During this journey from bookshop to bookshop, we have discovered very special stores. Everyone has its own characteristics and particularities which makes it unique.
I’ve been working around High Street Marylebone and, before starting my shift or at the end of it, I can’t help to visit Daunt Books. The shop stands in the middle of the busy street – the Edwardian-style light green wooden frame surrounding the windows are pretty easy to spot. As I step into the shop, a strong pleasant odour of paper fills my nostrils, and the hollow thumping of paces on the wooden floor, along with an excited buzz of voices, reverberate in my ears. The history of the shop is quite recent; James Daunt, a former banker, bought the site in 1990 and renamed it. It was the first. Afterwards, he opened other books stores in different areas of London – Chelsea, Hampstead, Holland Park, Cheapside, and Belsize Park. The founder wanted to focus and specialise on a determined subject: travelling. Although the fiction and non-fiction areas do not disappoint the most demanding reader, the section displaying the books on travelling is mind-blowing. The room itself is majestic. A huge window of frosted glass, opposite the entrance, dominates and illuminates the entire chamber. Packed and tall dark oak shelves soar from the floor and occupy the whole side-walls. The atmosphere emanates an incredible aura of sacredness and solemnity – a temple dedicated to books. The writings are neatly displayed and thoroughly divided continent by continent, state by state, region by region. It begins with Europe – it’s easy to jump from Portugal to Germany, going through Sweden and Poland – and then focuses on America and Asia. Caribbean nations concluded the intercontinental world journey. It’s not like travelling for real, but you get a delightful taste of every country. On the upper floor, a wooden terrace runs along the perimeter of the hall. Books regarding the most bizarre and unexpected curiosities about London fill the shelves – a section quite unusually contains a rich variety of second-hand books. Daunt Books is a precious and valuable gem located in one of the most significant areas in literature – Baker Street is only ten minutes on foot from High Street Marylebone - and, I’m pretty sure, readers and visitors will literally fall in love with it.
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We often fall in love with fictional stories and books. They capture us, they take away from the monotony of our life, and they make us dream something we wish to be or something we would have desired to be.
In the myriad of stories we read, we rarely take authors’ creative process in consideration. What really lies behind those stories? What generates them? How creativity shapes what we make? Writers and artists need inspiration. Getting inspired might be easy or troublesome, but the best way to trigger it is observing the reality around you. You meet people, you talk to people, you see people all the time. That is your source of ideas. The variety characterising our society is an endless source of characters and situations which we can turn into novels and stories. For example, we never know who the person sat in front of us on the tube, carrying two huge orange bags from Sainsbury’s, could be. At first sight, the traveller might be a married person that needed to buy food on its day off. Maybe, the person has children, and they’ve been waiting for his return at home. That’s an easy and slightly predictable creation – it looks very normal life. What if the person in front of us is the leader of a robbers’ group, instead, and what this individual has in the bags is not either food or drinks, but explosive material for their next robbery. As you can see, the quiet, daily reality turns into a thrilling crime story. Everything can inspire you. An idea can pop in your mind while you’re doing the wash-up or hanging your clothes. Once you have the idea, you have to define and plan what you want to achieve with that. A purpose for what you do is the motivational strength that pushes you to carry out it as best as you are able to. Bearing in mind what you aim to – it doesn’t matter if you desire is publish it or to make a film – is the main motivational energy. Now, after that the idea came out and started buzzing in your head, the world you’ve thought about has to be made. Feelings and emotions are the most important things you absolutely don’t have to overlook. Communicate them, plunge the readers in what you feel and want to deliver. The world you’re creating in a reflection of how you see the reality surrounding you. The reader has to cry when your story makes cry, laugh when something funny happens, get angry when something bad occurs. If you have to borrow an idea from another book, you can do it, but do not forget that doing that is acceptable during your creative process. Copying is not to create. Characters come along with your world. Feeling and emotions have to be the core of their creation, and you have two ways to make them. The first method focuses on the character; you personify the individual you want to create, and you soak it with your emotions in the situation you want him to live. Depending on the medium you’re planning to create the story for, you can or cannot disclose the background of your character – for instance, if you’re writing a short story, the writer can quickly hint some situations happened in the past, without explaining it wholly. If you’re writing a book, you may desire to spend a few more pages and words as to how the character became what he is. The second method, instead, focuses on the background. You, thus, have to define and ponder the main characteristics of your characters and include them in the world you made. Depending on how you thought about them and laid in the story, the characters shape their existence in that determined scenario. The difficult part of the creative work comes at the moment you actually created everything. The story has to be refined and revisited. During this phase, you can realise two things: first, you don’t like what you made, and, second, the project is not as good as you thought. Whatever is your final judgment, do not put your effort in the bin. Instead, lay that on the side for a while – it may be one week or one month – then get back to work on it with a fresher and clearer mind. This can be very useful in finishing your project and completing it properly and successfully. A big thank to Ed Jowett and Leo Cosh of Shades of Vengeance who chaired two intense and interesting panels at the ComicCon London 2018 in October talking about the creative process behind the making of worlds and characters. Podcasts have become more and more popular. They deal with numerous and different topics, and they have millions of listeners. What I haven’t ever realised is that they can be an amazing resource for aspiring writers. You can find everything you need, explained, analysed, and tailored for any necessity or curiosity you fancy to satisfy.
I’ve never been into podcasts. I can’t reckon exactly why. Maybe it wasn’t the right moment to start getting into it, or, more likely, I hadn’t yet found a good app which allowed me to select, arrange, and organise the programmes I was interested in. I’ll get started with what I usually listen to during my break at work, at home, or before lying down to sleep. “Partners in Crime” focuses on what happens in the crime fiction world. Every Friday, the authors Adam Croft and Robert Daws talk about the latest releases, events and festivals which have occurred during the week, and interview international authors – I truly recommend Episode 006 with Peter James. “They walk among us” and “Criminal” enrich the list. The first podcast tells of true crimes stories, analysing the minds of the people who committed horrible and despicable actions. “Criminal” focuses more on the protagonists of the investigations. We can listen to episodes dedicated to doctors who regularly look after victims of attacks, shooting, and stabbing. You can also listen to lawyers, detectives, and parents who got involved in investigations. You may find this podcast a very useful source of information if you want to write short stories and novels. Predictably, it appears on my list “Serial”. The famous podcast, hosted by Sarah Koenig, examines and analyses characters, plots, and investigations, unravelling surprising mysteries and unexpected twists episode by episode. I mainly talked about podcasts focusing on crime. “Life is scary,” hosted by “The terrified writer” – a.k.a. Ann Hirst – faces fears, doubts, successes, and defeats writers have taken on during their path to becoming a published author. To close this short journey into podcasts, I have to mention “The Allusionist.” In any episode, Helen Zaltzman transports the listener into a linguistic adventure, explaining the origin and etymology of English words and popular colloquialisms in an ironic and funny way. The programmes I mentioned in this post may or may not interest you, but they definitely are a useful and entertaining source of advice and inspiration for they who have been dreaming of and working on becoming an author. |
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November 2020
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