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!

The magic faraway tree- Review

This week I posted in “Reviews”.

You’ll find out what I think about “The magic faraway tree” by Enid Blyton!

Books

This is my decision. For this year I’ll record every single book I’ll read.

Every technical book about writing I’ve read so far says that it is essential for a writer or aspiring writer read a lot.

Besides, many of them say that they should read more than they write. I agree with that because I’ve realized that since I started to read more my level of English is improved a bit.

As soon as I can I’ll bring some of the hundreds volumes I left in my old room here to Ireland. So I can read in Italian too, because I’m quite forgetting my own language sometimes.

What is sure is that, at the moment, I’m reading only in English because I decided that if I know the language I’ll read the books in the original. This will help me to improve my level of language and to appreciate them better.

For example, let’s consider The Lord of the Rings. I’m aware that is an endless book and more than one gave up in reading it, but I can assure you that in English it is really much better. Ok, if you don’t like fantasy as a genre or the story itself or really detailed descriptions, I guess you won’t like it anyway, but I’m pretty sure when I tell you that the style itself is better than in the Italian translation. At the very beginning it seems a fairy tale that becomes more complicated and darker as the story goes by.

Coming back to my blog, you’ll notice that the first book reviews will be just children books. Why? Because many of that books I was mentioning before say that you should write what you like, but also something you have a good background on.

So, I have to tell that I’ve always loved everything that was fantasy and for children, but what I don’t have is the real basis. I’m learning now that abroad there are more children books and that to them are dedicated loads of structures, that let them read if they want to.

Besides, I have in my mind a huge project about children stories and a book, so I need to read to learn more on the style, vocabulary and create a good background.

When I was young I read The Little Prince, the classic fairy tales and also Salgari, an Italian writer.

Growing up I read the book for my studies and for my personal pleasure.

I’ve always loved read, but to be honest I’ve never read so many children books like I’m doing now! And, even if on a certain point of view I feel too old to read this kind of book, on the other hand it’s a good quality literature. So I was left behind and I want to catch up!

Here and, as far as I know, in all the other countries than Italy there is a huge choice for a kid, not only depending on the age but also in the genre.

For the moment I’m borrowing books from the library. Every single time that I go there I have to enter in the children library which is inside the adult one. Everything is children size and it is there that the little ones can stay and drawing read or study. I haven’t ever seen something like that before. A girl that works with me said that once a week in the library they’re doing a lecture section as well, unbelievable!

The books, like in the adult section, are divided in fantasy, adventure, classics and so on. The same happens in the book shops and I say ALL the book shops, even the smallest. It never happened to me to see something like that.

But I’ve already sorted this out. Every single time I’ll finish a book I’ll do a short review and I hope that children or their parents who’ll happen to read these pages will be curious to read the books as well.

I have to thank for this my dear friend Christina, who had the delicacy and diplomacy to drag me in the library and introduce me to all the children books that will follow. In my wallet I have a list of writers she wrote for me “that’s just as a start!” she said with a smile.

Of course in the meantime I’ll review other books, considering that I cannot possibly read one at a time. I hope to meet the taste of everybody!

Besides, the number of book regarding a genre will vary depending on what I’m writing at the moment.

Anyway what I can say is read! Read! Read! It always helps, like Roald Dahl would have confirmed! And you’ll hear often about him!

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!

Ghost trick-short story

This week post is “Ghost trick” in “Short Stories” page of this blog.

It is something I wrote few months ago.

I work in a bar similar to the one described in the piece and it was an awful day. The weather was exactly the one I described in the story and it gave me the inspiration.

This is one of the first pieces I wrote in English so if you find any error please contact me. Every comment is welcome!

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.