AN INVISIBLE SUCCESS

After attending several creative writing courses in New York, London, Paris and Creazzo, after reading all the masters of immortal literature for years and years,  I finally published my first novel.

I have been working hard on it, trying to apply all the rules and tricks I learnt from James Wood (How fiction works) Raymond Carver (On writing) the Paris Review and, most of all, from the person I consider the king of dry cleaning, the one who changed novels upside down, once and for all: Ernest Hemingway.

The Webster’s Book of Style says to omit needless words and, in the process of editing my novel, I chiseled every sentence trying to scrape off unnecessary words, ending up with the maximum possible synthesis.

Just two weeks after being published, to my utter surprise, THE INVISIBLE MAN was already ranked among the top ten bestseller lists around the world. I received many letters and phone calls from publishers, fans and critics; they all agreed about one thing: the book is unputdownable! Some people went even farther, saying THE INVISIBLE MAN was the book of the Millennium (wow!)

Beside being flattered by this unexpected success, I tried to shed all these compliments and enthusiasm. It was way too much for me, really. I am not prepared for success and I want to live a normal life. My publisher, after literally covering me with money, said: ” I don’t want to know what your next book will be all about, and I’m not asking when you’ll be done with it. All I want you to know is I will be at your complete disposal, anytime. No pressure, no deadlines.” It was nice of him, so I took some time off and sailed away for a long journey aboard my new yacht. I brought with me a stack of paper, just in case inspiration struck me on the way. While crossing the big water, it happened to me every now and then to look at the white page, thinking: did I read this novel before?