After Paddy’s day

I know it was two weeks ago, but, to be honest, I don’t really know when I’ll recover from that. I worked six days, five of which we saw numbers of visitors going over 5 thousands….yes, you get it right!

The climax of the week reached on the 18^th when we welcomed 6.500 people.

The result of all this was a Franny really, really, really tired, who would have killed for a hug (I don’t know, this happen when I’m tired!) and who had a great idea to dream, guess what? a huge queue of customers on the 6^th day night! I was dreaming about this endless queue, and I was waving my arm to tell people to go in a certain direction, and when I opened my eyes I saw my arm still moving…I hope it’s not bad as it seems, otherwise I won’t survive trough the summer!

Plus at the moment I’m at home sick and I cannot speak! I really think this is due to the hot breeze from the entrance that day!!! Aaaaaaaargh!

Said that, I feel to share with you a couple of interesting things I learned during those busy days:

-According to a customer the best city in California is San Francisco. He was from there but that doesn’t count!

-In case of emergency you learn to know better people who work with you…even who have your same shoe size! Whatever they say I’m a teamwork person!

-Being a human kiosk is funnier that I thought! I was giving ticket in exchange of reference numbers and I was immerged in paper!

-Receiving hugs when you’re knackered is without price! I’ve always loved hugs, they make you feel better, but I suppose they’re mandatory in these cases! They should put as routine after a day so busy!

-The busiest is the place the number of stupid/rude/impolite people raises….actually I already knew that! I don’t know why and nobody knows! It’s just to confirm!

- I have nice…hum…trousers. That was told me by a guy, I suppose the stag! He was dressed in a lady outfit, giant pink curled wig and giant red rimmed sunglasses. Actually I hope he dressed himself alone! I was so tired that I just said “Wow, nice dress!”. Hence the answer!

-I could confirm that Dutch have the most weird glass frames. I love them, I’ll use some of them for my stories sooner or later!

-It doesn’t matter how many times you see something and how tired you are, there are a few things that are just funny. So I’ll share with you:

It seems that one of the biggest problem people have is with the machine where you can buy tickets with credit card. You go there and you see two buttons on the touch screen: Collect Ticket and Buy ticket. I suppose that now you tell me “Ok, that’s not difficult!”. What I can say to you is that:

a- Loads of people just press Collect ticket and try to enter their credit card number in the line for the reference number!

b- Loads of them, just swipe the card without even choose one of the two options!

Once you manage to press Buy ticket, you should choose what you want and then swipe your card. Unfortunately the majority of people just stay there and keep swiping the card as they think that the computer sooner or later would read their mind!

Then you get your ticket and you go, skipping the queue, straight into the tour!

Now, leaving on the side all the people that apparently prefer queuing for a good half an hour instead doing that and leaving on the side also those ones that try to swipe the card into the door with access the staff lockers, or the ones who try to swipe it on the image of the touch screen, I’ll tell you the scene who won that day!

A man (not telling you where he was from because, really, who knows me and the job, already guessed right!) was sent to buy his tickets on the kiosk. He was between the last two machines, one with the two buttons, Buy and Collect and the other one with just Collect. Of course he was trying to buy on the one saying just Collect.

Me –Can I help you?

Customer- It doesn’t work!

Me- Yes, this is just to collect tickets! You…

Customer- It doesn’t work!

Me- Did you book on line?

Customer-….

Me- So let’s try the other one!

Customer -(tried to swipe his card without pressing what he needed)

Me- Why don’t we choose something first?

Customer- (looked at me, completely lost)

Me- Ok.. (I pressed Buy for him. I was really worried for his little son looking lost. Maybe it was a family matter!) what do you want to buy?

Customer- Two!

Me-Ok, so one adult and one child, right?

Customer-…

Me-Ok… Now you swipe your card….

After this I sent them inside, but believe me, I was so tired that my effort to not laugh in his face was really hard!

But now it’s over….oh no, summer ahead! Poor Franny!

Talk to you soon!

Update n°7

As I mentioned in my last update, I’ve started at the beginning of February a 10 weeks children’s fiction course run by Jane Mitchell.

I love it and it makes me feel better with all these things that are going on around me. I’m not in a happy mood lately for a series of problems but writing is my personal lifejacket so I’ll grab it and I won’t let it go! I don’t want even to think about what I could do without writing.

Let’s talk about the course! During the first lesson we introduced ourselves and then Jane explained how the course works. All the most important novel topics will be touched and ideally by the end of the course we should have a 5 chapter’s book draft. This is amazing! If this comes true I’ll have three drafts in my computer, one of them finished at least!

The story is about my fantasy world, Sonrisa, once again, but it is set many years before the event of the first book I wrote took place. I don’t say anything more for the moment!

We had homework to do for the following lesson: we had to jot down the writing project and also read a book. I didn’t think I could read a book in one week. Ok, it wasn’t The Lord of the Rings (something that I’m still reading…yes I’m still at the first book since last year…I won’t say it defeated me though! At least so far!) but fairy long: House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones. She’s the English queen of fantasy, full stop and I’m not going to spoil a single word out of the book, you just have to read it! I wish I’ll have such fantasy and ability sooner or later!

I feel proud anyway I managed to reach the goal although at least a couple of people in the group read two or even three books. This is something it’s not likely to happen until I’ll retire! Or until I’ll be a writer able to live of my writing!

The second lesson, we had last week, was about characters. Nice challenge I’d say. The small exercise we did in class was about finding a coat owned by our character and telling five objects we find inside it, in order to describe who he/she is without give any other information. The homework was describing our character eating something, using only food, tools and custom. I’d never tried to think in this way. And, believe me, it was harder than just describe your character in the “standard way”!

I suppose that the rule “show don’t tell” is a bit clearer in my head, but still difficult to apply.

To add some notions more I read chapters about character from Fantasy and Science Fiction by Philip Athans. The odd and nice thing was discovering I was doing some of the right things without knowing I was doing them! Although I know I need a lot of hard work to do I feel good for the find.

Another nice thing about last week. I was home sick, I then decided to follow my partner’s advice and stay in bed at least for one day. At the end of the afternoon I finished to read one whole book. Nothing big, fantasy book for young adults, but still I remember that I was in high school the last time I did that! I felt good!

Finally on Tuesday I went to the third lesson. We touched the setting and its influence on the character. How the character perceive the setting according to his/her emotions. As homework we have to write about the perception of the same environment by a character in two opposite situations! That will be fun!

I love Jane’s style of teaching. Every time I attend a different course I learn something more and something different. I just feel awkward at times, because I’m the only non-English speaker but this is the path I’ve chosen so I have to live with it and give my best!!!

Talk to you soon!

New Pirates

Why have people always hated pirates?

Because they were dirty. Because they were criminals. Because they were violent. For all that, they were told dangerous for the society.

And yes, for a certain point of view they were all this. Well, they were all of this, but not only!

I know that probably you wouldn’t believe me because everybody who knows me a bit more is aware of my love towards those mythical scurvy dogs and the golden age of piracy. But this is not the moment or the place where I’ll try to explain my fondness! I’ll do in one of the next posts.

What I’m here to say is that piracy is not gone! It still exists in the world, in our everyday life. And don’t tell me “Oh, yes, what a news! We all know that! We all read the newspapers!” because I’m not going to talk to you about the facts happening in the Middle East or that kind of stuff!

I’m going to speak about those pirates that live among us and that usually are thought cool by the most.

They are not even true pirates, they are more like privateers. They’re allowed to behave like that by the established power.

For those who don’t know anything about the privateers let me explain. They were basically pirates, like the others. So they robbed, killed, destroyed villages, raped and kidnapped, all for the vile money! BUT (because it is a big but!) they were allowed to do that by the governors and trough them by the king himself who, to be honest, sit on his throne in Europe hardly knew what happened in the new world for sure. They paid the governor a percentage out of the booty or slaves to ensure their freedom in action.

Can you imagine whom I’m talking about? No, no it’s not the politician….they actually are included in the category, it’s obvious. What I’m talking about it’s something you don’t think immediately at: the management class (let’s be honest, you cannot define them otherwise) in every big company.

The biggest is the company the worse and more violent are the pirates.

I’m saying that because they behave like them, kidnapping our neurons, destroying and robbing our brains and raping our way to be.

But there is a huge difference between these new pirates and the legendary ones. And you mind, I want neither you agree with me nor that you think I totally justify the old ones.

But the matter that counts is that the old pirates and maybe the privateers as well had a moral code. Yes you heard correctly!

Although they were immoral for the most they had a code and most importantly they respected the code between them, no matter the grade you were wearing or your race or your credo. They were really the same for the code.

Apparently you have the same thing among the new pirates, but this is exactly what I hate with all my heart: appearance!

They eat each other no matter what. And everywhere is the same because what it counts is the money….but no rules, no rules in sharing the booty…nothing!

And now just do answer: which one do you think is worse?!

Talk to you soon

PS. I was editing this post when I watched this video by mistake. I think it could fit the cause.

Those are pirates too, but the worse kind. They seek kids and prevent them to think with their heads from such a young age. This is just disgusting.

But, you see, it’s not just Christians…after the last post you might thing I’m sticking on them. Here it is another nice one! (for the few who didn’t got it, the last bit was ironic!)

Zeitgeist: moving forward

As I promised you recently I’m going to link you the video Zeitgeist: moving forward.

Before I do so I want just to point out a thing.

Listen to their words carefully and mostly try to understand that racism, hatred and ignorance don’t bring us anywhere.

We should know what is right and what is wrong, we should stop to hate each other and we should stop with all these differences and mostly we should love our planet most.

As Jacque Fresco says: “This shit’s got to go!”

ZMF

Update n°6

Here we are again for a new update.

I wrote my January issue telling you what I wanted to do and now I think it’s right telling you what I managed to do so far. I know January hasn’t finished yet but I also say that it’s better start from the very beginning. In this way I’ll also keep track of my personal improvement.

What I’ve done so far was drawing again the map of Sonrisa with A.’s help. Now, it’s tidier but still it’s full of stuff. I think that, when I’ll end up with the main project, I’ll have a couple of spare ideas to write about! After all it’s an entire world I’m building up, so I suppose there will be loads of stories to tell!

I drew in 10 sheets of paper the races that live in my world and they’re attached on the wall in the kitchen (believe it or not, my partner hasn’t killed me yet!) so I have a general idea of the whole and it’s easier for me pick up a race and invent new characters.

Also that helps me with a top secret project I’ve started, still set in Sonrisa, but detached from the main one. I cannot speak about that right now but I will sooner or later!

I also gathered a few encyclopaedias about history, geography and other topics, but I’ll tell you about them little by little.

The one I’m studying for the moment is human geography. I started history of the world and crimes against humanity too, but I think it’s better I concentrate on one per time. I knew already I needed time, so no rush, Franny!!! (Ah ah ah…Franny’s brain’s laughing!)

What I’m not doing and I hoped I could improve a bit it’s reading. I’ve finished a couple of books I dragged with me from 2010 and also I’ve started a new one, a fantasy, although I still have some unfinished waiting on the bedside table!

What I haven’t started again is writing seriously after the NaNoWriMo effort! I’m lost among the planning of the world, the planning for the main project, blogging and writing the top secret thing… there is no time left for my good old routine. Or so it seems!

I suppose that once I’ll finish planning at least I’d be able to resume the morning pleasure. Let’s hope for February!

Also in February I’ll start a new 10 weeks writing course at the Irish Writers’ Centre. I hope I can go a step forward in my planning and writing. I’ll keep you updated on that too, no worries!

On the top of it I keep working full time and I’m more tired than ever, but I’ll go on. Until my body will decided to stop me in one of its genus way, like a cold or something alike, I’ll go ahead!

For the moment that’s that!

Talk to you soon.

Our world

We should love our world.

Sunday I went to the worldwide release of this documentary: Zeitgeist moving forward. It was amazing. I agree 100% with what they say and I hope that sooner or later everybody will understand that we need to change.

I’ll tell you when the whole documentary will be available on-line. It should be in a few days.

If you’re interested, there are two documentaries preceding this one. Zeitgeist.

And then the Zeitgeist Addendum

If you want to understand more about the Venus Project then I suggest you to watch Future by design.

And this is the website.

As you may notice I didn’t explain anything about that. Firstly because the immages are clear enough and secondly because I don’t want to influence anybody with my point of view. I think you can understand alone!

2011

Here we are again, on my good old blog. A new year started, the holidays are finished, my guests are back to Italy and the house is quiet again. I kind miss the mess to be honest!

Usually, at the beginning of the year, I do a list with all the things that I want to do, all the aims of the year.

However a recent happening caught my attention forcing me to complain with you right from the beginning. I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way!

A part from the high number of unlucky things that are happening to me for some unknown reason, the recent happening I’m referring to is the end of the world.

No really, it’s the end of the world!

Do you remember the prophecy told by Mayan calendar? They forecasted that the end of the world will be in 2012. There is a film also and I’ve even found a literary competition on the matter. Everybody seems to get ready for the event!

But a genius, one engineer now member of one of the million Christian churches existing in the world, says that the end of the world is this year indeed. Now if you surf on the web there are so many different dates about this, but certainly the one the most of them agree on is the 21^st of May, which for them will be the Judgment Day.

A few days ago I was in work and literally a pamphlet rolled in through the door. I thought it was about a museum I hadn’t seen yet, but when I opened it the title read “21^st May 2011….Judgment Day!”. I laughed immediately, really people believes it?

My knowledge on the matter is really limited, I admit that, but I couldn’t help to read the paper and think about a couple of comments.

First, it seems that they want to get more people for the Church just scaring them, they count of the people’s fright of the death. I quote “As you read this pamphlet, please carefully consider the verses quoted from the Bible, for they are the Word of God, and as such, posses absolute power and authority. Our only salvation is through the reading of the Word of God”. Now the question is: how can loads of people believe in such prehistoric book? Something that was put together during a council of human beings choosing what they preferred most? It is something to brainwash people, that’s it. But still there are a millions of people of the world who believe in it.

And just to scare a bit more at the end they reinforce the idea repeating “As you read this pamphlet, please carefully consider the verses quoted from the Bible, for they are the Word of God, and as such, posses absolute power and authority” …again, do they know that something called science does exist? I wonder what they do when they feel sick…go to the church or to the doctor? That’s tough!

Secondly, they say that now the words are clear and they can read it properly. What does it mean? Was it written in a different language before? Did you read for once in hangover? A Book is not alive or better, it is, but not in the way they think…something that is written before it will be written after still…it doesn’t change the words, in particular if you say that it is written clearly!

Immediately after, there is a list “Timing of important event in history”. I’m sure that other dates were important in that period, but it seems that only a few of them are taken into consideration. Why? Because after only one page, the dates are used to make a calculation according to which the date of the judgement day is given. Not only, they also give us the date of the end of the world which is on October 21^st. It’s like you’re scheduling the appointment with the doctor in a way! 21^st of May, the Judgment, check. The 21^st of October, the End, check. Just consider that they reached this conclusion using the Hebrew calendar or so they say…what? In hundreds of years did nobody think to this solution? Again, I think they want just to put panic amidst the people, a real Deus ex machina!

The more I read into the pages the more I felt angry. The things I was thought when I was younger are all lies. I thought he was the God of benevolence and he was fair and good and loved his creatures.

Here they talk about someone who’ll destroy what he’s done to kill us all if we don’t like his principles. It’s like a parent who kills his child because he or she misbehaved… Where is the love? Where is the mercy? Also I quote again “He is giving us advanced warning to what He is about to do”… From May to October five months of terrible things will happen. So, He loves his creature, give us the warning, because he love us…right, BUT if we don’t do what He “says” he’ll made us suffer in the most unimaginable ways…where the hell is the mercy? It seems more sadist. Mercy would be:

“Stay with me?”

“No”

“Instant death then” and puff, we don’t even realize it!

Than it is written that people will rise from their graves. The good one are ascending while the bad are staying here and wondering around like zombies.

Well, if all the people who don’t believe in Him are zombies, in China they’ll be packed! So it says the pamphlet “Death will be everywhere”…no seriously…Mr. Romero, do we want to do something about that? Let’s do that, come on!

After all the quoting there is a web site address. There is no way to speak with other people and exchange opinion as far I could see. It’s a website full of things to download.

But as they say “Read the Bible with your family (especially your children) and along with your reading, pray for mercy”….that’s the perfect example of brainwash and early recruitment!

I’ll leave you now, from the next time the posts will be again the usual standard, I hope.

I just want to say a last thing. 2011 is the year of the rabbit, and it is supposed to bring lucky….well, if the year keeps going like this, I’m going to get that damn rabbit and cook it!

Lists before Christmas

As I promised to a friend of mine, this post will be full of lists and bullet points. I should put a new tag like “Lists” or something like that, as lately I’m prone to do that anyway!

I’m happy when I meet new people, and to be honest, since I’ve started to write and, in particular, I’ve started to write in English, the quantity and the quality of people I’ve met improved and I’m so happy for this! I’ve never thought I could be happy and satisfied so much by something else other than meeting my partner!

Among my new friends there is Estrella Azul, a very nice and sweet blogger who writes a very interesting and (very often) useful blog. The following lists are ideas coming from her. I think this could be a light and nice way to leave you for a couple of week’s holiday!

The first one is the more recent, it’s about something you believe in. Ten bullet point. I’m not sure it will make any sense at all, as I always have doubts about everything.

Ten things I believe:

1. Friendship is the most important thing you have. Friends are your personal treasure so it is right to give all yourself in the relationships.

2. Love exists. There are many forms of love; it could be friendship, it could be passion, it could be staying together with another person, it could be family.

3. Talking with people is useful (although lately the facts are proving me wrong!). All the relationships, anyway, suffer if it’s only one of the people involved to do his or her best. If you are in any kind of relationship you should give yourself 100%.

4. At least four people in the world love me very much no matter what. I’m sure my boyfriend and my two little sisters and my brother panda love me like I love them.

5. Everybody has a good side (I know that the experience is going against me on this too but I still think that!). It’s almost impossible that a person is completely evil. Although I’ve met so far lots of people that behaved towards me like serial killers, they maybe had feed a puppy in the street at least once in their life.

6. You don’t need to be perfect or be exactly like the others to be appreciated and accepted by people. You have to be yourself no matter what (although this could be easier said than done!). One day someone will love you for what you are.

7. You don’t need to follow the flock! You can be the black sheep and be lovely anyway!

8. Animals are more human than human beings themselves. Penguins are lovely and have a sense of group and community. Wolves and eagles are faithful and loyal and dogs are just full of love. I’ve just mentioned my favourites but I’m sure there are more examples. And to all the people who treat badly their animals, train them to fight or abandon them when the “puppy magic” is gone, I’d like to say “You’re the real animals!”

9. There are good and bad people everywhere in the world. It doesn’t matter the race, the sex, the religion, the education. We all should stop with the stupid racism.

10. Money and religions are the ruin of the world. We should love each other even if a religion doesn’t tell us so. We should help each other even if we’re not gaining anything. Only in this way we could hope to begin a nice revolution, which will change the world in better.

The following list comes from Estrella’s blog again. It was a game following the “Creative writer blogger award” she gave to me. Thanks so much, Estrella, even if it’s so in late! Now, I’m going to list my six outrageous lies and one outrageous truth like the game requests, even if I’m not passing on (just a matter of time, really!).

Her creepy version would be my Christmas version, considering I’m doing it now:

1. Santa called me yesterday telling me that he needs some help during the 24^th night due to his age.

2. I’ve decorated a 20 feet high tree in my back garden.

3. I have a new pet now, a penguin puppy I’ve called Peppy

4. I’m preparing a Christmas dinner for 30 people.

5. The snowman I did the other day is alive now and he’s tiding up the house for me as a Christmas present.

6. I’ve sent a seal as present to my little nephew.

7. I’m going to use fairy powder in the Christmas cake, so it would be a happy day!

You find the one outrageous truth among these 7 sentences!

And with this I’m just wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Let’s hope that the 2011 will be a year full of (good) news and also ideas and writing!

I’ll see you on these pages at the beginning of January with many posts and much more!

Talk to you soon!

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.

Post-Nano and Post-TGIO

What the NaNoWriMo experience left me other than personal satisfaction, useful contacts, a second unfinished manuscript and a kilo more?

A very nice and pleasant memory.

Last Sunday (yes, I know this post is late…a lot…but that’s that at the moment, I’m afraid!) I had my first TGIO lunch.

Some of the NaNos from Dublin area met in Yamamori, one of the Japanese restaurants, to celebrate the end of the past tiring month.

After a brief taste of the atmosphere I had last time (the only one actually) I went to a meet-up, I had a pleasant full immersion in what is a place I was looking for.

Being at the table with other ten people or so who love the very same thing I love, who follow me fully in my questions, ideas and considerations, is without prize.

I felt that I was in the right place and that it’s in this kind of environment that I want to be in the years to come, that’s why I have to improve, concentrate and work hard. The enthusiasm showed by those people is exciting and you just want to stay with them.

Special mention to our little NaNo! Seven years old, pure fantasy and great ability. This little one was able to beat the limit of 4,000 words, which is amazing at that age! Plus, a mention to her mother and her family. I maybe sound repetitive and also a bit weird. But is suffered so much when I was the same age and I felt alone looking around me and trying to understand why nobody noticed anything special and ending up to believe that I was wrong.

But now, I’m again on this way! I think it’s the right one and I’m not going back or stop anymore!

Now it’s my turn!

Thanks to all of you NaNo fellows! I’m happy and pleased that you’re out there!

Books and lists!

You know? I was wondering what to write next and here is the idea! Thanks Dap Dap!

Now this is a note I was tagged on Facebook! The note says that BBC confirms that the majority of people have read only 6 out of the hundred books there are in the following list. Then the note says to put in bold the ones you’ve fully read and in cursive the ones you’ve started to read…at a first sight I had problems because I thought I sucked in this field. There are some of this book that I’ve read at least twice if not four or five times, like “Promessi sposi” or “Il nome della rosa”!

As a writer I’m aware I don’t read a lot and that I have to work on it….ah, ah, ah work on it!!!! That’s nice….if only I had time…

Now, considering that I’m paranoid enough to feel the more stupid on the world’s surface and to ignore my inner voice that is telling me “Hey do you know that you’ve read loads of books that aren’t even listed in this list?!!”, I’ve decided to divide this list in Books I’ve read once, more than once, started and then the rest….Oh boy I really suck!!!!

I could ask myself which are the criteria used to form this list too…but I still suck!!! There are a lot of classics I’ve never read…even if I wish I could…damn spare time!

Listen, I’ll leave you with the list, free to paste copy and giving me a lesson how it should be a normal reader, and then I go to bury somewhere, maybe with a couple of volumes…..

Original List:

1. Pride and predjudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of The rings – JRR Tolkien
3. The Prophet- Kahlil Gibran
4. Harry Potter – JK Rowling
5. Se questo è un uomo – Primo Levi
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. 1984 – George Orwell
9. I Promessi Sposi – Alessandro Manzoni
10. La Divina Commedia – Dante Alighieri
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Lessico Familiare – Natalia Ginzburg
13. Comma 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Shakespeare’s complete works
15. Il Giardino dei Finzi Contini – Giorgio Bassani
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Il Nome della Rosa – Umberto Eco
18. Il Gattopardo – Tommasi di Lampedusa
19. The Trial – Franz Kafka
20. Elective Affinities – Goethe
21. Gone with the wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Odyssey – Omero
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. The Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Cuore – Edmondo de Amicis
36. La Coscienza di Zeno – Italo Svevo
37. The kite runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Il Mandolino del Capitano Corelli – Louis De Berniere
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. Da Vinci Code– Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. Il Barone Rampante – Italo Calvino
45. Gli Indifferenti – Alberto Moravia
46. Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
47. I Malavoglia – Giovanni Verga
48. Il Fu Mattia Pascal – Luigi Pirandello
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Cristo si è fermato ad Eboli – Carlo Levi
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
53. Don Quixote de la Mancha – Cervantes
54. The Sorrows of Young Werther – J. W. Goethe
55. Pinocchio – Collodi
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. Siddharta – Hermann Hesse
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
60. Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. Jules Maigret – George Simenon
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On the Road – Jack Kerouac
67. La luna e i Falò – Cesare Pavese
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. Three Men in a Boat – Jerome K. Jerome
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Buddenbroock – Thomas Mann
77. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
83. The Colour Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88. The red and the black – Stendhal
89. Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. All Quiet on the Western Front – Remarque
95. Un Uomo – Oriana Fallaci
96. The Catcher in the Rye – Salinger
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Misérables – Victor Hugo

Book I’ve read once

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. Odyssey – Omero
3. Emma – Jane Austen
4. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
5. I Malavoglia – Giovanni Verga
6. Il Fu Mattia Pascal – Luigi Pirandello
7. Il Conte di Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
8. The picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
9. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
10. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
11. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

Book I’ve read more than once

1. Harry Potter – JK Rowling
2. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
3. I Promessi Sposi – Alessandro Manzoni
4. Il Nome della Rosa – Umberto Eco
5. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
6. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
7. La Coscienza di Zeno – Italo Svevo
8. Il Barone Rampante – Italo Calvino
9. Dracula – Bram Stoker
10. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
11. The Little Prince– Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Book I’ve started

1. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
2. Se questo è un uomo – Primo Levi
3. La Divina Commedia – Dante Alighieri
4. Shakespeare’ complete work
5. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
6. Da Vinci Code– Dan Brown
7. Ulysses – James Joyce
8. Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
9. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

The rest

1. The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran
2. The Bible
3. 1984 – George Orwell
4. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
5. Lessico Familiare – Natalia Ginzburg
6. Comma 22 – Joseph Heller
7. Il Giardino dei Finzi Contini – Giorgio Bassani
8. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
9. Il Gattopardo – Tommasi di Lampedusa
10. The trial – Franz Kafka
11. Elective Affinities – Goethe
12. Gone with the wind – Margaret Mitchell
13. Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
14. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
15. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
16. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
17. The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
18. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
19. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
20. The Chronicle of Narnia – CS Lewis
21. Cuore – Edmondo de Amicis
22. The kite runner – Khaled Hosseini
23. Il Mandolino del Capitano Corelli – Louis De Berniere
24. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
25. Animal farm – George Orwell
26. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
27. Gli Indifferenti – Alberto Moravia
28. Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
29. The lord of flies – William Golding
30. Cristo si è fermato ad Eboli – Carlo Levi
31. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
32. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
33. Don Quixote de la Mancha – Cervantes
34. The Sorrows of Young Werther – J. W. Goethe
35. Pinocchio – Collodi
36. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
37. Siddharta – Hermann Hesse
38. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
39. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time– Mark Haddon
40. Love in the time of Colera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
41. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
42. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
43. Jules Maigret – George Simenon
44. The lovely bones – Alice Sebold
45. On the road – Jack Kerouac
46. La luna e i Falò – Cesare Pavese
47. Bridget Jones’ diary – Helen Fielding
48. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
49. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
50. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
51. Three Men in a boat – Jerome K. Jerome
52. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
53. The Buddenbroock – Thomas Mann
54. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
55. Germinal – Emile Zola
56. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
57. Possession – AS Byatt
58. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
59. The purple colour– Alice Walker
60. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
61. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
62. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
63. The red and the black – Stendhal
64. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
65. All quiet on the western front – Remarque
66. Un Uomo – Oriana Fallaci
67. The Catcher in the Rye – Salinger
68. The three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
69. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Mickey Mouse and Co.

After the latest happenings I think it’s right to show you a post I wrote a few months ago! I’ll keep for me the comment people wrote about it for obvious reasons!

Today has been another day that you’d rather dump in the farest bin!

How’s possible working in a place where two or three buffoons rule the entire world. Do you know what? On a certain point of view they’re helping me: I’ve never had so much self-confidence, but I start thinking that I’m not so bad! Even if the little squirrel inside my brain the most of the time is in hangover (at least he drinks) I can still think more that these people all together!

And you know another thing? I’m pretty sure that someone loyal to the dark empire, would report this post to the dark emperor, but I don’t care! Number one because it means that they fear the truth so much that they simply have you to shut up and number two because I want really having a fun in watching which is their limit! I mean, apparently you’re not able anymore to do whatever you please in your time off, but they should understand that the “7 years apprenticeship” thing is not valid anymore, we’re in 2010, you know?

So let me tell what I think!

I’ve always thought that you needed a degree to run a place like a tourist attraction, but apparently you don’t need one.

If it’s like that, I think that from tomorrow I’ll look for a place as a manager in another area.

I saw a few of the big bosses today coming in and I thought that all the hiring problem is explained.

Maybe they are managers in training but I wonder who took on bord Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Minnie Mouse in the higher ranks.

Well, if the aim was to make people laugh is fine, but if it was to improve the image of the company probably they should think twice before they accept Goofy too!

Let’s be serious, in my workplace people who work hard can be counted on the fingers of ONE hand, and if you consider that we’re more than 50, just in my area, probably there is something that doesn’t work!

Anyway there is no way to speak with them because apparently Peter Pan and Cinderella decided that it is more important to help the three pigs getting rid of the bad wolf instead of helping the poor 7 dwarfs in the collapsing mine!

But I’m a writer and I will write!

Big News!

Hi everybody,
I'm here just a little bit earlier than you expected. I'm coming with good news! Remember when I told you I was thinking about some changes for my blog!?
Right, I' m going to start at this very minute. What I thought to do, in fact, was to put together my old blog, which is this one, and my nonsense blog, which I opened a few months ago.
I tried to keep them separated but after a wile I noticed that the ''serious one'' was a bit too serious and poor in contents.
Now reading again what I wrote in my old page 'Who's Franny’. It says
''I’m a writer, and that is my real dream and priority! I write every time I have a minute free, it doesn’t matter what! My only problem is that I was taking too seriously the matter forgetting the nice and funny side of it, and this is “inconceivable”, if you let me quote! This is why I opened this blog. You’ll find here the funniest (I hope), the most lunatic and the most human part of me!''
I even quote myself, so you understand why I tried to keep away from your sight these kinds of posts!
So, all the posts like this one will be tagged in ‘Nonsense’. In this way you'll be warned!!!!
I' m going to copy a few of the nonsense posts over here and the comments in the first comment, be patient! The good news, for who enjoy this side of me, is that I'll update this blog a little more often!
On the no side I have to apologise to my readers because those posts will be less grammatically correct than the other ones. But that's me, and I hope you'll enjoy it anyway!

Update n° 5

Hi everybody,

I’ve published so far on this blog three short stories and a fairy tale and, before I put in practice what I want to do, it would be fair to explain to you what I’m going to upload here in the future!

From the next week on, I’ll put on these pages the book I wrote for children piece by piece. To me it is still too unripe to try pitching to an editor or a literary agent but still, I think it would be nice to share it with you.

It was my first attempt to write a book fully in English, so it will be very simple; well to be honest, at the beginning it was supposed to be a fairy tale and then I just kept writing it!

Actually reading it again and again to correct it, I noticed that it is something like a draft still though with no chance to become something more. I’m going to upload it anyway because I spent lots of time on those pages so I think it’s fair to myself showing you my first efforts. If I wanted to put it right I should behave like Stevenson, the day his wife Fanny told him that his “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” needed to be polished a bit: he went back to his room and threw the manuscript in the fireplace! The version you can read nowadays is something completely different!

This book is set in a fantasy world I’m creating for children and I’ve called Sonrisa. I’m in love with it! I have a huge project in my head and the more I write, the more ideas come up to my mind. I think that this is good but also that it might take too long especially if I keep working full time! But I won’t give up as I have a good feeling about it.

I remember that when I graduated, the enthusiasm about researching and writing were at their highest levels, but I had limits of time and length! At the moment I feel exactly the same but I don’t have any limit whatsoever! It’s great!

Well, Oisin, who ran the workshop I told you about, said that I have an ambitious project but I didn’t take it as a critique, mostly because it didn’t sound alike! And far from being knocked down by this (like I usually do for other matters!) I feel stronger and more determined as I think about it even harder!

My head is spinning and my hands are moving alone!

The second thing coming soon will be a kind of magazine about Sonrisa. Hopefully it will bring up my paper world in more of a 3D spectrum. There you’ll find some news, ads, history and nice things regarding my world.

These two pieces of big news will change the pages at the top of the blog as well.

I’m going to get rid of “Cooking, music and so on!” and “The monster factory” pages and replace them with “Arilla”, which is the title of my book, and “Sonrisa”, which is the name of the world, and where I’ll put the newspaper when it will be ready.

Well I think that’s it for the moment.

Talk to you soon!

Update n° 4

Hi everybody,

After two pieces of prose I’ll tell you something different again! But no worries, you’ll have loads of stuff written by me on these pages in the next weeks so don’t despair!!!

Few weeks ago I was having breakfast with my partner and I was talking about writing. He said “No, don’t become a dark gloomy hunchback!” and I assured him that not everybody ends up like Leopardi.

“Ah and don’t become mad and dandy!” and I assured him that not everybody ends up like D’Annunzio.

The following question was “Are you sure you want to write? I don’t want you to become a mad person!” I answered to this that yes, I wanted to write and become a full time writer but that for the mad problem it was already too late!

The very same day I was having a look at one writers social network. In the forum there was a post where there were written some famous writers’ habits.

I thought then that I could tell in this piece what is my personal method.

To be honest I haven’t a particular one but I also think that my perseverance and my efforts should be rewarded mentioning what I do every day.

I usually don’t think I’m doing something really special but my friends and my boyfriend think so. Therefore I’ll write it down and ask you what you think about that.

At the moment I’m not a full time writer, I’m not even a part time writer…I’m more of a “I write when I manage to find time” writer.

I have my day job in a touristic attraction and my evening job which is, like every woman, my partner, our home and our dinner!

The moments that are left to write are the lunch break, one hour in the evening (when I’m not dead after my day at work!) and my days off. To give you an idea I’m writing this post’s draft in the GP waiting room!

What I know is that I don’t want to give up and stop! This time it would be entirely my fault and I wouldn’t forgive myself if I did!

It is said that you were born alone and you die alone. It’s actually also true that to be a writer means being alone too! Even if you have friends and you enjoy staying with them it doesn’t matter. Once you’re sat at your desk you’re alone!

As I said, I haven’t much time to write, so the few minutes I have for my lunch break are spent in writing, reading, editing and so on!

This means that I’m not going to our workplace canteen with my colleagues anymore, so I’m getting rid of one of the few occasions to show myself less asocial in the eyes of the people whom I work with! But it’s ok, this is my dream and this is worth the sacrifice. I usually write for 30 minutes in total while I’m eating. That’s why my production is not so wide anyway!

When I go back home and during my days off, if I’m not collapsing because of the fatigue, I keep writing. Well, not for all the time because I want to dedicate some time to my partner too.

Another niche I’m managing to cut for myself lately is in the morning. My partner usually takes from half an hour to an hour to wake up snoozing the alarm. I realized that sacrificing a few of my neurons I can write a good half an hour while preparing breakfast that takes just a few minutes anyway. And that’s how I’m writing my new book. This seems to be working for some reason because I’ve already written down ten pages in just a few days. So I think I’ll keep going!

Unfortunately or not, it depends on the point of view, I’m the kind of person who wants to do loads of things together. I’m a bit disappointed form the reality that tells me that I cannot. But still sometimes I try to go beyond.

What is for sure is that writing and my partner are my priorities so I’ll do my best to keep at least these two!!!

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Talk to you later!

Update n° 3

I spent last week in Listowel, Co. Kerry, at the Listowel Writer’s Week festival. This is why I didn’t post anything on my blog but it is also why I have this post and two short stories ready to put online over the next two weeks.

There are so many things that went on during the past days that I had to read the notes I scribbled on my notebook to write this post! And just consider that, with the exception of the walking tour, I haven’t been to any of the events simply because I’m too ignorant to know all the writers reading their books. But I don’t mind, simply because I found out that there is always time to learn more and there is always a way to improve yourself. I met extraordinary people who go here and there, without stopping doing things, learning or living even if they’re not so young anymore. Take Mary for example she’s a wonderful X (no good saying a lady’s age, but let’s say greatly more than 50) years old who was at the workshop wanting to try to do something different, living her second youth with her new partner, running an activity in a foreign country. Believe me, I’ve always thought that at that age the only adventurous thing you were able to do was travel around the world and that’s it for my personal experience. And she isn’t the only one I met there who lives this wonderful life. I hope I’ll be like that at her age!

Anyway what I want to concentrate on in this piece are the wonderful, mixed and confused feelings I experienced in the past seven days! Marvellous thing!

The first class is always something new, you meet your teacher and the people who we’ll stay with you for the days/weeks the course lasts. The one I attended was a 3 days short fiction workshop run by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne who, through the analysis of short stories, taught us how to write them correctly. Or at least my don’ts list is a bit longer now!!! At the very beginning I felt overwhelmed by the atmosphere, fifteen new people to know, some of them already published authors (I would like to underline that this teaches everybody that you never finish to learn. Which is amazing!). Of course all of them were English native speakers (something I was the only one to be worried about, really!) and some of them veterans of the Writers Week. I remember that I looked around me and I thought “What the hell are you doing here, Fran!?”. But I have to admit this uncomfortable sensation didn’t last long! They were one nicer than the other and I spent a wonderful time with them. I met some of them outside the course as well and got some new contacts. I’m really happy for this. I have also to admit that I had the courage to talk and ask the contact information of people that I admire and I thought immediately were nice instead of staying in a corner and think how it would be nice making their acquaintance! It is also true that here in Ireland it’s really easier to make new friends or at least knowing new people. Maybe what I’m learning is to be braver in social relationships and that when I want something, I should go and do it instead of staying in one corner wishing!

I found the method of “learning through the reading” really interesting. That is probably something we all should do when we read. Well, I wouldn’t want to sound obvious but maybe that’s why we’re told to read more than write! I think I have to improve this skill anyway. I’m usually so absorbed by what I’m reading that after a while it’s pretty hard to keep the concentration on the technical point of view.

The first day we were given homework as well and I wrote a short story staying up till 1 that night. But it was worth it, because it received a nice feedback. You’ll see it on this blog in a couple of weeks. I’m so glad of this and most of all it could mean that I should start thinking that I’m not that bad. What it needs for sure is some correction. Actually I think I said this before, and this experience didn’t change the matter, the toughest part of the workshop is reading every time after you produced something without the time to revise and correct it properly. I feel just a bit better knowing that I’m not the only one to feel like this, so maybe it’s not really connected with the fact that I’m an Italian native speaker, or at least not only, but also with the character itself. If only I felt more self-confident after all these workshops it would be great.

I was sad when the workshop was finished. It was a good experience and it was so funny and enjoyable that I wanted it to last longer. It taught me a lot but also that I have to learn even more.

On Friday my partner came over and we spent the weekend together but what I think with nostalgia about are the two days I spent by myself, simply because I passed all day long doing what I love the most, writing and reading. It was an incredibly fulfilling and satisfying sensation I was doing something for me and something I’m proud of. I hope that sooner or later I’ll be able to be a full time writer and spend my days like the old writers did. I’m a bit romantic, I know, but I feel like whishing this to myself.

Talk to you later!

Update n° 2

Hi all,

Here I am again! The original post for this week wasn’t this one, but then a couple of things happened and I wanted to share them with you!

First of all I started my children’s fiction workshop at the Writers Centre here in Dublin. It’s a seven weeks course run by a writer and illustrator of children/teens books, Oisín McGann.

We’re just 6 people and, apart from me and a Swedish lady, the rest of us are Irish. But all ladies! Good for him! The course is amazing, and the teacher is very good. He actually destroyed the idea I’ve always had of the writer. I mean, when you think about a writer, the immediate thought that comes to your mind is a solitary, grumpy hunchback person sitting at his/her desk. Nothing could be more wrong than this or further from the truth. This guy is a performer honestly! If you just happen to pass behind the door I think you’d be sure that on the other side they’re holding a theatre class not a writing one!

But it is actually one of the things he told us immediately: you can forget to just stay at your desk and write, after that you have to go around, read your book and face the public. Wow that was exactly the explanation I had given to my colleagues at work: “I have problems with the microphone because I’m panicking….but I’m not worried, I’m a writer so I don’t need it!”…well it seems I was wrong and that I’ll have to face this problem eventually! That’s why I have to learn to sell myself and my writing! What is sure is that I have to work on it!

What I can tell you for sure is that now, considering the reason why I have to defeat my panic at the mike, my determination in doing it will strengthen!

The toughest part in attending this course was writing and reading on the spot, by the way. I’ve already put something online and I gave some of my stuff to some friends of mine to read, but in those cases I wrote the piece, I thought about it and eventually those people corrected the errors I made! Only after that I was able to put my stuff on the web or show it to a bigger audience! But here it’s different! You have ten minutes to create something and bang, you have to read it. I tell you, it’s scary and I’d prefer to sink into the ground and be swallowed by the floor!

But on the other hand I guess it’s a good exercise for me, and I hope that my self confidence will improve a bit after this.

The second thing I mentioned was that it was held at the Writer Centre again last Saturday. I’m talking about the publishing day. It was basically a one day conference. Five people connected with the publishing and writing world spoke one by one and answered to a lot of questions.

I arrived there and I felt a bit lost: people seemed to know each other, at least the majority of them. I looked around to see if at least I could find someone from my course but I didn’t spot anybody or at least I think so! The bad thing in doing the job I do is meeting too many people, and personally I cannot fix people’s faces in my mind so quickly!

Even if I felt lost anyway I didn’t feel the kind of oppression I’ve always felt going to a new place. At the Centre people are nice and welcoming and know perfectly well that a kind smile doesn’t cost a fortune. And it is amazing because this is one of the last things you’d expect from the writing world! Maybe it’s not always and everywhere like this but I guess it is a good start.

I found all the speeches very interesting, full of useful information. There were so many things I didn’t know and for sure there will still be many things I have to learn. But I have to calm down now and proceed one step after another.

The speech that maybe affected me the most was Dermot Bolger’s. He’s a very nice man, the typical mad writer (mad of course in a good way! This is a compliment!) who said that it doesn’t matter if you’ve already published a book or not, if you wrote one you are a writer. It’s weird because I’ve always said to people that I’m an aspiring writer, maybe because I’ve always had the idea that you’re a writer if you get published or when you have arrived! But arrived where exactly!? What I found out the other day was exactly this; you never finish learning, improving and evolving! I daresay I’m just at the very beginning!!! I have lots more to do, BUT I’m a writer!

And I’ll leave you here with this new consciousness!

Talk to you later!

Update n° 1

I’ll write “update” as tag and title to all my post concerning writing! In these kinds of posts I’ll tell you what I’m doing or simply what I feel writing something. Of course I’ll use the first one as introduction!

If I decided to open this blog and one in Italian, well actually two because I wasn’t able to delete the old one and have a website as well is because I need to show you my works, my thoughts.

I love writing and I put in a little bit of myself every single time I place words in row.

Once I was told that reading my short story is just like speaking with me! For me it was a huge compliment! Although I’m not completely aware of it, it means that every single time I’m putting a bit of myself in my works.

Or that could mean I’m writing in a too much colloquial way and I need to improve my technique! Well I’ll bet that! I’ve just started to write anyway!

This is my first post about writing and me as a writer so I’ll tell you more about that.

I’ve always loved reading. I started with fairy tales of course, like everybody. Soon I found out Emilio Salgari’s books that brought me in to the Malaysian world full of pirates, gentlemen, villains and princesses.

I really loved those books and I’m seriously thinking about reading them once again as soon as I have the chance.

After that I kept reading and I always read as many book as I can even if it is a single line every time I open them.

As I mentioned before, when I was 8 I started to write a story about an archaeologist. It was about a pyramid impossible to open, if I’m not mistaken. The only thing I remember well of those 10/15 pages is the vivid sweating face of him drinking ice tea sat at his desk and trying to solve a riddle. I stopped trying to invent one and after that I had the bad idea to ask for feedback and as you know I didn’t receive much encouragement from my family, even if they didn’t read it at all.

I’ve already mentioned what happened next so I won’t repeat it here for it wasn’t really important as a period.

It was just pretty dark with some ideas swirling round my mind but with no strength or no time or no knowledge of how to put them in practice.

But, as you know, when I started to work where I’m working now I met my guru, who is also my best friend and brother, to whom I really owe a lot! He taught me how to embrace my dreams and love my ideas and what I’m doing. He keeps teaching me after two and half years and I guess he’ll do that for more years to come because you’ll never finish learning, really.

I’ll be never grateful enough to him for that!

The really nice and exciting thing is that I cannot stop writing anymore. Every day I have to put something on paper. Could be even a sketch but if I don’t write at least a little my hands start shaking and I feel really uncomfortable.

What I’ve written so far are some short stories and a book in Italian, which I’ll translate for you as soon as I can.

After that I decided to write in English but whatever language I’ll use I decided I’ll translate into the other. I know that this will drain my energy, in particular during the summer (that is the busiest period in work) but I’ll try to update the blog regularly.

Of course there’ll be some slight differences between the posts because I’ll edit them separately, so if you speak both languages you can check them anyway.

To be honest, I would like to translate it in Spanish and Japanese too, but it’s maybe asking too much from myself right now. I’ll stick with these two languages for the moment!

The reason why I write in English, because I know you want to ask me this question (everybody does), is not only my personal need to complicate my life every time I can, but also a challenge.

Well, at least first of all, a challenge to prove to myself I can do this.

Secondly, but not less important, I want to be published but only if I deserve it. Considering that Italy at the moment is a place where rarely you get something if you deserve it, but it’s just a ‘I pay more SO I deserve it’ place, I prefer to write in English and have more chances to understand if I’m worth it or not.

Maybe I’m not but I won’t stop writing just for this because as I told you, I love doing it and I cannot stop!

I think that’s it for the moment.

Talk to you later!

How's this blog works

After I told you more or less who I am (I’m sure you’ll know me better post by post) I’ ll tell you how to read this blog.

I know that a web site is better and tidier, but I’m sick and tired of lazy hackers who have nothing better to do than hack mine. Last time, the fourth in few months, was just few days ago.

I’ve always used a blog before, even if not in this serious way, and nothing had ever happened.

For this reason, little by little I’ll put tags which recall the old website sections.

I’m not hundred per cent sure I’ll get rid of the website anyway. I like it very much and my friend Dap was really good in doing it. It’s just the net is a sick place. On a certain point of view I really prefer books and paper to this huge amount of bytes but we’re in a modern era and apparently you’re left behind if you’re not their slave!

Returning to my blog, you’ll find normal blog entries and short stories. Besides there will be reviews, cooking, music and so on and the monster factory sections.

Inside reviews you’ll have books and films reviews. As I told you before everything is experience for me and could switch on the special switch in my brain and give me the idea.

Likewise the others sections, of course, but they are written more to let people know me better as a person, and why not, maybe let me know better myself too!

In cooking there’ll be everything about food. Food is my passion and cooking too. I love cooking especially for others. Cooking for someone means taking care of that person. I also love going out with my friends and finding new restaurant, so you’ll see something about that too!

About music. I love listening to music. My taste varies depending on my mood. I have music for when I’m happy, sad, angry or nostalgic. I guess like the majority of the people of the world! I just have few favourites, but the rest depends on the song and what the songs tell me every time.

What is the monster factory!? I’ll enclose some cameos written or drown by me (I’m using paint and not really well, so just enjoy the sketches!) when something nice happens at work. Dealing with people is not easy, so I would say that customer service jobs are quite difficult, but if you get tourists….well they’re the worst, because they’re on holiday and they want to have a fun. It DOESN’T matter if they have to walk or dance on your corpse! Now considering that we have to smile like stupid monkeys (and I hope that monkeys don’t get offended for this!) whatever happens at least when I’ll go home the nicest will end up here on my pages! Of course the real show doesn’t start till the summer, the high season, so just be patient!

The last one I’m telling you about is basically the reason why I’m doing all this. I’ll put in short stories all the short stories or part of the longer works, but I’ll tell you something about that in the next post, that’s why it is at the end. I’ll tell you what I’ve done so far and what I’m up to now. Being the most important thing, it needs space! Of course there’ll be some tags for the generic blog entries,with funny name sometimes, maybe without any logic…but I just love them!

So, talk to you later.

That's me!

Hi all!

I think that the first post I write in this blog requires an introduction of the writer.

My name is Francesca, I’m Italian and I live in Dublin with my partner.

The reason I’m opening this blog is the same that woke me up after 28 years of lethargy: I finally know “what I want to do once I’m an adult!”, I want to be a writer.

I’ve always loved reading. I began with fairy tales and TheLlittle Prince, like loads of other children. And since then I’ve just kept doing it.

When I was 8 I started to write a story about an archaeologist, maybe Indiana Jones and the temple of doom had its influence, but I didn’t receive any support at all, so I dropped it there. I convinced myself that probably my parents were right and it was just a waste of time.

I was asked to invent nice riddles for birthdays/Christmas and co. Cards, which seemed a bit ironic for me.

When I was in high school I didn’t find a warm and welcoming environment, so, after few years wasted in attempting to please the others, I returned to my ideas and live in my little fantasy world! I tried to put them down as comics but I made another mistake, because my skill in drawing had never been very good, so I didn’t continue on that either.

The only positive side of the matter was that I didn’t abandon my ideas that time. They kept swirling round and round inside my brain for years.

Once I finished in university I decided to move here to Dublin to improve my English.

And right here I had my enlightenment, thanks to a dear friend of mine, who taught me how important dreams are and how to take care of them.

I therefore began to listen to my dreams, my ideas and put them on paper.

Up to this point I had written some short stories and a book in Italian. The latter is about pirates, one of my favourite topics, I’ll tell you in one of my next posts why.

Now is time to change language! I’m trying to write in English at the moment. I’ll tell you the reason in one of the next posts too.

In fact the aim of this blog is to help you to know me better and, to improve my skill in writing.

I want to write this blog like a journal and I’ll try to do that at least once a week.

It is going to record my personal journey to become what I want to be, a writer.

This is why I will write about me, about the book I read, mainly, or the movie I watch or the experiences I have.

I want to give an idea of me as a person with weak and strong sides included.

Besides, everything gives me inspiration to write. Every experience I have is important for me, so I believe it’s important to record it.

Well, talk to you later!