Roma at Night!

A night eating and drinking in Rome!!!

Get a tour of my Italy apartment...

...where the magic happens.
Or hell, I don't know if it's magic, but I do recall an interview with Tom Petty before the good Lord pulled the guitar plug: "I think I'm just a conduit."

That's the way I feel sometimes. Because God knows, the way I was raised, it wasn't to be a writer, that's for sure. But that's my life. Anyway, I spend a good portion of it here in Italy, and this is a video of my apartment where I write and contemplate the life, the losses the gains, the loves the, the not to be loves.

I hope it inspires you to do the same.

One quick correction when I say "I stay here anywhere from 6 to 2 months." Huh? That's supposed to be six weeks to two months. Must be the Chianti with lunch....

Write and write with passion. And do it from anywhere in the world. You not only live once. Your life is super short. Don't blow it in the suburbs in a most unhappy way.

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Sucker Punched in Paradise

The other night...I think it was Monday...I stopped in at one of my local Florence pubs that's no different from the local I head out to most nights back in New York after work. Since I've been frequenting the place for over ten years consistently, lots of people know me there and it's a nice atmosphere. Anyway, after speaking to a few folks whom I haven't seen in some months, I turned to reading the new texts on my phone when I feel a locomotive slam into the side of my head.

Next thing I know, I'm on the floor on my back, and I'm watching this dude stomp out of the bar. Stomp is literal since he stomped on my eyeglasses just to add insult to injury. I wish I could say I did the heroic thing and bounded right back up and went after his cowardly ass, but things being the way they were, I could hardly see straight I was so stunned (also, my head hit the back of a solid wood bench on the way down). My guess is I passed out for a second or two.

CCTV vid shows proof positive that the psycho dude who did this was waiting for me. What beef he had with me is anyone's guess since I'd never met him before, although I believe I might have seen him a few days before and even briefly exchanged some small talk while I ordered a drink and then proceeded to speak with some friends. Word about this man surfaced later, and apparently he's been drifting through Europe, bragging about getting into fights. If that's the way he fights--sneaking up on people while they are reading their texts--I imagine he wins a bunch of them.

I did the right thing and reported the incident to the police who picked him up the next day when he stupidly showed back up at the bar. I'm told there will be a trial at some point. I also shared the CCTV footage with the state department who are monitoring his actions since his face has no doubt been recognized by now along with his ID. I'd show you the footage here now, but I made promises to certain professionals that I would keep it under wraps until the time is right. When the time comes, I'll spring it here. It's creepy.

The point of all this is not to lick my wounds in front of my readers, but to send out a word of caution to all those who, like me, live to travel. Even in a place like Florence, Italy, an artist's paradise, significant dangers exist. You must be vigilant at all times. If I had eyes in the back of my head, I might have seen this creep closing in on me. But I don't and he got the best of me. But it won't happen a second time, believe me. That's why I keep lifting all those heavy weights everyday, day in and day out. It's why I do the cardio. It's why I engage in target practice at the range consistently. 

Traveling at present? Be safe and watch your back...always.

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Goodbye 2017: Don't let the door slap you in the ass...

The researcher in Guatemala

Okay I jest.
2017 was actually a good year for me professionally, not in that I hit any particular home runs with any one or two books like year's past, but damn, did I put out the word count or what?

I published both traditionally and indie starting with The Corruptions in hardcover back in February (Polis Books), and then onto Chase Baker and the Spear of Destiny, a new Marconi, Arbor Hill. There was The Handyman Series, the pilot novel in the new Steve Jobz series, The Embalmer, my first collected non-fiction Pieces of Mind, the first Young Chase Baker YA novel, Young Chase Baker and the Cross of the Last Crusade (coming in March '18), a new stand-alone which is currently with my agent, plus the first draft of another stand-alone that will soon be with my agent, and I'm finishing up the year with 20K words on a new Keeper Marconi, Sins of the Sons. And did I mention the short stories that I published in Pulp Metal Magazine that are now available on my own site and of course, Amazon, Nook, and Kobo?
 
I could offer links to all these products but you know where to go to buy them.
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New for 2018 will be a brand new short story, HEAD. HEAD will also be included in a new short story collection called Pathological: Collected short reads about sex, lies, and murder. In February The Detonator will be released in hardcover (Polis Books), and I'm very excited about it since it's getting great reviews in PW and Booklist. After that will come the aforementioned Young Chase Baker, then in April, the new Steve Jobz, The Flower Man. In May I'll release the new Marconi, Sins of the Sons. By then I'll know who's taken my new stand-alone, The Doctor Will Kill You Now. I will also have finished up the second stand-alone, No Good to Her Dead. In between these publications look for more short stories and new Handyman episodes.

Okay, that's production side of things. But like I said, this was the first year in which I didn't hit any particular home runs like I have in the past with books like The Remains which went to number 1 overall, or The Innocent which did pretty much the same or Everything Burns which killed it. I attribute this to one, Book Bubs are nearly impossible to get nowadays and two, Amazon KDP seems to have changed up their algorithms again. It means that any books that suddenly spike in sales look suspect and they sometimes will strip you of your rank, dooming the momentum of the book. It's good that Amazon is cracking down on the schemers, but bad for us nice, hardworking folks just trying to make a living.

But if I've learned anything about this year, it's this: slow steady growth is the only tried and trusted path to be on. Anything else is just smoke and mirrors. Those writers who consistently put out good to great content will be rewarded with an ever expanding audience and sales. On the marketing side of things, building your subscriber list has never been more important. I've also hired a marketing crew to handle my AMS, FB, and Book Bub ads and so far they have been doing a fine job. I'm also setting up my own store on my website. What's the address again? WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

2017 was the year I started going from writer, to writer running a business, and I've learned a lot. I pour just about all my money back into the business, but said business is growing, and I can see myself making a passive income in short order that would rival at least a mid-management position at some downtown firm. Imagine that.

On the personal side of things, it's been a bit of a shit show. There were more deaths of friends and family than I care to count, not to mention Sam Shepard. There were more reports of illness, the sudden and unexpected discovery of my own potentially fatal ailments (don't worry, they're under control, but it did get me to thinking about my own mortality), a totally unexpected breakup, a move back to an apartment and other things too banal to mention here. But it was also an exciting year for traveling and adventure, from caving in Guatemala, to fly fishing in Belize, and of course eating my favorite rabbit dish in Italy. The food poisoning in Guatemala was no fun, however.

Sure, life comes at you hard sometimes, but hey, I could be six feet under and that's no fun. The point is to live a great life while you have breath in your lungs and happiness in your heart and soul.

Back to the books...

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Florence Adrift

I've been coming to Florence for a year shy of a decade to write. On more than a few occasions I've recounted how it's been one of my dreams to have the opportunity to write in a place like Florence (or Paris, or Rome, or a Greek Island, for that matter) for an extended period of time while living the Bohemian lifestyle of making art during the day, drinking wine and eating the food in the evenings. I've experienced all that and more. Luck and Providence have shined down upon me, and I'm forever grateful.

You're sensing a big But here, aren't you...

Okay, here it is. Buttttt....this time around I'm sensing something different in the air. Perhaps it has something to do with the political climate...the global political climate shift, the demise of the left and the rise of the populist movements in the US, Britain, and now, yes, Italy (I saw a photo the other day snapped this past April that showed Obama, Cameron, Hollande, Merkel, and Renzi standing on a balcony together, confidant smiles on their faces, all of them having little conception of the fact that they would all be gone, minus one, in just a few months time). Or perhaps it has a lot to do with my present stage of life. I think they call it the 'sandwich generation' when your young adult kids are still unsettled and your parents, or parent in my case, also requires attention. But, and I'm going to be perfectly honest here, the peace I'm normally accustomed to in Tuscany has thus far eluded me.

Illustrations:

--While jogging in the park the other day, teams of police were rounding up African immigrants/refugees, all of whom were resisting, tossing empty beer bottles and angry fists at the cops. It was a frightening scene.

--American college kids walking, or should I say swaying, their way home, a couple of them literally vomiting in the streets.

--The cash register attendant(s) at the local grocery store who is so nasty and so obviously hateful of my Americanism, that the simple banal process of purchasing a few items is a humiliating experience.


I'm not going to belabor the point because there's still so much to love about this place. The food, the drink, the culture, the Noir at the Bar reading I participated in just last week...a terrific success and a blast. But there's something not quite right and it's tough to put my index finger on it. Perhaps it's just me and where I'm at in life. People change and sometimes the cities you live in change along with it, in every bit of that moveable feast sense of the word. Or, maybe, just maybe, you change and the city you've grown to love stays the same. In fact, maybe you're the problem. Maybe it's had enough of you and it's time to move on to a new city in which to write. A new experience. A new inspiration.

Or, perhaps I'm looking at this all wrong. Perhaps I need to shed those things that are getting in the way. Peel away the layers of skin that are bothering me. Freeing myself from the ever increasing weight that makes me feel at times, like I'm drowning in a sea of other people's needs and frustrations. For sure I should be turning off the goddamn internet when I'm working.

You can't be all things for all people, no matter how much you love them. You can only be you. Florence has always allowed me to be me, to write well, and to live well. It still is that place, but like a boat that's become untethered, I feel it drifting away. Think I'll grab the line and pull her back in.

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La Dolce Vita

Henry Miller in his Paris apartment in the 1930s

Ahhhhh, the good life....

I'm the last one to bitch, because I can't think of any writer...and I mean any writer worth his or her salt-of-the-earth...who doesn't start out in this racket dreaming of one day moving to Europe for a while to write the Great American Novel.

You start writing because there's something inside you that needs to do it. You hero worship a whole bunch of the writers who came before you. Hemingway writing in Paris, comes to mind. Henry Miller doing the same thing as a middle-aged man. Martha Gelhorn in London and Rome. Even Mark Twain, for as broke as he sometimes was, wrote in Florence.
 
There's something about writers not being able to stay in any one place for very long, or else the earth will suddenly open up under their feet and swallow them whole. I guess I feel that way when I'm in the 'burbs for too long. All those sharks swimming around me taking bites out of me. Okay, I'm mixing my metaphors here. But then, even an accountant can't wait to get out of the house for a while. A girlfriend of mine once called me unstable. Not because I was a threat in any way, but because she knew I could never be happy standing still. "You always have to stir things up."
Right now, I'm stirring the pot.

Standing still, now there's a concept.

Norman Mailer was in his mid to late sixties when he was woken up at dark-thirty in the morning when his then wife's water broke for what would become his 8th or 9th kid. Story goes, he sat for a while on the edge of the bed, in his wife beater, his head in his hands, lamenting, "All I ever wanted was to live in Paris for a year while I wrote a great novel." Well, old Norman wrote some great books, but did so while trying his damndest to stay one step ahead of the creditors, the wives, the girlfriends, and the kids.

Anyway, back round to my original thesis, which is, I'm not one to bitch. Because here I am, living in Italy for a while, while I work on the Great American Novel (or three). Okay, some of you snotty writing school prof types...you English Department elitists, you know how you are... will automatically scoff at this by convincing yourself that Zandri writes only genre fiction. Certainly nothing that can be confused for the Great American Novel. Well, how's it feel waking up on a Monday morning and heading to work? Sure, in writing school there were more than a handful of profs who chuckled at my romantic vision of what a writer and the writing life could be. But then, these were the same people who would, no doubt, feel the fine hairs on the back of their necks stand up at the thought of my dream actually becoming a reality someday.

So this thesis, I've been on about. Like I keep saying, I'm not one to bitch, but in the near two weeks since I've been in Italy on my three month extended writing retreat, I've completed the first good draft of what will be the eleventh Chase Baker novel. I'm presently completing the galley proofs of The Corruptions which will be out in January in hardcover from Polis Books, and soon I will start on a new stand-alone psychological suspense novel I'm calling, The Girl Who Wasn't There (sometimes it helps to have a title in mind). The bitching part comes into play because since I've been here it seems the world is falling apart back in NY. I never realized how many fires I'm required to put out on a daily basis. But then, those fires are perfectly normal, and it's what some people are referring to when they say, "Life happens." In any case, I'm here to work on my version of the Great American Novel(s), and that's what I plan on doing. Heat or no heat.

I think the best bet, is to shut the phone off, turn off the internet, and isolate myself. Henry Miller wasn't bothered by instant digital communication, and neither should I be.

The good life...it's what you make of it. 

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A Very Zandri Christmas 2015

A very Hemingway Christmas...

I don't want to fall into that, "It's Christmas and time for reflection thing," because it seems that's the general article every writer no matter his or her politics, religion, and or sexual preference writes on a nice day like today. But having spent the past two months in Italy touring a new Italian edition of MOONLIGHT SONATA and rewriting my newest stand-alone, THE DETONATOR, along with a full first draft of the newest in the Chase Baker action/adventure pulp series, CHASE BAKER AND THE DA VINCI DIVINITY, I have come to just a few conclusions that will propel me into the new year, not necessarily as a hard working writer (I always work hard), but a writer who will work smarter.

Some adjustments I'll be making for 2016:

--As a hybrid author, I enjoy contracts with several publishers, big and small. But this year, I'm going to pay special attention to growing my own, Bear Media, list of books. This was the first year where I saw significant sales in my indie novels. Namely, the Chase Baker books of which the first in the series, THE SHROUD KEY, was named One of the Best of 2014 by Suspense Magazine. Now that writer/journalist Ben Sobieck is also penning original episodes of the series, I expect to see significant growth in Chase Baker world.

--Less journalism, more fiction. Back in 1999 when I signed my first big contract for my first big novel, As Catch Can (now THE INNOCENT), I chucked journalism altogether, thinking I would nail a 250K contract once per year. What a dope I was. That said, I've always believed a writer needs many outlets for his work in order to make a nice living. That includes journalism outlets. I still write some journalism and maintain my membership with SPJ, but while I'm paid for my time as a journalist, the work isn't the gift that keeps on giving. That means, more fiction. Think the 80/20 principle here. 80% more time spent on scalable fiction projects, and 20% on the journalism.

--Blogging. Was a time when writers were encouraged to blog constantly, since the posts would inevitably lead readers to your books. That basic premise still holds true but blogging doesn't quite have the "Buy Me" power it once did. Let's face it, there's so much noise out there in the blogosphere already that chances are, your words are only making things worse. Again, write more fiction, less noise.

--Word Count. I'm not one of those Bananaramo writers, nor do I feel the need to state a specific word count for any given work day. But I do feel I the need increase my word count this year. I generally write between five to seven pages per day when writing a new book. But this year, I'll try increasing that to ten pages.

--Readings. I dreamt last night that I was giving a reading to a student body. I take that as a sign that I should be out there doing more readings and speaking engagements. Therefore, if you're reading this, and you want me to read and/or speak at your school or function, just email me at Vazandri@aol.com and we'll set a date.

There's probably more things I'm going to try and improve upon this year, but I drank way too much wine last night in beautiful Florence, where the smells of roasting garlic pervades the air and the Christmas bells are ringing in the cathedral towers. I think I need to head out for a run and then open up some gifts with my family who have flown over the Atlantic to enjoy the holidays with me. I might be an ocean away from my American friends and fans but that doesn't mean you're not always in my thoughts. Thanks for making it a spectacular 2015!

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.

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Egypt's SISI Strikes ISIS

Egypt officially enters the war against ISIS in retaliation for the Islamist terrorist network's public beheading of 21 of its Coptic Christians. New Egyptian President El-SiSi who ousted the Obama-backed Morsi and its terrorist Muslim Brotherhood, vowed revenge for the brutal murders by pounding the terrorists inside Libya. Al-Sisi has also called the fragile international coalition to step up their campaign against the extreme Islamist terrorists who are now only 500 miles from the southern coast of Italy and have vowed to "conquer" its capital, Rome


http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/02/16/egypt-hits-isis-affiliated-terrorists-in-libya-after-video-showing-mass/

While President Obama continues to push for a deal with Iran which will inevitably result in their development of a nuclear weapon, Yemen has also fallen to Iranian-backed terrorists. As little as four months ago, Obama declared his anti-terrorist approach (if you want to call it that) a "success" in Yemen. Meanwhile, the American diplomats currently serving there were forced to abandon the country so quickly, they left the keys in the ignitions of their getaway vehicles. Meanwhile Obama steadfastly refuses to identify the Islamist terrorists for who they are, while at the same time, snubbing and displaying outright hostility at Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Obama, who promised an entirely transparent presidency is doing just that...he is being openly transparent about where his sympathies lie.
   

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An Affair in Italy

He's been coming to Italy to work alone for six years now.
The first year he came, he hardly worked at all. He was suffering from the pangs of lost love, and a career on hold, and he barely had enough work to keep him going, much less a novel in the works. He was also broke. He brooded as he walked the cobbled streets of Florence in his black leather coat in the rain, wondering where things in his life had gone wrong.

The next year he was a different man. He'd pulled himself out of his funk, and he reinvented himself once again as a freelance journalist who traveled to places like West Africa and Moscow writing for global news outlets such as RT. He was taking pictures and writing articles and essays as fast as he could while working under deadline. He came to crave the rush of dispatching a story written up on the fourth floor of a Florence guest house to Moscow, and then an hour later seeing it as a top-of-the-hour story in Europe. He was a foreign correspondent and life abroad was thrilling.

The year after that he was still a journalist but now he was back to writing fiction with a vengeance and it was wonderful to come to Florence be alone and walk the streets and think up plots. He had some scratch in the bank now and he could afford a real apartment. He would wonder about people he knew or had known, and women he had loved for a short time or a long time, who were going to make it as characters in his newest novel. People were drama and drama, although painful, was sometimes fun. It was also fun to play God in a place where almost no one knew him.

These days he's no longer unknown, and he's working on at least three books (and novellas) at once for three different publishers, plus a book for his own label. He's still a journalist (he knows this because he just paid his SPJ dues), only the fiction is trying to shove it out the door like the beautiful, young, brunette-haired affair who's angrily had enough of the wife. It's a violent and emotionally heartbreaking conflict. He forces himself between the two beauties wishing absurdly and selfishly that they could somehow get along and coexist peacefully.

"I need you both," he pleads.

But they both stare him down.

"Soon, you must choose between one or the other," says the affair.

But he will never choose. He wants them both. So, he just keeps on working as best he can, no matter what happens in his life, no matter what goes on in the world. The work: She is his most reliable friend, his most trusted lover, his affair, and his wife. She is ageless and her beauty only improves with the years, like ancient green-white marble that glistens and radiates in the Tuscan rain. She might resist him sometimes. She might pretend to be elusive, but in the end, she always sheds her clothing and slips into bed with him.

The work ... He comes to Italy to be with her, alone.

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In the Game

Years ago, when I was still in my mid-twenties, I wanted to die.

The train from Innsbruck to Venice

I was working at a job I hated, but it was worse than that. It was a job I'd been groomed for by my dad who, along with my mother, wanted nothing more than to see me take over their family construction business.

When I say I had been groomed for the business, I mean, I was five years old when my dad brought me on to my first construction site and had me hold the end of a tape measure while he calculated the dimensions of a building foundation he and his crew would be pouring the following day. By the time I was fourteen, I'd already been working as a laborer and even experienced my first serious accident when I stepped on a nail that was sticking up out of floor-board and I, being the newly crucified, was sent to the hospital for nail extraction and a series of tetanus shots (I would later fictionalize this incident in THE CONCRETE PEARL).

When my early twenties rolled around, and I'd graduated college, I knew I wanted to be a writer, but instead I did "the right thing," and entered into my dad's business.

I hated it.

By then, I'd graduated to project manager status which meant my job was putting out fires all day inside a four-walled office, day in and day out. I used to sit at my desk and make notes about the stories I wanted to write, and the exotic places I wanted to visit, and the people I would meet along the way. I wanted adventure, not an office job and a home in the burbs.

In Moscow working for RT...a far cry from the construction business

My reading stand was full of novels by Hemingway and when I'd read all the novels, I started on all the biographies that detailed his prodigious life, and how he managed to become the best of the best.
He did it by entering into the game in the most humble way possible. He worked on the Kansas City Star as a cub reporter.

I remember the first time I read about how Papa began his career. I sat back in my chair at the construction company, and I thought, Damnit, that's what I'm going to do, since obviously no one is going to do it for me. So I went to work for the local Times Union Newspaper on the weekends, writing sports stories as a stringer. I also started freelancing pieces for them. Pieces on fly fishing and bird hunting, and other human interest stories. I saw my first byline and I nearly wept. When the fifty dollars per story checks began arriving in the mail, I felt even more exhilarated because I was no longer a wanna-be. I was a professional. It was a magical time, but also one of great tension.

I was still very young, and still tied to my family job, and even newly married. My dad wasn't too happy about my new passion, and even seemed confused if not hurt by it. After all, he'd invested an awful lot in me over the years and now here I was spending my time and energy in a field entirely unrelated to the commercial construction business.

Cairo, tail end of Arab Spring, researching The Shroud Key

But I was happy. I was a young man who no longer wanted to die. Quite the opposite in fact. I had begun the inevitable process of springing myself from a trap I'd willingly set for myself...the same sort of trap many men and women never free themselves from until it's far too late.   

I was a real writer now, and I was in the game.

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Travel Day

In 1937 the young journalist Martha Gellhorn traveled to Spain to to observe the Spanish Civil War and to get a little private face-time with Ernest Hemingway. She carried only a knapsack, a portable typewriter, and fifty dollars in her pocket. I think for Martha, or Marty as Ernest would call her, it wasn't what she brought along on her travels that bore importance, it was more about what she left behind. There's nothing romantic in packing up your entire apartment and dragging it along with you on your travels. Far more romantic to leave it all behind. Everything.

Martha would become a life-long traveler, never staying in one place for very long. She would go on to have homes in Cuba, Mexico, Rome, East Africa, and eventually London. Her homes were always small if not humble and in terms of mod cons, sparsely equipped. Instead the layover-homes contained the essentials for a writer who spent most of her time on the move: books, a typewriter, booze, and an ashtray for her never ending cigarette. Even into her late eighties she was always ready to travel at a moment's notice and often found herself making difficult journeys on her own dime in order to research a new novel she was writing or to find the truth behind an armed conflict or the resulting carnage of that conflict.

She had a son, Sandy (adopted), but she would claim herself to be the worst mother in the world. She had several husbands (including Hemingway), but she would claim to not only be a poor wife, but also very bad in bed. Once, she spent a couple of years playing the house-frau to the then editor and chief of Time Magazine, complete with weekend house parties in the suburbs and she nearly committed suicide from the boredom and despair. I think it safe to say that Martha Gellhorn was not the domestic type.

I've just packed my knapsack. I have considerably more than fifty bucks stuffed in my pocket, but given the more than three quarters of a century that's lapsed in between 1937 and now, I'm not carrying much more than its 2013 equivalent. I'm heading back to Italy for two months and then onto France for the New Years. When I'm gone I will be rewriting two books, MOONLIGHT WEEPS and THE BREAKUP. I'll also be mapping out another new standalone that at present has no title. I'll be taking care of my normal journalistic duties for some magazines I work for (I have a deadline tomorrow which I'll make as a soon as I land in Rome). It will be a busy time that will also include some four-wheeling in the Tuscan Mountains and short trips to other countries. Traveling light without the burden of possessions is important. Traveling without regret is essential.

I'm not sure who pointed out to me that if sharks don't move forward they die. Probably some dude in a bar. But no one wants to be that dead shark laid out on the couch watching the flat screen in his living room whispering shoulda, coulda, woulda. Not me anyway.

Passport...check.
Boarding pass...check.
Wallet and euros...check.
Kindle...check.
Backpack...check.
Laptop...check.

I'm off to the airport.
So long and farewell.

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Pigs On a Leash and a Writer Nearly Breaks His Neck

Look at the Writer nearly break his neck at the Da Vinci Childhood Home!

Maybe it's got something to do with April Fools day, but while jogging this morning along the Arno, I passed a grown man walking a pig on a leash. It was a big black pig (as opposed to a small black pig), and the man was walking him/her on a red lease like the pig was your garden variety golden retriever. It sort of made me feel like I was caught up in one of those trippy psychedelic music promos from the late 60s that the Beatles would put out. "I am the Walrus...Goo Goo G'Joob."

I'm nearing the end of a near month long stay in Italy to write, research and just generally have fun. I've jogged around 150 miles, walked more than that, contracted a nasty case of bronchitis, motorcycled the Tuscan mountains, sneaked a peak at a lost Da Vinci, written nearly 100 pages of a new Moonlight book, and rewritten sixty pages of Aziz, plus numerous small articles and blogs.

On Wednesday I fly to Paris for a week of more writing, thinking, eating, and running. Paris is a more or less gift to myself. A place where I can do more research and work while spending some of my T&M advance dough on French food and wines. There's something about walking the river in Paris, especially when it rains. I'm hoping for some rain.     

 On April 11, I'll fly to New York then directly on to San Fransisco, where I'll meet up with my sig other, L. We'll see some special old friends, run on the beach and, if I have my way, take a boat to Alcatraz. I'll also meet up with an old college buddy to plan out a late Fall excursion to South East Asia. Mostly I'm excited to see L.

There's a baby crying outside my open window right now, and the smells of roasting garlic, olive oil, and tomato sauce are permeating the air like a perfume fragrance from newly spread rose petals. It's just as seductive. Sexy even. Food sex....

See you all upon my arrival in Paris....

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Chianti by Motorbike and a Prayer

Checco and I make it to Chianti in one piece and take in some wine and atmosphere in a typical piazza...

Yesterday I played some hookie from my new book(s) and hopped on the back of a motorcycle for a ride into the Chianti region of Italy. Chianti is about 25 or so kilometers from downtown Florence, and calling it a scenic ride doesn't remotely do it justice, as it is as close to God's country as one can get without dying and taking the high speed express to heaven.

The high speed metaphor is a discriminate since my mode of travel was a motorcycle (they call them motorbikes here which makes them sound cute and fuzzy which they are not). I rode on the back of my friend and all around fixer's bike, Francesco "Checco" Tassi. Checcho loves motorcycles and he owns a bunch of them. He races off road with a core group of like-minded crazies and sometimes will travel across entire countries like Spain on a motorcycle. So when he accelerated our bike upwards of 110 KPH, while I held on with one hand and aimed a video camera in the other, I had to believe that he knew exactly what he was doing and that if we crashed I would die as quickly as an insect goes splat against a speeding windshield.

At one point, a two-point buck jumped out in front of us and for a split second, the old life (or middle aged lives in both our cases), flashed through our brains. Instead of spilling the bike, Checco calmly decelerated and tried to ease us past the frightened deer who suddenly about-faced and made the mad dash back across the street in the direction from which he originally crossed. It was all quite the adventure, and dressed in vintage leather coat, scarf, and engineers boots, I felt like I was caught up in some 1950's adventure movie. Secret of Incas, China, or maybe The Naked Jungle. Of course a Fellini flick would have been more apropos.

One thing is for sure, when you find yourself riding on the back of a motorcycle in the middle of the most beautiful, vine and tree-covered hills imaginable, cruising a gravel-covered road with a slight rain spattering against the translucent helmet visor and dripping down your lips, you come to realize in every bit of that "Eat, Pray, Love" sort of way, that life does indeed not suck. Life is what you make of it. No one is going to make it for you. So if you're reading this on your couch today in your living room, and you want to escape so badly you think you're going to lose your mind, promise me something. Promise me you'll click off this blog and click onto the Expedia travel site (or whichever site you prefer) and book a ticket to some distant land. Doesn't matter where too or for how long, so long as it's far away, and will take some difficulty getting there. I guarantee it will change your life.

Until next time...

 WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
 THE INNOCENT, the No. 1 Bestselling, Amazon Kindle is FREE all day, Sunday, 25 March, 2012...Nab it for your travels!!  

Walk With a Writer Over the Ponte Vechhio

My Virgin Video Blog in the home of the Renaissance, Warts and all ... Appropriate I think...


So my friend, publicist, and author, Bri Clark, has been encouraging me to make a shift from only written blogs to perhaps a video blog or two. After all, as I say in this, my first video blog, "this is the 23rd century." Or something like that.

This is sort of a writer-meets-travel-meets-I'm-not-really-fucking-sure video essentially, about something not all that unique, but still romantic and wonderful: The Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy. My adopted home away from home. Some of you might think me a tool for saying so, but I spend a lot of time here so I think I have earned the right to call it that. And considering I've written some books here and many parts of books, including The Remains, Moonlight Rises and the forthcoming Blue Moonlight, I believe I will keep coming here for as long as the Italian government allows. That said, I will try and be a good boy and not try and create an international scandal by charming the mayor's wife.

So without further BS from my side of of the Atlantic, here is my first video blog, from the land where Dante not only created the first modern novel, he created the modern Italian language.

Ciao Ciao

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

C.R. Lloyd, Author of "The Second Shot"

I love being an instigator.
Case and point: Last November during a very rainy month-long writing retreat in Florence, Italy (I'm writing this from the same apartment), I found myself spending as much time in a local pub as I did behind my desk. Anyone who knows me well enough won't see anything strange in that. Just ask my ex-wives. But I ended up chatting it up with some very cool ex-pats who work the place and one in particular from London who eventually got around to asking me about acquiring an agent. A couple of beers already swimming in my brain, my reaction was thus: If I had to do it all over again, I'd self-pub on Amazon. Forget the agent and forget about wasting time. Go for it now! Or something like that. Now mind you, I'd never self-pub'd a thing in my life and still haven't. It was the old hubris talking I guess. Or beer muscles. But I was speaking the truth. Kindle Direct Publishing is precisely the route I would take if, like London's newest best-seller to be, C.R. (Rebecca) Lloyd, I was young, super-talented, charming, attractive, and just plain fun to be around. Methinks my meeting with C.R. that rain-soaked November will turn out to be not only serendipitous, but also fortuitous. Indeed and jolly good show!

Rebecca, please take it away:

How to court a writer – in the ‘God people must ask you this all the time but please help me with my writing’ kind of way

I met Vincent Zandri at the pub where I worked. An Irish pub in the centre of Florence. I was working in the pub so that I would have the time to write, but so far I had had no luck getting a literary agent for my book.

My colleague Steve told me about Vincent. ‘Hey, there’s this American dude. He writes thrillers. I googled him. I think he’s pretty successful. He’s in town for the rest of the month. You should so speak to him.’ I met Vince a few days later. But I didn’t tell him I was a writer. I was embarrassed. And when he told me that every time he met someone in Florence they turned out to be an aspiring writer needing help, I knew I couldn’t say anything.

But then I bumped into him at the pub after I’d worked the day shift. I’d had a few drinks already and with my shame levels lowered by the beer I brought it up in conversation. Well we talked about everything that night from our relationships with our parents to our love lives to our favourite books. He came into the pub one more time before heading back to the States and gave me his email address and offered to read some of my stuff when it was ready. I blushed to my toes, feeling as though I had manoeuvred him into offering to help but I was very pleased. You need all the help you can get when you are starting out.

So the following March I emailed him the first three chapters of my book – a political thriller set in Italy. He paid me some great compliments, but even more importantly he advised me to publish it myself on Amazon for Kindle. Kindle devices had been on sale in the UK for less than a year and I still saw self publishing as vanity publishing. And Amazon had only just reached Italy at that point – Kindle was unknown – I hadn’t realised that ebooks were becoming such a big thing. But Vince’s books were selling strongly in their electronic formats and he felt that there were real possibilities out there for new writers to get read and noticed. He told me to get myself an editor, a cover and go for it. I did. And my book, The Second Shot, is now available on Amazon. And if you’re interested here’s what it’s about…

Pietro is a typical Italian: angry, disappointed, resigned to the state of things. But one drunken night he gets an idea: why have one man kill the president when you can get half the country to do it? And his idea becomes a plan, a plan to assassinate the president, using donations from Italians who feel the same as him.

The next six months of his life are a battle to put his plan into actionhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif and avoid arrest. His plan will force him to go into hiding, will put his friends and family in danger, and will bring him into contact with the criminal underbelly of Russia, France and Italy.

And after it’s done? Well if half the country are involved in killing the president, it means they have to be involved in what happens next...

The Second Shot by CR Lloyd is available on Amazon for Kindle priced $3.50