Hello, everybody!
I had been planning to fill this page in for some time now, but as it usually happens, when you start something like this, requiring constant care and attention, usually life gets suddenly very complicated and busy and you find yourself with no time whatsoever on your hands to do it. Name something, and it happened to me in the last month!
What I planned to do here is a little excursus of my writing story... I cannot say "career" as yet, for even if I started writing a long time ago, I never truly got published till this year.
As I look back in time, writing has always been one of the loves of my life... reading being the other one! I've been spending all my free time reading, ever since I was old enough to hold a book and decipher the words. My mother taught me to read even before I went to school (I was five) because she discovered that was the only way to keep a rather lively (some would say I was a real pest!) child sitting for some time.
Of course, the next step was to attempt to create my own stories, which I did orally, at first. I remember spending afternoons playing and pretending I was the character of some story having an adventure, and my dolls would be the other characters, of course!
A few years went by, and as a teenager I tried to put together my first short story... a Western, since at the time (toward the end of the Sixties) I was reading and watching mostly Western books and movies. As expected, the result was awful! It looked awful to my own eyes, but I kept that story for many years, just because it was the very first, before finding the courage to throw it away, as it well deserved: it had not an original idea in it, and of course it was written as a twelve year old could write!
After that, I tried again, writing mostly synopsis I never developed, ranging through different genres, but mostly adventure and Western... I still have those, and I think a couple is worth being developed in a real story, sooner or later. While at the University, I also wrote my first full novel (a Western, again) based on a B movie I had liked a lot. I still have that, because I think there is something worth saving lost in those 300 and more handwritten pages.
The true change came in the 1980s. I was already married by then, mother of two, and I was working as a translator. While attending a Sci-Fi Convention here in Italy I met my "idol", the Italian writer Mariangela Cerrino. Together, and with a few other friends, we launched into a big adventure, founding the Star Trek Italian Club in the year 1986. The club grew and prospered, and started running a couple of fanzines... and that was my first training ground as a published (even if not professional) writer.
I started with a few short stories, and when one of them (How do you Feel) won the Italian Sci-Fi Award as best non-professional novel (1990), I decided it was time to try my hand at something a little more challenging, and so the short novel "The Caves of Arcadia" was born. It won the third place at the Italian Sci-Fi Award in 1991. For those of my readers who like Star Trek (the Original Series, of course) I'll publish a couple of my short stories here, now that I've managed to convert them from the Wordstar format they were written into to the current Word format... not an easy feat, believe me!
I had been planning to fill this page in for some time now, but as it usually happens, when you start something like this, requiring constant care and attention, usually life gets suddenly very complicated and busy and you find yourself with no time whatsoever on your hands to do it. Name something, and it happened to me in the last month!
What I planned to do here is a little excursus of my writing story... I cannot say "career" as yet, for even if I started writing a long time ago, I never truly got published till this year.
As I look back in time, writing has always been one of the loves of my life... reading being the other one! I've been spending all my free time reading, ever since I was old enough to hold a book and decipher the words. My mother taught me to read even before I went to school (I was five) because she discovered that was the only way to keep a rather lively (some would say I was a real pest!) child sitting for some time.
Of course, the next step was to attempt to create my own stories, which I did orally, at first. I remember spending afternoons playing and pretending I was the character of some story having an adventure, and my dolls would be the other characters, of course!
A few years went by, and as a teenager I tried to put together my first short story... a Western, since at the time (toward the end of the Sixties) I was reading and watching mostly Western books and movies. As expected, the result was awful! It looked awful to my own eyes, but I kept that story for many years, just because it was the very first, before finding the courage to throw it away, as it well deserved: it had not an original idea in it, and of course it was written as a twelve year old could write!
After that, I tried again, writing mostly synopsis I never developed, ranging through different genres, but mostly adventure and Western... I still have those, and I think a couple is worth being developed in a real story, sooner or later. While at the University, I also wrote my first full novel (a Western, again) based on a B movie I had liked a lot. I still have that, because I think there is something worth saving lost in those 300 and more handwritten pages.
The true change came in the 1980s. I was already married by then, mother of two, and I was working as a translator. While attending a Sci-Fi Convention here in Italy I met my "idol", the Italian writer Mariangela Cerrino. Together, and with a few other friends, we launched into a big adventure, founding the Star Trek Italian Club in the year 1986. The club grew and prospered, and started running a couple of fanzines... and that was my first training ground as a published (even if not professional) writer.
I started with a few short stories, and when one of them (How do you Feel) won the Italian Sci-Fi Award as best non-professional novel (1990), I decided it was time to try my hand at something a little more challenging, and so the short novel "The Caves of Arcadia" was born. It won the third place at the Italian Sci-Fi Award in 1991. For those of my readers who like Star Trek (the Original Series, of course) I'll publish a couple of my short stories here, now that I've managed to convert them from the Wordstar format they were written into to the current Word format... not an easy feat, believe me!
How do You Feel?
How do you feel... how do you feel... how do you feel...
The voice, mechanical, cold, reverberated into his mind with maddening insistence, posing a question he did not know how to answer.
<mi>How do you feel...<d>
Spock woke up with a start, sitting on the bed in his small room at Mount Seleya.
Again... he had dreamt again.
It had been happening every night, since he had come back to consciousness and undergone the retraining of his mind.
Vulcans did not dream... but the Masters had discarded the phenomenon as an attempt... made by his subconscious, perhaps by it's human half... at retrieving the data it had lost.
But Spock knew better. He knew there had to be a precise cause for these persistent dreams which came to him ever more clearly. In the beginning, there had been just a sense of confusion in the morning, a vague memory of colours and shapes which in the dream had seemed meaningful but that he could not recall anymore, once he was awake.
Then colours and shapes had gradually become more defined, they had become faces, places, events... Those images, however, still changed into a confused mixture of half memories when he woke, leaving him with the only certainty that the dream had been about things and people he had known in the past.
Spock had come to the conclusion that there was a pattern to those dreams, an evolution of sort that something in his mind was undergoing, perhaps stimulated by the training.
Now that suspect had become a certainty: for the first time, he was able to remember what the dream had been about, and without any effort.
The images, the words were clear: the training computer, the last question, repeated over and over, his own growing puzzlement because its meaning was escaping him.
<mi>How do you feel...<d> Intellectually, he knew the semantic meaning of those words, but he could not attach any emotional meaning to them. He vaguely remembered that once he had at least been able to understand feelings... if not show them himself, so perhaps his mother's diagnosis had been right: the Vulcan training of his mind had deprived him of this ability.
But a mind that could not understand feelings should not have been able to dream, either: the Vulcan training had not had the effect of depriving him also of his ability to dream. Why?
Spock knew the answer was hidden somewhere into his mind and, after a brief moment spent in thought, he came to a decision.
With a quick motion, he rose from the bed and crossed the room toward the meditation stone, placed against the opposite wall, facing the only narrow window in the room.
He knelt on the stone, arranging his sleeping robe around himself, then lit the little ceremonial brazier and readied himself for a period of meditation. It was not an easy state to obtain, because he wanted to be able to do an analysis of the deepest recesses of his mind without loosing control of the procedure and risking a trance from which he might not be able to awaken without help.
He took a deep breath, glancing out of the window, at Vulcan's night sky... a maze of sparkling stars on black velvet... then he let himself slip into the first meditation stage.
When he practiced introspective meditation, Spock always thought of his mind as of a pyramid, since the creation of a fictional geometric figure seemed to make things easier. That pyramid, however, was turned upside down, so that its «base» represented the most superficial and large mind level, while the «apex» was the deepest layer of consciousness, perhaps even the first one of the subconscious realm.
Up to now, as far as he could remember, Spock had never reached the «apex», neither during his meditations nor with the help of the Masters. It had always been sealed from him. Every time he tried to get near, the effort became so massive, that he had to surface in a hurry or even to be called back with a few slaps.
But this night something had changed... it was as if some door had opened: Spock descended easily from one layer to the next, admiring in the meantime the beautiful, logical architecture the Masters had created in rebuilding his mind. It had become a flawless mechanism, perhaps even too perfect in its logic, since it seemed that less concrete and rational things were escaping its power of understanding.
As he went further and further down, he began to feel, as usual, an increasing difficulty to go on, as if some force were trying to prevent him from reaching the top of the reversed pyramid. He did not know what this force was... perhaps, he abstractedly mused, it was fear... fear of what he might find there, fear of discovering... what? Feelings, maybe?
Always he had stopped his introspection when this force had increased its opposition, but this time he persisted, even if he felt his strength was beginning to ebb. He had to know, at all costs.
The mind-world through which he was travelling was a black and white one, a world dominated by logic, where everything... every memory, every thought... was constructed as a logical concept, everything was classified, categorized, filed. It was, he began to realize, a world that lacked originality, inventiveness, that looked almost like the inside of a computer. Was this what he had become? What all Vulcans were? Or, maybe, that human «flaw», «emotion», that he had fought so hard to cancel from his dual nature (at least, so was filed in one of the ordered slots of his now perfectly logical mind), was what gave colour to the world?
While formulating these thoughts, he looked toward his goal, now nearer but still difficult to reach, and it seemed to him that, as he got toward the apex of the pyramid, the neat division between black and white, prevailing in the topmost layers of his mind, was becoming less clear, leaving room for many shades of gray and of... other colours?
He got also the impression of detecting some kind of movement, a vortex like those he had seen in his dreams... That much he recalled, even if he could not remember what those whirlpools had been made of.
Curiosity got the better of him, then, lending him new strength to overcome the opposition he was still meeting in his descent. With a last effort of will, he reached the apex and plunged into its vortex...
And it closed on him.
Confusion, whirling images... a sea of colours and emotions which threatened to sweep him away, now that he was floating into it, in its power.
He had been right, he thought; this was the secret place where his human half... no, his whole, true ego... had been hiding all that time, trying to emerge but unable to overcome, alone, the obstacles that the Masters' logical way of reconstructing his mind had involuntarily put over it. Since it had found its path blocked, that ego had taken the only route free to it... the one that led to the subconscious. And it had generated those dreams...
The light was almost blinding: here everything was bathed in light, as much as dimness had pervaded the outward layers of his mind. And the light shone on colourful images that he could not see clearly because they appeared somewhat blurred to him, as if an invisible veil had been thrown on them.
He tried to look more closely, and his efforts gained him some fleeting glances at... events of his past. Those same memories were also stored in the most accessible parts of his mind, but here they looked different, somewhat more complete, as if some missing element had been added.
And those missing details... the colours that now replaced the black and white layout... were emotions.
Again, he felt the distress... verging on anguish... he had once felt while standing over Kirk's body, convinced that he had killed him, and heard his own voice tell T'Pau that he would neither live long nor prosper, for he had "killed his Captain and his friend"
Again he met V'ger's consciousness, so cold and devoid of feelings and cried for his loneliness.
Again, he felt sorrow looking at Peter Preston's body, and was compelled by friendship to take that decision that would lead to...
As a wall, the memories of his own end, with their burden of pain, of anguish, of fear, rose before him... beyond that wall, all light, all colours ceased to exist, not even white could survive... only the deepest shade of black, the absolute black of nothingness.
And the whirlpool was carrying him toward it.
Panic hit him as an hammer, and he fought with all his ebbing strength to free himself from it and surface.
For a fearful moment, it seemed that he would not succeed, that the power of the vortex would pull him into nothingness... but at last, slowly at first and then more and more quickly, he disengaged himself and floated upward, toward the outer world and reality.
For a while, he simply sat with his eyes closed, savoring the small signals reality was sending to his senses: the hardness of the stone under his now aching knees, the tingling in his veins as blood resumed to flow as usual and seemed to pierce him with thousands of microscopic needles, the cool touch of the night breeze on his face...
He let those small signals sink slowly in, while thinking that he had just run a tremendous risk... that black whirlpool could easily have trapped him forever inside his mind, sealed from the world as in death but horribly alive... and then perhaps not even the Masters would have been able to get him back, perhaps not even that one man who <mi>had<d> been able to reach him so many times before... he had just found this in that lost corner of his mind... who had saved his life and his mind in the name of... friendship?
Another word he could not fully understand. His mother had used it too. His mother. She had been right: as her son, he was half-human, he had feelings and emotions even if he could not yet find nor understand them.
Now that he had the answer he had been seeking, however, he had to make a choice: he could let his unconscious mind go on with its work, he could let his feelings surface again. Or he could seal them forever where they were, and live the rest of his life as a full Vulcan.
This had always been his first goal, he knew. His memories spoke of a failed attempt to attain Kolinahr, and he would have tried that only for one reason: to get free, once and for all, of his human emotions. With his eyes still closed, Spock pondered on all that.
Yes, he could now live as a full Vulcan, but did he really want to? He was none too sure he would like it: logic had seemed so gray, so dull and monochrome when confronted with the whirling colourfulness of emotion. If he renounced to those colours he would really become the «walking computer» McCoy had often accused him of being... and he would forever be cut off from his own mother, from those very Humans who had saved him and who were his... friends?
Slowly, he came to his decision: he knew that this was going to disappoint the Masters, and his father, but he could... would not throw his human heritage away. It was part of himself, as much as the Vulcan side of his nature, part of what made him what he was... whatever that was.
Finally, he opened his eyes and stood up, waiting a moment for the blood circulation fully to resume.
The night was gone and the first shades of purple and red filtered through the open window, forerunners of Vulcan's hot sun.
Spock went to the window and looked out: down on the plain at the feet of Mount Seleya, the dawning light shone on the silvery wings of the Klingon Bird of Prey, and a few black dots moved around the ship. The others were getting ready to leave.
Spock knew they were going toward Court Martial, and knew that it was his duty to go with them, to offer testimony... or was he going, as his mother had suggested, out of friendship?
He did not now yet... it was still too early for that... but, as he closed the window and turned, he felt certain that he would soon find the answer to that question, too.
This was the first, hesitant step I took, in a universe I knew very well, with characters already structured. An easy start, you might think. Not so, because writing is much more than that. When I tried to go from a short story to a real novel, albeit a short one, I soon discovered things I did not know existed, such as the Point of View, and I had to rewrite it a few times (under the aegis of my writer friend) before I got it right.
More or less in the same period, I finally conceived an ambitious project, a Fantasy novel that was going to be the first volume of a trilogy. I started writing, getting to more or less one-third of the first book when... well, when lie happened. My marriage, never perfect, reached a point of crisis and my husband and I parted ways. That made my life more complicated for quite some time, and writing slipped to a second and third place, so my novel ended up in a drawer, where it still is. In the same period my first cat, Micia, came into my life... but that is another story for another page of this site!
Years went by, and I still wanted to write but never seemed to find the time to do it. Also, I had always written in English because somehow this seems to help my creative processes in a way Italian cannot do, and this implied that I always had to translate everything to be able to publish it here in Italy.
The real milestone that changed everything for me was some five years ago, when an Italian Publisher asked me to write a manual about how to take care of cats. At the time, I had some 59 cats (besides my two dogs and a rabbit) and I had had cats for many years, so I had acquired a lot of experience in the field. I accepted and so the Italian version of "Cats: Instructions for use" was born. I did not like it very much because, following the publisher's directives, it was mostly a manual, and therefore lacked any "personal" perspective. I also felt it could not truly catch a reader's interest. Then, through another writer and good friend, I got in touch with Inknbeans Press... and my adventure began. I submitted an English, much altered version of "Cats: Instructions for Use, or How to Survive being Owned by a Cat", and it was accepted! It was the dream come true!
More or less in the same period, I finally conceived an ambitious project, a Fantasy novel that was going to be the first volume of a trilogy. I started writing, getting to more or less one-third of the first book when... well, when lie happened. My marriage, never perfect, reached a point of crisis and my husband and I parted ways. That made my life more complicated for quite some time, and writing slipped to a second and third place, so my novel ended up in a drawer, where it still is. In the same period my first cat, Micia, came into my life... but that is another story for another page of this site!
Years went by, and I still wanted to write but never seemed to find the time to do it. Also, I had always written in English because somehow this seems to help my creative processes in a way Italian cannot do, and this implied that I always had to translate everything to be able to publish it here in Italy.
The real milestone that changed everything for me was some five years ago, when an Italian Publisher asked me to write a manual about how to take care of cats. At the time, I had some 59 cats (besides my two dogs and a rabbit) and I had had cats for many years, so I had acquired a lot of experience in the field. I accepted and so the Italian version of "Cats: Instructions for use" was born. I did not like it very much because, following the publisher's directives, it was mostly a manual, and therefore lacked any "personal" perspective. I also felt it could not truly catch a reader's interest. Then, through another writer and good friend, I got in touch with Inknbeans Press... and my adventure began. I submitted an English, much altered version of "Cats: Instructions for Use, or How to Survive being Owned by a Cat", and it was accepted! It was the dream come true!
This new version of my book was totally different. The practical suggestions were still there, but "seasoned" and "flavored" with a lot of anecdotes - often quite funny - with which I explained the often hard way I had learned the things I was now trying to teach to new, inexperienced cat owners.
Getting a cat - or a dog - seems such an easy thing on the surface, but the truth is we are dealing with a living creature, with its own personality and its own needs. Moreover, there are differences if the pet in question is a stray, if it comes from a shelter or from a cattery, or if it was born in a home. Different situations require different approaches, and in my 22 years of life with cats I have acquired experience that ranges through all those possibilities. I'll post some of my stories in the page I created for my cats. Here I'lljust add this is a book that may come handy if you are planning to adopt a cat, but that will also make a funny and entertaining reading even if you are not, thank to all the anecdotes you will find in it.
A friend of mine, the translator and composer Giampiero Roversi, created a very nice trailer for the book, with its own original music inspired to one of the pieces in "The Aristocats" soundtrack.
Getting a cat - or a dog - seems such an easy thing on the surface, but the truth is we are dealing with a living creature, with its own personality and its own needs. Moreover, there are differences if the pet in question is a stray, if it comes from a shelter or from a cattery, or if it was born in a home. Different situations require different approaches, and in my 22 years of life with cats I have acquired experience that ranges through all those possibilities. I'll post some of my stories in the page I created for my cats. Here I'lljust add this is a book that may come handy if you are planning to adopt a cat, but that will also make a funny and entertaining reading even if you are not, thank to all the anecdotes you will find in it.
A friend of mine, the translator and composer Giampiero Roversi, created a very nice trailer for the book, with its own original music inspired to one of the pieces in "The Aristocats" soundtrack.
Of course, you can find "Cats: Instructions for Use, Or How to Survive Being Owned by a Cat" both on Amazon US and UK. Here are the links to both:
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006EPG2IO
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006EPG2IO
More or less a year after Cats was published, while I was working at a totally different project, life intervened again. My old, beloved Belgian Shepherd Shine crossed the Rainbow Bridge on Christmas Eve 2013, at 13 years of age. Even if I'm first and foremost a cat person, she left a big hole in my heart, so much so that I still cry for her and miss her after almost three years. Her death dealt me a terrible blow, and in the following months I found myself unable to go on with the project I was working at because I felt the urge to write Shine's story. Actually, it was a rather weird experience because in those moments when my guard was down... in bed at night, or while doing house chores... I could almost hear her telling me her story in her own words... and this is how "The Importance of Being Shine" was born.
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006EPG2IO
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006EPG2IO
More or less a year after Cats was published, while I was working at a totally different project, life intervened again. My old, beloved Belgian Shepherd Shine crossed the Rainbow Bridge on Christmas Eve 2013, at 13 years of age. Even if I'm first and foremost a cat person, she left a big hole in my heart, so much so that I still cry for her and miss her after almost three years. Her death dealt me a terrible blow, and in the following months I found myself unable to go on with the project I was working at because I felt the urge to write Shine's story. Actually, it was a rather weird experience because in those moments when my guard was down... in bed at night, or while doing house chores... I could almost hear her telling me her story in her own words... and this is how "The Importance of Being Shine" was born.
This book is Shine's life story as she literally told it to me, starting from when she was abandoned as a puppy in a ditch in January 1999, and through the 13 years of life together we had. Here Shine tells of how she lived those years and the experiences she lived through, such as having to deal with up to 59 cats, another dog and the rabbit, the terrible, notorious Infamous Rodent! All of it is shown as she must have seen and felt it, both the fun and the tragedy we lived through together.
I really felt compelled to write this book... I could tell Shine wanted me to write it... to keep her memory alive and to let other people know what a clever and sweet - even if at times difficult and nervous - dog she was.
Under some respect, it is also the story of part of my life, difficult years that would have been much more difficult to live through without the love Shine, Luna (my other dog) and my cats gave me. My daughters were already grown up and independent, they did not really need me anymore, and in very dark moments my furry, four-legged friends gave me the strength and the will to go on.
Of course, my friend Giampiero Roversi made another wonderful trailer for me, this time with an original music based on a song of the '70s I loved very much, "Doggy, doggy". In this case, the barking in the background is Shine's real voice, taken from a video of her I had. And do you now something really incredible? Even after three years, when I play that video and they hear her bark, my cats still look for her around the house, in the places where she loved to stay. It makes me cry every time!
I really felt compelled to write this book... I could tell Shine wanted me to write it... to keep her memory alive and to let other people know what a clever and sweet - even if at times difficult and nervous - dog she was.
Under some respect, it is also the story of part of my life, difficult years that would have been much more difficult to live through without the love Shine, Luna (my other dog) and my cats gave me. My daughters were already grown up and independent, they did not really need me anymore, and in very dark moments my furry, four-legged friends gave me the strength and the will to go on.
Of course, my friend Giampiero Roversi made another wonderful trailer for me, this time with an original music based on a song of the '70s I loved very much, "Doggy, doggy". In this case, the barking in the background is Shine's real voice, taken from a video of her I had. And do you now something really incredible? Even after three years, when I play that video and they hear her bark, my cats still look for her around the house, in the places where she loved to stay. It makes me cry every time!
Again, you can find "The Importance of Being Shine" on Amazon. Here are the links:
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B7C9KII
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00B7C9KII
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B7C9KII
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00B7C9KII
