I loved writing. I was passionate about writing brief sketches for my entertainment. It always came naturally to me. It starts with listening to a few words, a title, or an entire conversation. Then, it gets twisted in my head or I put in a different context to entertain my inner self. For school, university, and competitions, I wrote essays—many essays that were appreciated and always scored best at originality.
Writing to become a writer is a reality I woke up after a nightmare of a career dream. I would have never thought to be a playwright although I loved reading theater and dramatists, but to think that I could be one… yes, it seemed too much. The nightmare was that kind of kick that if it does not kill, makes you stronger and pushes you to make a step forward – probably, the right step forward. It is normal that after you wake up from a nightmare, you embrace the thing you like the most, which for me was writing. I decided to pass from amateur writing to professional writing when I made my writing blog. Later, I read a beautiful quote: ‘A professional writer is an amateur who never gave up’ – beautiful, is it not? I decided on plays, in general, and on the single-issue drama, in particular. This type of drama focuses more on the topic than on the characters. It is the ‘ugly duck’ in the drama field, but it fits like a glove my educational background. I decided that I would concentrate on it both my talent and skill. But I had to learn the writing skill. The ‘how’ and the ‘where’ and many other questions came to my mind, but I never doubted. I knew I was committing myself to a marathon for a playwright writing goal. I knew I could stay committed to my goal that I could reach with hard work and patient perseverance. I knew I had to have faith. THE NIGHTMARE OF THE CAREER DREAM My dream was academic, which in plain English meant a regular low income for a lot of work anywhere in the world, but with an adult audience with whom to discuss some texts. In my case, those texts were political—not a great delight, but some fields were acceptable, such as political history, diplomatic relations and conventions, or comparative politics because they were stories. On the other side, I never liked the study of political parties because in reality, they make all kinds of new context-generated alliances that contradict ideological lines; or courses studying institutions, such as those that focus on the creation and evolution of the European institutions and their policies. In my dream, I was elaborating on a political theory that I started to research during my master’s. As for my dream, I thought I had to work on doctoral research. But no! This is only for people like me: who always passed exams and competitions without connections or any corruptive means (e.g. bribes). People like me must know languages (with an ‘s’ at the end!), must have already read some books from which to result in some sort of doctoral project, must have several recommendations, and I do not remember what else so that to be accepted only as ‘external’ doctorate candidate (on the candidate’s budget). Others, instead, do not need any of these and are accepted as ‘internal’ (on the university’s budget) on the promise to do doctoral research at some point. But, then, if they get married, have children, or find another job, these are great excuses for having occupied a position on a promise they never even started to fulfill. And, there is also the category of those who did not even want such a career, but their parents did and their parents’ influence helped. The problem is that society selects its elite from among these people that start a doctoral study without languages, without projects, with nothing but an empty future promise some fulfill, but most do not. No wonder that many politicians make empty promises! I was not made for politics or for following flock political decisions. My interest focused on exploring a theory. I knew that for people like me, being external doctorate candidate was the best I could ever hope for, and I minded my own business. Usually, I never cared about how green the grass was in my neighbor’s courtyard. I did not even pay attention. I concentrated on the green of my grass. Unfortunately, I came across a bunch of people—as some of us have the misfortune to meet, hopefully, not too many of us and not too often because meeting them once is already enough for a lifetime—who wanted me out as if they all wanted to do PhDs and had no room because of me. Or, as if I was occupying exactly that position they all were targeting: the one on the candidate’s time and money. Or, as if I needed somebody’s permission to undertake a doctoral study. However, I thought that if people with education had decent behavior like mine, it meant that this kind of behavior belonged to some people without education. I ignored them. When I entered my doctoral studies, I just finished a one-year internship. And I could do a project on my own. Do you guess what kind of project I started? Obviously, a book project! As its manager, I had the freedom to conceive it and build it in my soul image, meaning in such a way as to include as many people into it so that they could use this experience for their curriculum. I was cut the budget to almost nothing and limited to the book shipment to leave the project. I did not. I stayed with a host family. I could not share many of the administrative tasks and I had to work almost sixty hours a week to deliver successfully the project, and so on. It was a hard year—with a capital ‘h’. But, hey! It is usually like this for honest people. That is why they are called ‘hard-working’ people, not ‘elite’. I struggled. Another thing was when an international conference took place. The conference’s topic was the same as my book project and the doctoral thesis. I applied by email, then by fax, but still, I was not among the participants. Luckily, some co-organizers knew me due to my book project, and they called me intrigued that they did not see my application and thought I had not heard of the prestigious international conference. Thanks to them, I applied again to the co-organizers and I made it to the conference. Did I believe that it was a pure accident that my application was not among the others? No, I strongly believed it was intentionally removed. Then, I got convinced because I did some research. Later, I learned that the person who called me was put on medical leave for an indefinite period. Later on, there was another person who helped me and then was put on indefinite leave so that I had no collaborator and leave. I concluded that some people played God, and I continued my book project. My non-profit book project was a great success. It was translated into over ten languages. Besides the many other tasks, I wrote the English version and translated it into Italian, both of them being foreign languages to me. The ebook version was put on several websites to be downloaded free of charge, while the English one was printed and distributed to libraries, in conferences, etc. I said to myself, ‘Yes, I can! And I love it.’ I was tired. I had no income or income perspective, and with my life threaded if I did not leave. I ignored it no more. I woke up from my dream nightmare. WRITING TO BECOME A WRITER IS A REALITY I WOKE UP When I woke up, I wanted to write a story—a story I wanted to write from all my heart. I started to research. The archives were bombed, and I needed to recreate the ‘worldbuilding’ of the story using documentaries. And as I loved watching movies, I watched documentaries. At that point, I did not know how to envision a career as a writer. So, I read, I scribbled, I researched, and I hoped. Writing a defense thesis is an academic writing genre—standardized, boring, and not my favorite. That is the reason my book project was exactly the opposite. It was only interactive dialog, entertaining, and my favorite. It was a great achievement to translate a complex and confusing concept into plain and interactive English! I also applied for jobs, but it happened rarely to be accepted. But, hey! Why would that be a surprise? It is always like this for honest and hard-working people. Only the elite, their families, and friends seem to always be employed. Educated people should be grateful if they are accepted for a job where they cannot either bring their skills or develop others, such as a call center. In Austria, I studied German, wrote a book, and worked part-time in French in a call center. Interesting combination, right? Well, it did last too long—only six months. To send me out without suspicions or with ‘white gloves’ the entire department was dismissed. It rang old bells. Vienna was a lovely cultural experience! I loved visiting it and practicing my German writing about it and its people. It was in Vienna, that I found two writing courses: one was free, the other one affordable. Not even the fact that they were in German scared me. The story idea generation, the unfolding of that idea in a coherent story, and the discussions were highly more important than the subject-verb agreement or other German grammar complex issues. Vienna was the introduction to becoming a writer as a career. Oxford was my first step. The University of Oxford had, and still has, a course called Writing Drama. In the United Kingdom, everything was expensive and this course could not be an exception. It cost a few hundred pounds—a fortune for job seekers. Fortunately, I discovered this course while I was working in Vienna, and with the significant efforts that hard-working people usually make, I could afford it. I was where I hoped and wanted to be. Finally! In my dorm room in Oxford, I started working on my first single-issue play, quite complex and quite difficult for a first, but I knew I could do it. And I started my writing blog. I never thought that I could do a blog because I was not a computer scientist. Nobody wanted to help, and I had no intention of leaving aside this lovely idea. Therefore, I did it myself—and I was proud of it! On the blog, I wrote shorter or longer posts, mainly focusing on three writing genres: essays, comments, and reviews. Having a writing blog was a wonderful idea because it helped establish a writing routine and it made the writer more engaged in writing. It was one thing to scribble some notes for self-entertainment. It was another thing to write for the blog that someone might read. A blog makes the writer more responsible and more attentive to the writing and the structure. I strongly recommend it! Without many expectations, I also tried to find a job there to alleviate the financial efforts of my parents. I sent thousands of CVs for simple jobs, for which my good English should stand for excellent. I did not apply for good jobs (as I previously tried sometimes) because, in general, they are reserved for the elite. Some of them are even pre-reserved years before until one of them brings a diploma whose authenticity nobody checks or for a progenitor of some influent parents. From the thousands of applications, I got one answer: from a hairdresser beauty salon where I applied as a receptionist to take the appointments by telephone and write them down in a copybook. But they rejected me because they found somebody more… qualified. So, I did not earn one single penny, but I found some in the streets, though. They were lucky pennies. I continued my writing journey! The second step was a HarvardX course on the edX international educational platform. It did not come by clapping my hands. It rarely or never happens to honest and hard-working people. Getting great things by clapping hands is a privilege of the elite. In my case, it also has to be complex and complicated, difficult and discouraging—but I am used to it. However, it did come by putting my hands together for a prayer for divine inspiration and guidance. After I finished writing and re-writing the play several times, I was ready for another course. A course to bring more art into my play and a more plastic expression – but which one? One evening, when I felt ready, I typed the words in Google and here there was: Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasive Writing and Public Speaking taught by one of the most fabulous professors I learned from, Prof. Engell. This course was the answer to my prayers. I will remember it as such for the rest of my life. I focused on figures of speech as applied to historical texts. This was my first course from edX.org—which is my beloved educational platform. It accommodates the courses of the best universities in the world that people like me could not attend, otherwise not even in their dreams. This educational platform provides courses of all kinds and for all hearts and professional interests. For these courses, students can pay and get a registered certificate or, for a limited period, it can study the courses free of charge. Whoever created it, did it in my soul image: I love this idea of great courses of the best universities in the world being free of charge for a limited period because it contributes to world education. The world lacks education. It lacks education badly. My heart and my professional interests in the edX courses were related to becoming a writer and sharpening my writing skills. In this sense, I did a series of courses, some for a certificate, others for free. For example, I completed Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasive Writing and Public Speaking (HarvardX, 2020), Academic and Business Writing (BerkeleyX, 2021), Storytelling in the Workplace (Rochester Institute of Technology, 2021), Storytelling for Social Change (MichiganX, 2022). I also completed two professional certificates: Leadership and Communication (HarvardX, 2022) and Writing for Video Games (UBCX, 2022). The latter is an eight-month program covering different aspects of writing from the point of view of video games, such as interactive narrative, writing game scenes and dialogues, etc. In parallel to writing courses, I wrote other plays and children’s books, translated, and learned new skills. Almost simultaneously with the course on rhetoric, I came across the channel of Keith Wheeler, who is a children’s book author. I loved the genre because it is entertaining, educational, has a positive and optimistic tone, and always has a happy end. I had an interest in writing for its audience—its young audience is the best audience to inculcate some ideas of morality and common sense in the relationship with people or of empathy in the relationship with animals. In this sense, a video series of his were the answer to an idea I was having but did not know what shape to give. Furthermore, I learned about some apps and software that writers should have to facilitate their work. In time, I purchased some myself. Was it a coincidence that I came across the course on rhetoric and Keith Wheeler almost simultaneously? If it were, it was ‘God’s way to stay anonymous’ (Einstein). The third step was learning to become a little techie. After the experience of making the blog, I learned to make a website—I had to learn to do it myself because I had no other choice. And I made one, which includes the writing blog, https://lauralai.weebly.com/ I discovered new passions, such as design for book covers and photo editing. I discovered I loved taking landscape pictures and that people loved the pictures I took of their flowers, for example. I dived with lots of love into creative fonts, and I am still learning to manipulate some apps I purchased for text editing and text formatting. I completed and working to complete other relevant steps on my journey to make a writing career. The fourth step is book marketing—not a great delight, but some marketing advice is acceptable. What is book marketing that is so annoying for writers? It is a different science that requires a set of skills to sell things. But if a writer writes and a seller sells, it means that the writer has to wear two hats. Furthermore, if a writer self-publishes, it is both a writer and a publisher. All hats the writer has to wear become heavy—like a royal crown. In order to have a better understanding of it, think of the movie The Wolf on the Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese. In this movie, Jordan Belfort says, ‘Sell me this pen!’—now, replace ‘pen’ with ‘book’. Book marketing is the writer holding its art and trying to convince somebody to buy it. Few people sell Jordan the pen, and probably few writers succeed in successfully selling their books. Therefore, I take part in different webinars on this topic to learn and select some techniques that I can apply. There is an overwhelming majority that prefers the email list marketing strategy. It is not my favorite, but there are other ways that put the writer more in contact with the audience, some highly interactive and a true pleasure to elaborate on. In parallel to book marketing, I read, draft new plays, learn a new foreign language, and stay open to any new things I need to learn because this industry is dynamic. In conclusion, when I woke up to the writing reality, I knew I was engaging myself in a marathon, not a sprint. During my marathon, I often had the impression that past shadows from my dream nightmare were still fighting against me. For example, in September 2022, I was going on a trip to New Zealand, for which I needed lots of documents that I took time to collect. At the Doha Airport where I was switching panes to embark to Auckland, a New Zealand border agent called security at Doha to talk to me and to ban my entrance to New Zealand, just because he thought my documents were not in order (e.g. that I did not have accommodation, when I had a receipt for having paid it in advance, etc.)—I had to be out, right? The next day, I was escorted to the first plane and they refused to reimburse visas-fees as if it is it was my fault that I was banned entrance. After my doctoral experience, my respect for those waving a paper on which it is written ‘PhD’ decreased significantly—to zero. And so is my respect for the political so-called ‘elite’ or for everything and everybody gravitating around it. In politics, some men are low-quality human beings. In plain English, they are called ‘pigs’—some big pigs, others small ones. Their mentality is that if they deprive women of financial means or if there is power in their pens for great careers, women will look for those means in men’s pants and in their beds. It is a coercion strategy to convince women to search in men’s trousers. It is not democratic, but it is called and thought so even by the elite – why am I not surprised? As for myself, I am the same uncompromisable and politically correct person, in the sense that I wish nobody anything bad; I only wish them what they wished me, and I hope that they only wish me great things. I learned that some people are builders and that others are destroyers and that whatever animates the destroyers is not something we have in common—or that I seek to have in common. It is what differentiates us the most and what puts us in antagonist positions—forever! Therefore, I became a writer because I love writing, because my talent for writing was always appreciated, and because—thank God!—I had the opportunity to improve my writing skills. In the journey to become a writer, I discovered artistic aspects I never knew I had and that I would explore them so passionately. I am grateful to God for the strength and the new people I met during my writing marathon—the Writing Community on Social Media is particularly supportive and entertaining. First and foremost, I learned that success means overcoming every single obstacle on the way to becoming a writer. Then, the writing journey becomes itself a story in which every writer fights against dragons of all kinds and all shapes, some crawling and others flying, but all spitting fire from all directions. The writer alone works on its book, protects its art, and succeeds in bringing it to light through the darkness of the landscape. OTHER LINKS: The #WritingCommunity on #Twitter Asked. Who…? (4) https://lauralai.weebly.com/comment/the-writingcommunity-on-twitter-asked-who-4 Sept. 26th, 2023 The #WritingCommunity on #Twitter Asked. How…? (3) https://lauralai.weebly.com/comment/the-writingcommunity-on-twitter-asked-how-3 Aug. 21st, 2023 The #WritingCommunity on #Twitter Asked. What…? (2) https://lauralai.weebly.com/comment/july-11th-2023 July 11th, 2023 The #WritingCommunity on #Twitter Asked. Do you…? (1) https://lauralai.weebly.com/comment/the-writingcommunity-on-twitter-asked-do-you-1 May, 26th, 2023
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by Laura Lai Last Sunday, by mid-day—a beautiful fall day, anyway—I was going to the Central Market where people were celebrating the end of the harvest. I was interested in buying fresh grape juice. This grape juice before fermentation does not contain any alcohol, is sweet and strongly flavored. It is the only time of the year when people can have it and drink it: it’s now or… next year! When I reached the station, a woman and a man, at a respectable age both, were having a conversation on the social vouchers. Amid the inflation, the national government started a social support policy: to send people with low income some social vouchers to buy food, but no cigarettes and alcoholic drinks. Although this policy is applicable since June, not everybody received it at once. This woman received it just now. She was asking the man sitting next to her questions about how to use it, when to use and where to use it. The man did not know exactly what to answer. Then I thought about entering the conversation because I was more familiar with this topic since I knew people that got it and already used it. Buses came. People left. We were both waiting for tram number 7. We were both going in the same direction. At some point, we were the last left in the station waiting for this tram. I was already long done with my long explanations about the social vouchers when she said: ‘Words help. It’s so great when somebody helps you with friendly words!’ ‘If we’ve got to the point of not helping each other, not even with words, then we degraded as humans,’ I said to this woman that earlier told the man that she was 64 and that her husband recently died. From the way she was dressed and from the way she looked, she seemed to be a Roma-ethnic. She was wearing an impeccable white blouse and a black vest on top of the blouse, a long black skirt, and on her head, she was wearing an impeccable white scarf. She was sitting and supporting her hands on the black shopping bag on wheels that she was carrying and that, unfortunately, looked empty from the outside. And the tram came. My mother and I found a seat. Next to us, it was an empty one. I signed her to come and sit, if she wanted. She said no. She preferred to stand. And she watched me until her cell phone rang. Words are powerful. Wise men used to say that ‘one drop of ink may make one million think.’ Theoretically, words are a linguistic division made of one or several syllabi. Practically, we need them to communicate either orally or in writing. The words can say lots of things about the speaker, such as the level of education; or when using bad words, our emotional stand. Words can show our professional background when we use words from a technical vocabulary.
Words can do lots of things. Words can help. Words can compliment. Words can offend. It is when words hurt. Some hurt a little, we apologize with words, and forget about. Others hurt deeply. And it is for the heart to forgive—if it can. That is the forgiveness that matters, regardless of what the words may say. But what is the most beautiful word in the world? Different people give different answers. For some, ‘love’ is the most beautiful word. For others, ‘book’, ‘writing’, ‘free’, ‘friendship’, etc. I do not know if anybody thinks that the words ‘honor’, ‘honesty’, and ‘dignity’ are beautiful words, too. At least, I think so. However, to me, the most beautiful word in the world is the word ‘mamma.’ This is a short word in, probably, all languages spoken on this Earth. It is not the only short word spoken, but definitely the only one capable to encapsulate in it the love of an entire Universe. Mom, I love you, too! And we loved the fresh grape juice we found at the Central Market. My parents and I had a lovely dinner, when we ‘vitaminized’ ourselves with the nutrients from the grape juice. What? The word ‘vitaminized’ does not exist? Words can also be created. Words can also be originally associated. Particularly, in creative writing! by Laura Lai
I write. You write. We write. Shorter or longer sentences are daily formulated—in written. When we write one sentence, we create it. But is this creative writing? And is creative writing an inborn, or a taught skill? Writing is a skill. This is not much debated. It is an ability that requires knowledge. For example, the Arab writing goes on horizontal but from right to left, the Asian writing goes on vertical, and they both have characters we cannot write unless we study them. Another example are the languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet (e.g., Bulgarian, Serbian, Russian, Ukrainian, etc.); Hebrew and Hindi are also languages that use a particular alphabet and a particular calligraphy that we cannot use unless we learn. And even to write using a computer keyboard requires some learning. When we write, we use words, we write numbers, we construct phrases. For centuries, we used the pen and the paper to record words, numbers, and phrases. Even nowadays, for some of us, the pen-and-paper is the writing software we have most at hand. By writing, we copy, we inform, we record, we reply, etc. But when we write a book or a piece of music, we create it. When we draw, we create. And we create by using creativity. Writing a textbook also requires observation, research on the topic, a good property of the terms we want to use when writing on specific topics, writing courses to sharpen the writing skill we gained in school by adding figurative concepts that may turn writing into art. It requires practice and imagination. Therefore, when we use creativity, we use a certain ability to develop original ideas through the use of imagination that we have or we do not have, but that cannot be taught. To sum up, writing is a skill that we learn—either we are taught by somebody else or self-taught while creativity is more of an inborn ability that once it exits, it also needs pasturing to grow, to fit genres and streams, or to know about the existing ones to create new ones. A creative piece of artistic work is usually associated with being original by being something new and, sometimes, unusual. by Laura Lai Three years ago today I made the Writing Break Blog just a few days before starting my first online course. I was in Oxford. It was a Sunday afternoon. I was in my dorm room—a cozy, single room in the center of the historical university city. The writing blog was a project that I was having in mind for a long time without actually finding the time to sit and do it. After having previously watched video tutorials, looked for templates (and liked them all, or most of all), the last weekend before starting the Drama Writing course, I sat and did it: the Writing Break Blog. photo edited by Laura Lai There are several good options to make a free blog. I chose the Blogspot.com. And I started posting essays, comments and reviews. All other writings that could not fit into these three categories were classified as ‘uncategorized’. I believe that for those passionate about writing to have a blog is a good idea. That is the reason I have always been encouraging virtual colleagues—that I subsequently met in the online writing courses—to make one. Besides the fact that a blog is a free platform to express a point of view as a comment or as an essay, it also gives a writing discipline when posting daily, weekly, biweekly, fortnightly, etc. Writing requires talent, but it is also a skill that requires constant training. The pen and the paper have always been my writing tools. But a writing blog is training and responsibility because an author does not write anymore for its own fun, but somebody may read what you write. Automatically, it implies that more attention given to sentence formulation, grammar, language used, etc. It requires being formal—at least a little. Also for writing practice, more experience writers suggest a writer’s journal. At the suggestion of my Drama Writing course tutor, Nicholas McInerny, I started one myself. I usually record there issues related to writing, such as courses, books written, challenges I had to overcome, and new things I learned about writing. It is still about training, writing, but it is also—to me, at least—recording a writing process in a writer's journal. Furthermore, writing as a skill requires learning and practicing some writing rules—and this is not about subject-verb agreement. But rules. And every genre has its writing rules. They are easy to understand. The difficulty comes with structuring and twisting a story in such a way to fulfill all the rules or most of them. Anyway, an author must know the rules, in order to be aware of those it breaks. Or to enjoy the satisfaction of having completed a story that ticks most of the genre requirements. Consequently, writing courses are an important part of a writer’s professional development. More than a year later, just writing and regularly posting essays, comments and reviews were not enough anymore. The Writing Break Blog’s articles were improved with edited pictures. The first edited picture was for the essay Plotter or Pantser? This is the Question. Then followed others, and almost each new blog post was accompanied by an edited picture that is also the result of a creative process. Here are some examples of edited pictures: photos edited by Laura Lai In September 2021, I thought to take the challenge of making an author website to include a writing blog. After watching tutorials, this website on Weebly.com was made. It includes information about the author and a writing blog that continues the format of the older Writing Break Blog.
The blogging adventure started in a dorm room in Oxford three years ago has been a great and enriching writing experience so far. A writing blog is a terrific start for those who want to write regularly. Oh, I have heard that some bloggers also make good money from blogging, but here I am not the right person to explain how. As for the Writing Break Blog, it will not get closed, it will not get deleted, but it may get reinvented. |
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