MY DREAM

My dream was always to be a writer. In my school I used to fantasize with the idea. The dream was a fuzzy thrilled mess I’d created out of books. Thanks to a Spanish author called Josep Pla, I became interested in writing. Back then, writing was no more real than any idea, an abstract place in a glowing future where I’d have adventures, relationships and passion, lots of it.

In fact the idea was to put my thoughts into the paper, the different views expressed on the controversy of my life. I was a poor writer then, but even though I won my first award as a poet. It was so embarrassing to read that pathetic little piece of my poem in front of my classmates that I was determined not to write anything else in one hundred years. But look now, I got published 2 books and I still feel that fire inside of my soul every single time I sit in front of that white page. I am not pretty sure whether to regard the glass as half empty or half full. Anyway, I made it. It’s not a dream anymore but reality.

The secret of all good writing is sound judgement. A process to get the facts in clear perspective and the words will follow naturally. One of my Italian friends told me once that ogni storia racconta una storia giá raccontata. In another words; the secret of good writing is to say and old thing in a new way because everything has been told already. Who knows? The only thing I can add to the subject is simple; I always write the things I would to read as a reader. Perhaps one day I can write good stuff in an old way and be successful.

It took me a while to find my own way and, of course, my way is to write for myself. Maybe someone in a very remote corner of the world find my stories amusing. Anyway, it’s something I can’t control. I wander around the city, looking out at the big boats crossing Malaga bay. The big castle in an attempt to find characters, stories but to tell you the truth, everything is on my heart. If the great secret of writing well is to know thoroughly what one writes about, and not be affected, then I am not a good writer because I am always affected from it.

Those nights sitting by the fire; I was reading, dreaming, writing while the wind was blowing outside in the garden. I did not think then to strip sentence to its cleanest components. I just wanted to experience things in order to put it into words. My imagination flew to unknown places; I have always been a dreamer and in dreams the details are weak like a memory from a long hell time ago.

I walk through the streets; everything is obscured by a heavy mist. I look at all the people and there is no one I know. It’s late and it’s dark. Let’s hope that my dream can’t become a nightmare. To be a completely unknown is not that bad after all.

Sergio Calle Llorens