Sorry to bother but this will be another self-indulgent post. I’m afraid that the number of posts tagged under “Me, myself & I”, grow and grow. But, do not panic, I have not written yet any post about BBC’s War & Peace (you maybe have wondered why, given the previous one on the matter) and I will do it sometime. And this is something to be taken more seriously than usual, as I’m no longer the procastinator general.
Facts, facts, let’s go back to the facts… Many times, as a reader, I have experienced that weird Stockhom’s syndrome of feeling “weird” after finishing a book, missing the characters, the story, that “and now what” kind of feeling. I’m experiencing it again, but from the other side, that of the writer. The characters do not speak (sometimes scream) anymore in my head, they’ve hushed, but I miss them. Terribly. I don’t know what to do with my now apparently endless leisure hours (funny that when I was writing they seem minutes, rather than hours), I’m nervous, absent-minded.
This has been the project I’ve invested more energy in writing, as it has been by far the longest: I’ve been honest, and I’ve not cheated. Because I did in this one: the moment I “got tired” I killed the protagonist, and his widow finished the story.
Therefore I’ve told all that I had to about these characters, what they did, how they felt, and so on. Most of the characters I’ve written about have already a face, actors/actresses or maybe someone I’ve met. From that moment on, for instance Alessio Boni is no longer him, but my Tiziano della Rovere, or Dominic West will always be my Quintus Terentius. Maybe that’s the reason why is difficult for me to depart from them.
The amazing Marina Berti is my Livia Messia; a woman as strong, intelligent and brave as beautiful. No wonder that my Quintus tells her gods, you’re so beautiful that it hurts to look at you.
Nevertheless, I still have good excuses not to let them go for a while: I’m re-reading the text to find incoherences (when it takes more than three years to write something it may happen that a certain horse that is black at the beginning of the novel ends being white), my patient beta-readers and editors have to make more corrections and suggestions, and then I will have it printed.
Unfortunately, the object of our admiRAtion arrived a little bit late to the cast, but he had an important part in it. He was the baddie, sorry. If I will ever have the courage to start writing the history of the Unknown captain of Pala Pesaro he won’t be.
Wormwood Scrubs 