To write or not to write-part two

After months of bad health and annoying catastrophes, I’m back. I re-read my blogs and decided to let them be for now. Someone suggested that I shorten them. They may be right. Blogs, I’m told, are supposed to be short. However, editing would take time and right now I have other priorities.

I need to get back to this blog and continue the discussion about writing. In a sense writing or not writing Is not a question. Writing, if you are a writer, is a necessity. Writing keeps writers emotionally alive and mentally sane. That is my answer for now.

To Write or not to Write? That is the Question

As the Bard so excellently put it, That is the Question. Of course his question was a bit different, but you got the drift. Sometimes, I spend weeks and months without writing. Ideas swirl through my mind, characters talk to me, memories emerge, and yet I don’t make the time to sit down and write. Why is that? One reason ( and not the only one) is that life calls and its voice is loud and demanding. I cannot ignore it. Sometimes, my beloved dog, my border collie, Bianca, who sits at my feet and waits for hours until we decide to go out for our wonderful walks. Sometimes, my partner’s health makes its voice heard with doctors’ appointments and urgent tests. He needs support with his chronic disease. I’m there to give it to him. And then, there are my clients. I’m a hypnotherapist. My clients call me to schedule appointments. They need to stop smoking or to loose weight, or to manage anxiety and grief. I am also a Reiki healer. A different category of clients seek my help. I hear their voices, their pain and solitude. There you have it. Life never stops screaming at me. Not enough time to write? No, that’s not it. Despite all I said, time is not the real issue. Obviously, if I owned Downton Abbey and had a score of servants, my free time would be unlimited, but would I write in my free time, my unlimited free time? I doubt it. Writing feeds on life. Hearing life’s demanding voice enriches my consciousness. It does not deplete it. What is it then? Why am I such a discontinuous writer? The answer in the next installment.

To be continued.

Why I Write Murder Mystery -- 2

As most writers, I have my favorite authors. I can't say that I imitate them, but there is no doubt in my mind that they have influenced me. Among the many murder mystery writers I have followed over the years, two stand out: Italian author Andrea Camilleri and the British writer, Ruth Rendell. Two very different writers. Camilleri is Italian or more specifically, Sicilian. His first novels were written in a mixture of Italian and Sicilian. My late husband and I became so intrigued in his fictional world that we learnt some Sicilian to be able to better understand his language. By the way, I was born and raised in Rome, Italy and went to college in Venice, where I studied foreign languages and literatures. My husband was American. He was a mathematician with a knack for languages. Going back to Camilleri, what we liked, besides the ability to create intriguing murder stories, was his depth in describing Sicilian society and evoking a picturesque landscape. And that’s where Rendell comes in. The British writer, just like the Sicilian, is entrenched in the society she describes. Her murder mysteries are not only intriguing, but they are also the expression of her views of British society—the class divisions, the prejudice and the inequalities. Her descriptions of people and landscapes reflect her love for her country. For both writers the genre they use allows them to talk about social issues without being preachy, and yet being so deep and precise. That’s their lessons to me.

The day tables and trumpets levitated

One of my passions is Spiritualism. To call it an interest is not enough In both subtle and overt ways I'm connected with Spirits--the dead who choose to communicate with us-- and with Spirit--the Divine Essence, the Source of everything. That's why I joined the Spiritualist church and I attend its services every Sunday. That's why I took a week long workshop in Upstate NY. It was the annual meeting of the International Spiritualist Federation. Spiritualists from all over the world flocked in a very pastoral location--green, lush, and filled with deer.

It was an uplifting, touching and enlightening experience. I felt elated singing "I Have a Dream" with a bunch of fellow spiritualists. I felt inspired by medium readings (my parents contacted me expressing encouragement) and by an amazing lecture on precipitated art (paintings produced without a  brush). However, the reason I enrolled in the workshop is that I wanted to study with the president of the Federation, Robin Hodson. I'd met him a few months ago during his visit to the Spiritualist church in Santa Barbara (my church) and I'd attended a beautiful seminar on trance mediumship. I was thirsty for more. At the convention, he was scheduled to teach a workshop on trance and physical phenomena. HIs co-teacher was a brilliant, energetic and compassionate medium from NY, Richard Scholler.

At registration, my determination to get into the class kicked in and I ended up imploring both Robin and Richard to let me in even though the class was closed. I made it.

The first day we learnt about trance, then we started to experiment with trance. The third day in a dark room, without anyone touching the tables, the first physical phenomenon occurred. The tables turned and apports (small crystal materialized from Spirits) rained on us. Finally, the last day of classes, in a dark and totally sealed room, Robin entered a cabin. Richard zipped him up. Robin went into a deep trance and started to talk with voices of his different trance personas. Outside the cabin, we sang with loud and enthusiastic voices. Suddenly,  the tables turned and levitated, crystals sitting on top of the tables levitated and trumpets, also initially placed on the table, levitated, too, and flew around. At this point we all screamed with joy.

They say that the essence of Spiritualism is to prove the continuity of life beyond death. They also say that spirits want to communicate with us. They will use any means available, even flying tables and trumpets.

Why Do I Write Canine Humor?

First of all, I like dogs and I live with dogs. Actually, I only live with one dog at a time. In my own intuitive way, I "hear" their voices and I observe their behaviors. Even though they don't speak the same language we humans use, they still communicate with us.

One day the thought crossed my mind: "What if my dog spoke my language and told us his story, from his point of view?" That's what prompted the writing of Memoirs of a Scoundrel Dog. Kieko, my rascal dog, was communicating with me. I wrote his autobiography. Later I wonder: Was it really his autobiography or was it, at least partly, my autobiography? Kieko's story certainly included my story and the story of my marriage.

A year and a half after my husband passed away, I was told by a trance medium that my dog, Kieko, who had passed almost 3 years before, was blocking the artists whom I had hired to illustrate Memoirs of a Scoundrel Dog. His reason for doing that was that he wanted me to do the illustrations. The request seemed preposterous. But what would you expect from a scoundrel dog? I went home that evening and, just for the heck of it, I sat in front of a piece of paper and started drawing. That was the beginning of an almost miraculous project. Within a month the illustrations were completed--26 drawings.

Does that explain why I write canine autobiographical humor? Maybe not. It only explains that my pets communicate with me even after they pass. I can't ignore their messages. Their view point reveals aspects of both their lives and mine. 

Why do I write murder mystery?

My first published novel was A Question of Class and it came out 11 years ago in 2007. It is a detective novel. Even though it is narrated from the point of view of several characters, the predominant perspective is the detective's. Fusco, the detective, has to understand a whole world, the academic environment, in order to find the culprit and unriddle the mystery.

What prompted me to write about academia? Why did I choose the detective's point of view over any other? I was an academic for more than two decades in several academic institutions, in Europe and in California. As it's often the case, I had my complaints and I took an early retirement I retrained and became an alternative health practitioner. Writing remained my passion. Except that now I preferred fiction over non-fiction. I felt the urge to discuss some aspects of academia, what one would call its politics, in an indirect and yet deeper way. I wanted to show the human side of the problem. The detective was not part of the university system. He was an outsider, and a somewhat innocent one. His view point was unbiased. That made his perspective more compelling.

A Question of Class will soon be republished by CreateSpace. The sequel, The Etruscan Princess, is almost ready for publication. And I have started to write a third, novel in the series. Still without a definite title. Its temporary title is, Justice not Served.