Have you ever written a book? You want to do it? Or are you in the phase of: I don’t know if I can…

One of the comments I usually get when I first meet someone is: I’d like to write something, but I’m incapable. You know what? I was incapable too.

I’ve always been a compulsive reader. I learned to read when I was three years old (thanks to my mother) and I haven’t stopped reading since. From the age of eight, my parents banned me from books on weekdays because I was always distracted, and I wasn’t able to do anything else. Then I would take advantage of the light from my CASSIUS-calculator wristwatch to read under the sheets when the light went out. And he wouldn’t stop until he finished the book on duty.

I developed quick reading by force. When I got bad grades in class, starting in my teens and because of hormones (obviously), my father forbade me to read books on the weekend too to force me to try harder.

Given my reading history, at the age of fourteen I decided I wanted to become a writer. Very proud, I imagined myself dedicating my life to writing and sharing my works with the rest of humanity that, although not deserved, they were going to enjoy the incomparable fruitfulness of the Cervantes of the twentieth century. Then I wrote my first pages. What was my disappointment, when I discovered that I was not only a mediocre writer, but those letters united with great effort and mental sweat were a dreadful mess that I could not read without blushing. Understand me, it’s not like I suffer from a lack of self-esteem, even in adolescence. It’s just that I read a lot and I already knew how to recognize when something was worth it or there was nowhere to take it. Unfortunately, my writing fell into this second case.

That disappointed me quite a bit and I didn’t try to write again until I was around twenty years old. Another insufferable pamphlet and another disappointment. Then I decided it wasn’t worth writing. I knew what a book had to be like for it to be good, I’d seen it millions of times. But I was simply unable to reproduce it.

That was really my problem. I was trying to make a good book, but even with a good idea, I was unable to capture it because I was trying to build a book instead of telling a story. Many more years later (no, I won’t say how many), having children already in the night story phase, I dedicated myself like any caring father to tell them stories at night. With a peculiarity: I didn’t want to reveal them, so I started telling them the stories with the light off and, despite my experience with the Cassius, my view was not good enough to read the stories in a light as dim as the one that filtered from the hallway. So, I decided to make up the stories on the fly. There’s nothing more inspiring than a child’s craving for a new tale, so I had to squeeze my brain every night to have witches, giants and heroines appear in increasingly convoluted situations that ended up delighting the little ones. That’s when I found out I couldn’t build a book based on its structure, not even its plot or a new idea, but had to tell someone a story. Whether it was someone else or me.

Try it, you’ll see how it works. It’s like when you tell an anecdote at a family or friends meeting. You can add as much data from your imagination as you want. If you tell it sincerely and passionately people will love it.