Writing a novel

At the beginning, it is only a glimmer.

A voice whispering, an image trembling beneath the skin. You don’t yet know who will speak, nor where that road will lead you. But you feel it is there. And that alone is enough to begin.

Then the characters arrive.

Timid at first, blurred. But they look at you. They knock. They demand space, ask for words, claim life. And that is when you surrender: you stop inventing, and begin to listen.

The plot becomes a river.

It overwhelms you. It changes course a thousand times. It makes you believe you control it, but it is the one in command.

You chase it, rewrite, cut, curse, and start again.

And in the meantime, you live in two worlds: the real one, and the one you are creating — which becomes more real than anything else.

But you are not alone.

There is her.

She who reads every page with attentive eyes and an open heart.She who senses where you are going, even when you yourself do not know.She who suggests, corrects, stops you.Who rejoices when a sentence strikes,who falls silent when something does not work.Who walks beside you, even when the path is full of doubts and silences.

There is a phase in which you hate your novel.

It feels empty, useless, wrong. But you stay.As one stays beside the person they love, even when they no longer recognise them.

And right then something changes:a sentence, a scene, a passage that vibrates and reminds you why you began.

Then, one day, you write the final word.

You read it again, and it is not perfect. But it is true.

You stop. Your fingers tremble.

You are done.

And you have become someone who did not exist before.

Together with her, who was there all along.

And who, in the end, has written with you every invisible line of this story.

Roberto Salvo