Dear reader,
The sky here is grey, just like yesterday, as autumn is slowly reaching its final stage. Leaves have fallen, November rains are fading and it is now time for the cold wind to rule the earth.
I’ve been writing a book for 6weeks now. At first, it was an experiment, something I wanted to try. Creating fictional characters with a whole story revolving around them, giving in to my will to build. It was but a whisper, the idea of an idea, a fragile flame trembling in the wind. As I am finishing the 11th chapter and getting past the 100 pages mark, I believe now is a good time to reflect on what led me to write this book and what it represents to me.
The beginning
Let me take you a few weeks back.
It’s October the 18th, 2023 and this is my last day at the company. Everything is in order, my farewell email is sent and apart from a few more coffees to share with some colleagues, I am ready to leave. There is one thing I keep thinking about, though: my 15min discussion with a partner from the firm who happened to have published 5 novels in the past few years. I had asked for this interview with him knowing I wanted to write a book about personal development. But deep inside, there was this will to write a novel too. Listening to his words, I knew this kind of creation struck a chord in me. Thanks to the blog I started 2 months before, I knew what kind of articles I enjoy writing the most.
It’s always been the ones I write with passion. I need to feel involved on an emotional level to write well. Or at least, what I consider to be my best – I’ll leave the critics do their job -.
It started as an experiment, a two weeks test, nothing more. When I discuss this with my relatives, they ask “how did you come up with the idea ?”. And I think the answer to this question greatly varies from one author to another. For me, there was no longtime reflection of something I held back deep inside and had been building up for years. I simply brainstormed with myself. And before long, I knew it was key for me to tell a story about love, violence and the relationship one has with aging. And that I had to go all the way through, from a beginning to an end.
What this book is already representing to me
I don’t know what the future will be like. Perhaps I’ll never get to publish this novel – you can count on me to try hard, though -. Perhaps it will be very ill-received once it gets out, both by the press and people like you and me. But that doesn’t matter.
What matters is that I am pouring some of my soul into this. In my writings, I infuse some of my own experience but also my dreams, my hopes, my fears and my fantasies. And not only this. Some of it has nothing to do with me but what my characters are becoming, bit by bit. I like to think that they have a life of their own. Yes, I am responsible of defining what makes them who they are. But then their reactions and interactions are sometimes writing themselves on my keyboard. I merely become the messenger, a vessel for their story. Julie and Christopher are not my captives. They are me. But also who I will never be and perhaps never meet in real life. And I love them for it.
Final words
I consider myself to be a rational man and until recently, not a very creative one. Had you told me a year ago that I would write a book today – a novel, on top of that -, I would have been very surprised. But we tend to limit ourselves by our own idea of who we can and can’t be. I have no idea how good the book will be. But again, that doesn’t matter.
What matters is authenticity. And enjoying the process.
Perhaps you’ll enjoy the discovery too 📖