One year ago, my first novel was finally starting to get into a shape that looks a lot like its current, almost final version. I remember some slight annoyance at having to change quite a bit based on feedback of a few trusted readers – yet today I can’t go through the previous version without feeling a little bit of shame for writing such utter crap at that time. Readers and editors are precious, and deleting and rewriting is of the essence.
One year ago, I had no idea whether anyone would ever pick it up. I liked the book, but that doesn’t mean that publishers would like it too, and even if they liked it, betting on it is an entirely different game. Now it’s in Marsilio Editori‘s hands, getting ready to be published at the end of October.
One year ago, I was getting ready to spend the whole month of August in Salina, basically on holiday, thinking about what else to write. Instead, I went through a most marvelous and adventurous journey to Providence, RI, for Mort Diplomatique‘s premiere. I was lucky enough to laugh at Austin’s horror romcom, Dave’s writer poltergeist and Lucy&Delilah cryptocurrency mockumentary; to lose sleep with Umar’s “Day Of” (I still both love and hate that guy for writing and directing it, every time it comes back to haunt me at night); and to get my emotional range impossibly stretched with Catya’s Nogas, Lorna’s Dog Run, Noah’s mattresses and Daniel’s pierrot, among others. And of course, I was lucky enough to meet Whitney and Adam and survive the experience unscathed- to this date, I’m terrified that their Loop could be nonfiction. Oh, and I came home with Covid, so the rest of the Salina time was essentially a long isolation while the rest of the family enjoyed the Mediterranean. During that isolation, at least six different ideas came up as potential new novels, let alone additional TV or film scripts. Now I’m down to two that I really want to write – one somewhat related to the one coming soon (but I’d rather lose a finger than call it a sequel, or worse, a series) and one that has an entirely different setting, theme and appeal. I’m afraid I’ll have to keep working on both in parallel, because I’m not giving up either one.
Carlo Calabrò 