The Necessity of Observing

I am not an observer by nature. I am curious, interested, ask questions, but I am not an observer. It might have something to do with the fact that I get distracted very easily and that my senses are overfed by too many signals at the same time. However, not knowing how to observe is a pity, as you miss out on many beautiful, interesting and fun things. The good thing is that observing is something you can learn and train! During the years there have been people in my life that have taught me the art of observing. The very first person was probably my mom, who taught me how to look at art, how to enjoy music, how to listen carefully to language in general. Then there is my husband, who looks, reads and listens in a much different way. As he is a dyslexic, he is not a reader, but much more focused on audio. Unlike people that aren't dyslexic, he doesn't see the word he hears or says in his mind. Therefore he can make language jokes in a very different way that I can, which is really refreshing. Besides that, he is always able to astonish me with his knowledge about natural phenomena and technically complicated things. Things that do not immediately have my interest, but because of the way he explains, become much more interesting to me and make me look at these things in a different way.

Another person who has influenced my way of observing life is my best friend B. She has a way of looking at things and situations from complete different and surprising angles; she can think outside the box and come with new perspectives that I didn't think of (as I can be too hung up on structures sometimes). For five years, I have been traveling through Italy with another dear friend (also my ex-business partner). Being an architect, he taught me how to observe the beauty of design, of lines coming together, the use of natural materials, aesthetics etc. However, being an Italian and a free spirit as well, he also taught me to observe 'what's around the corner' in every possible way. Last but not least, there is my 12-year old son, who has the ability to look at things in a totally pure and refreshing way. A way that only children can, as they are not 'spoiled' yet by knowledge, influences or opinions.

Traveling is a way to learn to observe as well for me. Traveling makes you compare cultures, gives you a new reference on what is 'normal' and what is not. It broadens your way of looking at the world and its people. That is what makes traveling so beautiful and important; it is not an action, it is a process that you are going through. It gives you an extra dimension to observe. Writing is a another way to observe. Observing becomes a necessity, while you need to observe the world around you to get inspired, but also observe the characters in your story while writing. If situation A happens, how will person X react? How will that effect the feelings of my protagonist? What if I come up with a totally different plot for this storyline? Slowly, slowly the structure of the novel is coming together. Ideas are maturing in my head, storylines are getting clearer. I never want to stop observing anymore, thanks to the people in my life. Thank you... Love, M.

Vices & Virtues

No virtues without vices. It is the combination of the two that makes a person really interesting, whether it is in daily life, in a book we read or in a movie we watch. It can be interesting to see someone having the same virtues as you have yourself, but it can be very enlightening and soothing to look at another person having the same vices. After all, aren't we all lazy, greedy or vain sometimes? I am. Have you ever been jealous in a way that you couldn't think clearly anymore and just wanted revenge? I have. Did you ever feel pure lust and the urge to give in, even if you knew it wasn't the 'appropriate' thing to do? I did.

Vices are something we are mostly ashamed of. They represent the dark side of our characters. We like to talk about our virtues, but like to hide our sins. When we are young, we are being taught how to behave according to the moral standards that were set by society. 'Don't be jealous of your brother/sister', 'never take the first/last chocolate', 'tell her you are sorry', 'don't be greedy', 'control yourself' and so on... So our feeling of guilt is being cultivated during our young lives and with that, the awareness that any act of sin will be punished. A lot of people think they will even end up in hell!

The result is that we forget how to be uninhibited. How to completely surrender to our desires, our lusts, our instincts, our longings. The saying 'follow you heart' should actually be 'follow your heart, but only the socially acceptable part'. Of course this is what distinguishes us from animals and makes our society livable. Our ability to reason and to control ourselves. But it is also a big brake on who we really are. A wall between our sunny and our dark side.

Once you start creating characters for a novel, you realize that you need to give them, apart from virtues, some flaws as well to become 'real people'. Again, the combination of virtues and vices is what makes a person interesting. I feel a big responsibility here, as I have to create more than just characters. I have to create personalities to make a good book. For me it is a big challenge that I do not want to rush. It also means getting in touch with my own 'dark side'. Confrontational but challenging! I will keep you posted :-)

Perfect Land of Imperfection

As the story of my novel will have Italy as a backdrop, I would like to share a little bit with you about the Italian culture. I like to think of Italy as 'the perfect land of imperfection'. There are many prejudices and jokes when it comes to Italy and the Italians, mostly based on images that were drawn by Hollywood movies. Stereotypes are many: Italian men are macho, Italians are obsessed by food, Italians are always late, Italians drive like lunatics etc. True, Italy is not the perfect country when it comes to press freedom or bureaucracy. There are so many laws, that the Italians need to go around them sometimes to make life livable, at least...that's the Italian version. Fair enough for me, rules are made to be broken. True as well: it looks like the political system nor the legal system is working sometimes. But let's put all of this aside for a moment...

Think about the beauty the Italians always have been creating in the past, but also nowadays. In music, in design, in art, in fashion, in poetry, in architecture, in writing, in aesthetics in general. Everybody knows and recognizes the typical 'Italian signature', a signature of elegance and style. The Italians are born with a creative mind, and it doesn't matter how they use it. Beautiful, passionate and dedicated people. And here is the funny part: no matter how chaotic 'the Italian way' may seem, in the end everything works perfectly! Probably even better sometimes than in the countries where we think everything is so perfectly arranged, but performed in Italy with much more pleasure, more love, more passion, more dedication, more humanity and yes, a little touch of drama to juice things up a bit. This is why the Italian community works; this is why Italy works. 'The perfect land of imperfection': the perfect setting for my first novel! Love, M.

Thank You!

To my surprise, this weblog has been viewed more than 140 times already in 4 days! Thank you very much for your support! I hope that you will continue to follow me and I promise to update you as good as possible. I know that not all of you have an account on blogger.com and do not appear as a 'follower' on the weblog, but it really does me good to notice that many people simply look up the weblog on the internet. Even if you can not post any comments if you do not have an account, you can always send me an email. Just click 'View my complete profile' on the left and then click the link 'email'.  Love, M.

The Princess

Okay, days like these happen as well....not one single letter on paper. So maybe a 1000 words a day is a bit too ambitious during this phase? Well, after I have been creating, researching etc. for two nights in a row until 3 A.M., maybe it is time to take a break.

Just finished reading 'The Kite Runner' a few days ago (I'm a bit behind sometimes...). I thought it was time to read that particular book, as several people told me that the plot of my book showed similarities with the plot of 'The Kite Runner'. After reading and enjoying it a lot, I can reassure everyone that the books will not be alike. Yes, there is one storyline about two children with a different background growing up together, but that's it.

'The Kite Runner' reminded me of a lovely encounter a few years ago, when I had the pleasure to meet the granddaughter of the last Afghan King, Mohammed Zahir Shah. It all started with a business meeting, but became a lovely afternoon having great conversations, a good glass of wine and a bite together. After the regime was overthrown in 1973,  the Afghan royal family was exiled to Italy for 29 years. Zahir Shah lived in Rome all this time - in a modest 4-room apartment - survived an attack on his life in 1991 and returned to Afghanistan in 2002. Some of the family members still live in Italy, trying to do the best they can for their home country under the given circumstances. Among them, the princess. While looking up information on the royal family, I came across a picture of the young Zahir Shah and was struck by the way the granddaughter (who is about my age) looks like him in the pictures I have of her. For obvious reasons, I will not mention her name or the place where we have met. I just truly hope she is doing well, as she is a very intelligent, likable and beautiful person. I should try to get back in touch with her. Isn't this the beauty of books and reading....it makes you aware of the things that really matter in life! Love, M.

Names & Wrong Associations...

What most people don't realize (including myself a few months ago!) is that, before you can start writing, there is really a lot of preparation to do! One of the most exciting phases is creating the characters in your story. The first one to start with is the protagonist, which, in my book, will be Elena Mancini. (Beware! She might change names before the book is finished!) Just to give her a name is not enough, of course. She has a birth date, a hair color, needs qualities but also some flaws, will have insecurities and frustrations like you and me, she has family, needs an income to pay the bills, likes a certain kind of music, has hobbies, may have pets, has her own way to dress and (hopefully) goals in her life. In other words: she needs to come alive. For me - being the writer of the book - , but also for you as a potential reader. That is exactly what I have been doing today. Not just by using my creativity, but also by doing research about Italian names. After all, you wouldn't like the name of the most important person in your book to recall any wrong associations with a notorious criminal, an evil dictator, a hairy pet or the most annoying tv-personality. To make sure that she is not a tall blond with blue eyes at the beginning of the book and a corpulent redhead with brown eyes at the end of the story, documenting everything is a smart thing to do. It was another satisfying day in the life of this novice writer... Love, M.

Writing is an Art...and a Lot of Preparation!

'Everyone is able to write, perform the actual action. However, the activity of writing - thinking, choosing, structuring, styling, giving the right details, being able to speed up and slow down, being able to choose the right perspective, writing a good dialogue - for those kind of things you need knowledge and skills.'

The above is a free translation of a paragraph in '101 Writing Tips of Your Writing Coach' by Mireille Geus, writer of several awarded children's books. Good point, but... do I have all that?? Knowledge is something you can gain and developing skills is a matter of 'practice makes perfect'. So I guess there is hope! And so what, if my first book will not be a literary masterpiece! For me it is the creative process that counts. Except for the book of Mireille Geus I have bought, I found out some really interesting, helpful and surprising tips on writers forums yesterday and put them all together. Started on top of the list this morning: I have written the synopsis of the story of my book and set myself the goal to write an average of a 1000 words a day. Gee, how good I felt at the end of the day! Love, M.

Just Me, My Notebook and All of My Senses...

So here I am... writing a blog. Because I am at the start of a creative adventure that is totally new to me. A process that is fun, that brings new challenges but also comes with lots of personal insecurities: I have started to write a novel! Writing a book was on my wish list for many years. I was the type of child that wrote essays of 20 pages, always returned by the teacher with a comment in red like: 'Good essay, but PLEASE make it shorter next time!' So after a few short stories during the years, I am now ready for the real stuff. Never wrote a novel in my life, so had to do a lot of research about that first. Where do I start, what kind of structure do I use, how do I create my characters, what are the typical mistakes a new writer makes...? As the novel is set in Italy, not far from Naples, I did some thorough research about that specific region, its history and its people already. In September I will spend a whole week in a sleepy village to interview my Italian friend and to explore the area some more. Just me, my notebook and all of my senses. Experiencing, observing, smelling and tasting the place where the story I have in my head is set. Where the characters I will invent will grow up, become adults and meet other people. If you are interested, I would love to share this creative process with you! That is why I have created this blog.

Betwittered...

I am not someone of the typical 'IT-generation' for whom all the social media are as common as brushing your teeth and drinking a glass of water. Plus I honestly HATE networking in general. In real life I find it most of the times too opportunistic; on social networks it doesn't have any added value and a total waste of time (still according to my humble opinion...). That is why I never wanted to be on social networks like Facebook, Hyves and Twitter. I simply do not want to be that 'visible' and do not have the urge to expose myself to the world like that. To me it is much more fun having something to hide! Much more mysterious... However, due to something totally irrelevant, I had to create a Twitter account the other day, got caught up in the magic of it and found out that it is actually a lot of fun to follow some people during their daily stuff. Call me a voyeur...I'm still in shock! Not talking about average people, but people that I find interesting because of what they do, say or think. People that inspire me, make me think, make me laugh, make me cry because of beauty they have created in one way or another. Oh my God! I am ‘betwittered’ and I love it :-)

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my blog! For the Dutch people visiting this blog, I will quickly explain why this blog is in English. During the last few years I have made friends in Italy and the US as well, so that's why! Don't shoot me if it is not always the most perfect English, but at least this way we can all understand each other. Having that cleared, I will tell you in an upcoming message why I have started this blog...