Reading a book is not only entertainment. The reader feels and absorbs the author’s ideas and his vision of reality.
Reading creates a deep connection between them based on trust. The reader trusts the writer's stories, and the writer firmly believes the reader's opinion. In the past, readers use to write letters to the author, asking information about their characters and works. Thanks to the technology, nowadays the process is simpler and faster. But, if you had the opportunity to write a letter to your favourite author, what would you write? I’ve often thought about that, and I came out with my letter to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Dear Arthur, You can’t believe what I’m going to tell you! Years have gone by as fast as I couldn’t even imagine since I arrived in London, but anytime I go out for my daily stroll, I can’t help getting to Baker Street. I know, I know. Probably you don’t love this part of the city anymore. Probably I’m just bothering your deserved rest, but you have no idea how this street has changed since you aren’t in London. I can barely imagine how it appeared. An aristocratic area full of good-mannered and well-dressed ladies who paced up and down the stone pavement and talked about the last upper-class event or the successes of their husbands. I supposed, five o’clock was a crucial hour for them. You saw them there, exactly over there, entering the elegant and ancient pink walls tea-room. They neatly rushed in to get the best teas just arrived from India, enriching their conversations with the most sensational gossips in the city. Nowadays, Baker Street is pleasant, but not as quiet as it used to be. London has expanded faster and faster. It’s part of the centre of the city – yes, you read correctly, the centre of London – and people rushing out their workplaces at five o’clock to get home as soon as possible substituted the once strolling gentleladies. The clopping of horses and shouts of bad-tempered cabbies which characterised the road traffic have gone, too. The stylish and refined wooden carriages were converted in motorised and noisy, black, six-seats cars which are always driven by specialised and bad-tempered jockeys who systematically swear at the traffic light turning red. But I haven’t talked about what has become a symbol of the city: the double-deck red bus! You should see them, Arthur! They are as long as three carriages in a row and as tall as two! But there’s more about them! They can transport almost one hundred passengers to any corner of the city: from North to South, from East to West and vice-versa! At any time! Even though they might seem astonishing, I can swear that travelling by bus, especially when they get stuck in the maddening traffic, would drive crazy any person on this planet. Do you remember those long and expensive works they had been doing when you were going to your study? They built a station for the underground railway. A train which runs beneath the ground. In the beginning, there was one line only, but afterwards, Baker Street station was extended to four lines. You can go to the quietness of Richmond Park in less than half an hour and get to the farthest opposite side in the same span of time! Arthur, you should definitely have used this means. You would have enjoyed! Mrs Hudson wouldn’t like the development of the street. Every morning she went to the bakery for buying those delicious croissants and mouth-watering butter biscuits to provide a scrumptious start of the day to Sherlock and Watson. She was harsh in appearance but soft-hearted. Do you remember that time when she scolded those bunch of young lads, the Irregulars, because she saw them stealing some apples from the grocer’s stall? She was upset and threatened them to call the police, but, then, in the evening, she left a big basket full of food in the back alley, so they could relieve their hunger. Do you remember when she menaced Sherlock of evicting him if he had carried out his noisy scientific experiments? She was mad at him! But – you know, don’t you? - she would have never ever done that! Her heart was too fond of her tenants. You can’t figure out what now that house has become. It’s been turned into a museum! A museum to celebrate your creation! Everything has thoroughly been recreated: the black, wooden front door with its bad-working locker still has its golden plaque reading 221b Baker Street. The red-carpeted stairs led straight to the first floor into Sherlock’s room. How many times Mrs Hudson heard them running down those steps? Endless! The thumping of their paces and the slamming of the door accompanied her days. The sitting room where Sherlock used to question his clients is warm and welcoming. A hearth on the left of the entrance lights two armchairs where the detective and Watson used to sit. I can imagine the scene: Watson sat on the armchair on the left side sipping tea and taking notes, while, on the opposite side, Sherlock sat with his eyes closed and his long, thin fingers-tips put together, hearing the desperate narration of the unlucky fellow. It’s incredible how they set everything up! The modern Baker Street, as you will have reckoned, has nothing to do with the Victorian age street you saw, but, in the evening, when the sun has already gone down the horizon to let space to the darkened sky, soft and silent clouds of fog come slowly up from the ground, giving an old resemblance to the entire area. A chilling breeze starts blowing, and seems to carry the pleasant melody of a violin as a reminder that the Greatest Detective is still at 221b Baker Street ready to jump out and chase off London’s criminal. Yours sincerely, Samuele
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It's official. News media and papers have recently reported the beneficial effects of being multilingual.
Being able of speaking two languages - or more - is said to help you in keeping your brain young and healthy. Besides, it seems that scientists have found out that they who speak two languages have fewer possibilities of suffering from serious mental problems, such as Alzheimer and Parkinson disease. Obviously, we can add practical advantages: being able of stepping out of your little and peaceful comfort zone and communicating with people that have totally different culture and background. But, besides the endless beneficial effects I've just listed, there's an obscure aspect of the learning and speaking processes. A dark side which happened to me that hasn't been so far taken into consideration: confusion. More precisely, ‘language confusion’. I've been living in England since 2011, when, full of good hopes and positive expectations, I came to London to take my postgraduate qualification in journalism. Although I could speak English, or at least communicate, the beginning wasn't easy; different accents were a kind of terrifying challenge which sometimes caused funny - sometimes embarrassing - misunderstanding. However, the time provided numerous opportunities for refining my abilities. Moving to the English capital surprisingly gave another opportunity to me. At that time, I was living in a hostel in which the main part of the tenants was composed of guys and girls from Spain. That was a good chance to rehearse that little bit of Spanish that I had studied during my university years. Honestly, I was enthusiastic. I could partially get two birds with one stone. I'm Italian mother tongue, I thought, I'll learn English for the time I'll be settled in London – out of curiosity, I celebrated six years the last September - and I'll improve Spanish. So, on went my plan: English for every day, Spanish for my time in the hostel and Italian for letting my parents and friends know that I was still alive. My first travel home was after ten months. Enriched and satisfied with my experience and my post-graduate diploma proudly pocketed, I decided to spend one week in my country to, then, get back to London and carry on my path. Since I landed, the confusion had possessed me. As I said, it had already been months that I expressed my thoughts and any possible request in other languages. The embarrass of saying hello to the border officer with my own idiom was easy to get over. Very well, I positively thought, the first hurdle had gone. How wrong was I in that moment. The initial victims – or torturers - were my parents. I comfortably sat in the passenger seat of my father’s Toyota Yaris, and we were talking about the life out of my country, the people I met, and food. The conversation went on and on fluently as long as I stopped. “What were you saying, Sam?” My mouth gawped; I frantically started thinking of what I wanted to say, or more precisely, I started thinking about the word I needed for. Exactly! I started thinking of the word in my language I needed because I clearly could recall the English analogous, but not the Italian. “Ehm…I-I don’t know how to say,” I embarrassingly explained. “Do you mind if I use the English word?” There was a moment of awkward silence. Then, trying not to be so naïve, I started explaining what I wanted to say. “I can’t recall the word for that, but I can explain what I want to say,” I hopefully said. “You know that small red fruit that has a sour-sweet taste. It’s used in fruit cakes and ice-cream.” “Strawberries,” My mum guessed – she was laughing at my lack of memory. “No,” I replied and continued. “It’s smaller and it seems composed of little red balls glued one another. It’s soft and…” “Lamponi – which means raspberry in Italian,” she happily exclaimed. “Yes! Precisely that!” I smiled, but my face had grown redder and redder. It was a smile, an automatic smile to hide the huge embarrass which was invading me. For the first time, I had no idea what the name of a thing – in this case, a fruit – could have been. This was only the beginning. The week went by pleasantly; I had met my friends whom I haven’t hung out for a long while. A lot of new things had happened to them and numerous things had, for sure, happened to me. My memory had carried on playing around with me, and, unfortunately, the number of words I couldn’t recall had dramatically increased. My amnesia was met with a laugh by people who knew me well; with a pretended smile and a silent accusation of ‘you’re the one who lives abroad and so cocky to show off’ by people who didn’t. “So, we’re going to that beach,” a friend of mine told me one afternoon. “It’s nice and quiet, besides the sea is amazing!” “All right!” I replied. In less than an hour, we were off to the seaside. Liguria, the region where I come from, has a singular particularity: even though it’s a by-the-sea area, the hills soar closely to the beach, which means that the landscape intermingles sandy beaches with rocky hillside. It’s breath-taking. Although I was born and grown up among those sceneries, their view astounded me as if it had been the first time I saw them. “Slow down! Slow down!” I asked him. “I’m gonna take a picture.” He looked at me. “Yeah, slow down, so I can take a picture.” My friend guffawed. Why is he laughing at me? I thought completely taken aback by his reaction. I stared at him. “Sam, I do understand that you’re very excited to be here after some months,” he said. “But here we say ‘to make a picture ‘not to take’.” That was it. Indeed, we don’t say ‘to take a picture’ – it would merely mean to grab or to hold a photo – but we use ‘to make a picture’. That was the tip of the iceberg. Not only was I forgetting words in my idiom, but I had unconsciously started to speak it with English structure. Anytime I read articles and essays about the fortune of being multi-languages speaking, I think of that week. Multi-languages people can feel an intense connection with the culture of the foreign language they’re using. These are my huge and appreciated fortunes which I’m completely happy and satisfied with. But, don’t misunderstand me, even though I would do again the experience that I did, I sometimes wish that the people whom I’m having a conversation with didn’t look at me eyes wide-open as if I were an alien. You know, after all, mixing up languages has become a thing that I can’t help of anymore. A smiling small man with black frames glasses welcomes me on the entrance of the red-chairs auditorium at Foyles (Charing Cross) store in London. There are a few people in the room, but I’m sure all the seats will shortly be taken. Being among the first people coming in has a huge advantage: you can choose your favourite place. Although the first row is completely available - two middle-aged ladies and a gentleman to their right had just sat down - I have always felt embarrassed to be in the front. I don’t know why, maybe because I’m a natural introvert. I decide to take a seat that permits me to see the speakers properly without being seen too much. The third row, I believe, is a good location. Third row directly opposite the stage. Good sight, not too much in sight.
At seven exactly, the room is full, and a soft buzz fills the air. Everybody is anxiously waiting for the beginning of the meeting. Alex Clark suddenly strolls in the room followed by the special guests: Emily Koch (author of ‘If I die before I wake up’), Imogen Hermes Gowar (‘The mermaid and Mrs Hancock’), and Mary Lynn Bracht (‘White Chrysanthemum'). They smile; they look at the people before them. A hint of embarrassment appears on their faces, but it goes away when Clark introduces them. Although the books are very different, it immediately seems that the authors have numerous things in common. They all got inspiration by their lives. Emily Koch is the first to speak up. The idea for the book popped in her mind after a terrible car accident which made her thought about life and its value. Imogen Gowar has always been passionate historical novels (a passion that her mum passed to her, she shyly admits) and working in museum increased her interest in ancient artifacts. Mary Bracht is originally Korean – her mother left the country to move to United States – and in 2003 she travelled to South Korea to visit her mum’s hometown. The different ways of living and respect for the numerous traditions influenced and inspired her writing. The audience fixes its eyes on them. The attendees chuckle, nod and whisper, hearing their stories. The writing process hasn’t always gone smooth and quiet. Emily Koch is again the first to open up. She was a journalist for a Bristol based newspaper and, although writing wasn’t a problem, starting her novel took ten years. “I knew how to write, but I wasn’t sure I was able to write something that would be read by the public,” she humbly admits. Mary Bracht instead thought that her story could have numerous people interested in. The only issue was English wasn’t her first language and taking an MA in Creative Writing helped her for improving her narrative ability. “Taking an MA helped me, too,” Gowar confirms. “It gives you confidence, and you start thinking of being a writer.” “You need a person who cares about what you write and takes you by hand during the creative process,” Koch interjects. The debate is pleasant and lively; the three women aren’t embarrassed anymore. The audience is involved and hung from their lips. The authors have never thought to get published while they were working on their novel. “Publishing is a hope for a writer,” Gowar says. “I think a writer has to write what she wants. If you focus your writing time on getting published, you may end up writing things that you don’t like or are total rubbish.” “While I was writing, I actually thought of getting published,” Emily Koch reveals, “but I mainly focused on getting read.” “I thought to get published,” Mary Bracht chuckles. “I thought my story was worthy of being read.” The time is up; Alex Clark stops the numerous hands which were up to ask questions. The meeting was delightful. Listening to others’ experience was a source of endless motivation and inspiration. I get out of the auditorium, thinking of what I’ve been writing, what I think when I’m writing, and why I write. I don’t know if I’ll be that lucky to finally get published. But the passion and determination these three writers emanated convinced me that working hard can give enormous satisfaction. Rejection. This is what an aspiring writer usually gets as soon as he starts to query. Being rejected hurts you; it suddenly slaps your face; it sometimes blocks you from going on your path and doing what you really want to do.
It’s devastating. You’ve worked on your story for days, weeks, and months. You did your research as thoroughly as possible to create your world. Quite often research and writing processes go along, intimately hand in hand. It’s stressing, difficult and tiring, but you do it. It’s your dream. Finally, the first draft is complete. You feel relieved. Now it’s time for editing. It’s the most complicated part. You have to consider grammar, consistency, and coherence of what you wrote down on paper (or Word file). It’s a long work, but it must be done. It takes time, and it may consume all your energy and patience even more than the creative process. You live again your story, your characters and the situations you created. When you’ve done, you can start sending out your book. Beta readers are your first resource. You receive good and bad comments; helpful and less useful ideas; you have to deal with enthusiastic readers or bored readers. Although receiving harsh comment may be tough, whoever does it usually does it honestly. You have to improve what you wrote, and you don’t want friendly good reviews saying “it’s good, I love it” for the purpose of making you happy. You want to know what people actually think of it. Good and bad thoughts. Once you’ve done the improvement, you may want a second round of beta readers. You desire to see if your work has improved or still need some efforts. Editing appeared again on your way. You need to thoroughly polish your story and get rid of eventual mistakes and typos. Editing becomes your best friend and worse nightmare. At the end, your writing is ready. You can be more or less satisfied, but it’s ready for submission to agents and publishers. The first rejection is the most predictable. You might have foreseen it. You’re new to this world. Nobody has ever heard of your name. What you have to do is to try over and over again. It’s not easy, but if you don’t carry on querying, you won’t find the perfect lover of your book. Bear in mind that, if the first rejection was predictable, it won’t be the last one. The second will come to you. Maybe, the third and, suddenly, the tenth. Inevitably, it hurts your feeling. You start thinking you’re not good enough. You start pondering if you choose the right path. You also start regretting the time you wasted – yes, ‘wasted’, at a certain point, you think that you’ve uselessly sat for hours typing senseless words on the keyboard. The thought that greatest authors, too, were rejected and struggled to get published partly soothes your disappointment. Arthur Conan Doyle struggle to publish Sherlock Holmes’s first novel; at the beginning of his career, Stephen King struggled to find a publisher; Ben Aaronovitch had recently posted on Twitter that he was rejected sixteen times before finding an agent. I haven’t published my works yet (I’m working on it) and I frequently have been rejected. As these authors teach us, resilience is the fundamental characteristic to become a writer. Rejection has a very bitter taste and remorselessly devastates you, but it’s necessary. It forges your attitude. It helps you to understand what you may improve. It makes you focus as scrupulously and stubbornly as possible on your goal. With its harshness, it motivates you. It pushes you to your limits. I often feel demoralised and discouraged, but I go on writing and reading; learning and improving. I work harder and harder to get what I desire. Being rejected is part of the game, I’ve accepted that. As in every game, you sometimes win, and you sometimes lose. Reading and writing, writing and reading, learning and improving are the only options we have to get, one day, our efforts awarded. Giving up and regret are not sensible options to consider in this game. Note: If you are looking for motivation or simply opinions about rejection, I suggest reading this interesting article (LINK) published on This comma website. |
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