story is a bit more complex and better structured than “Arilla”.

What I want to concentrate on next year will be:

1.     Sonrisa. So I’ll write everything concerning the main books. I realized that the project is too wide to try to write single books. Everything should be studied from the beginning till the end, and that’s what I have to do.

2.     Research. Before I try to pitch an editor I need to complete some parts of my fantasy world, but in order to do so I need to study the geography and the history and the folklore at an acceptable level. Once I’ll finish that it would be maybe possible that some parts of the story will change. You’ll follow the researches though.

3.     Read. Everything from writing manual to fantasy book and young adults’ books. Basically books that I need to write better. You’ll be updated on those too.

So what you’ll see here on the blog will be mainly the update of the researching job I’m doing. Maybe I’ll post some short stories here and there, chiefly written for blog games and competitions; or else I’ll try to fill the “Sonrisa” page with a surprise for you!

Also you’ll have a few “nonsense” posts, to have a glimpse of my strange life.

For the moment that’s it.

Talk to you soon.