Illustration by the Author · © 2025, Andrea N. D’Angelo — All rights reserved

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15 December 2025

W

hat am I talking about? Well, this thing I’ve been circling for two days now. A problem of method, sure, but also of temperament. Like a dog pacing around a bone. Sniffing it, backing off, coming back… Unsure whether it’s food or a trap.

Yesterday it hit me that I’ve changed, as a writer. Not improved. Changed. I move slowly now, in the first draft. Painfully so. I write a scene, then stop. Think. I reread it once, twice, thrice… many times. I rework it. I poke at it, bruise it, rearrange it. Then I go walking in the woods, because that’s where I go when things don’t line up. I try to understand what’s wrong with that scene. And I do understand it, almost every time. Mercifully. The by-product of this obsessive grinding is that my first drafts come out stronger. Sharper. Less embarrassing.

Which sounds like a win.

And yet. Is it?

I’m not convinced it’s a bad thing. That’s a question for me, of course. Right? Well, this is how I wrote Imperfect Equilibrium — a strange novel, structurally dense, nothing like my fantasy work — and a good chunk of Sideralema, which I still consider one of my best books. That one is fantasy, no doubt about it. Resume: the last two novels. And even with Sideralema, the opening chapters were brutal. Slow. Heavy. The same kind of resistance I’m feeling now with The War of the Winds.

So no, I’m not panicking.

Still, I have a bad habit… a necessary one, for bad sometimes serves the scope. I feel the urge to interrogate my process while I’m inside it. Or after it. Even when I’m on its side, looking at it out of the vicious corner of my eye. And sometimes instead of it. Out of spite. I question how I live writing, not just how I do it. There’s a reason why my YouTube channel has that name, apart from presumption. I reflect. I brood. I prod myself with a pin. Look at it! I think. Look carefully, my dear friend… Improvement, for me, requires surveillance. Self-surveillance. Usually carried out in a forest, because walking clears my head in ways no desk ever has. Trees are very good listeners. They never interrupt. They don’t give advice, either. Ideal creatures.

So today a slow walk; low energy, already tired before starting. I told myself this isn’t working. Not now. Not for this part of The War of the Winds. Right now I should let the first draft run hotter. Faster. Sloppier. Fix it later, if later ever comes.

What I still don’t fully understand is why, when I was drafting Imperfect Equilibrium and Sideralema, I refused to leave behind anything that already felt wrong the moment it hit the page. The ugly bits. Those inflated. Or the ridiculous, redundant, questionable stuff. I stopped. I corrected. I thought again. I rewrote. I became convinced — and still am… such a delusional guy! — that a story grows better if I don’t let bad instincts accumulate. If I don’t drag along a tail of non-decisions born of inspiration that wanders off. Takes detours. Derails the draft while smiling innocently.

There’s a lot of truth in that. Too much, maybe.

So. Which approach is the right one?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that rigidity is poison in writing; experience drills this into you. It looks like discipline, but it behaves like cancer. It spreads. It hardens. Eventually the book collapses under its own rules.

Writing novels demands elasticity. Always. No exceptions.

I can’t say: From now on I do this. Or: From now on I do that. No matter if it’s this or that, it’s always too categorical. Turning methodical decisions into dogma would be fatal. Quietly lethal. Deadly as the bite of an Undead.

So what’s left. Both. Both approaches. Flawed and useful, the two of them. The only sane solution is to keep them alive at the same time and shift weight depending on where I am, sentence by sentence, while I work on The War of the Winds.

And right now, speed matters more than polish.

I’m going to write.

Illustration by Andrea D’Angelo – All Rights Reserved

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13 December 2025

I’ ve rekindled an old habit: regularly journaling about my writing journey. This practice serves as a form of reflection, compelling me to slow down, analyze, and organize my myriad thoughts.

I have a grand ambition: to translate my novels into English and explore the English-speaking markets.

As an adult, every dream carries a responsibility: pragmatism. For me, this involves establishing myself as a writer. I’ve been writing for thirty years, but only in Italian. To English readers, I’m virtually unknown.

With my first novel in translation and a new one in draft, I can’t think of a better way to introduce myself than through my novelist’s journal.

Let’s begin!

“It’s the first time in my life I can feel my direction,” told me my wife, some days ago. My first thought was that I’ve always known my direction, and that gave me the illusion that my dreams would come true easier.

Why, too bad. I’m still here trying.

Do you know your direction?

Many friends of mine struggled for years. «I don’t know what I’m good at!» They were mostly lost, but they all had a certainty: they didn’t want the direction they had alreadytaken, being that a hated job, a faculty which had lost its appeal, a dream appearing impossible to reach.

Everything that doesn’t match our inner self feels wrong. By performing incompatible activities continuously, we see ourselves as twisted by events, enslaved, our potential frustrated, our creativity vanishing, our time wasted.

No matter what, the best thing you can do if you feel lost is to use all your (free) time to discover your direction. Avoid to victimize yourself, as it’s the contrary of taking action. I’ve seen too many people complaining every day for years, then leaving the office and do nothing about those complaints.

Complaining doesn’t make you aware of your situation, it makes you useless and annoying, and its a big waste of energy.

I know it, because I did it many times.