Since my childhood I had someone who constantly whispering in my ear, saying that what I was doing was not worth a bit. Everyone hears a similar voice in their worst moments, but in my case the voice was perennial. In my golden years, that voice made me jump like a ball from one city to another, from one job to another, looking for something good enough to settle the voice and myself down, possibly in different places. Nothing worked, and when I started to live off my writing, I had to invent strategies to silence it.
For example, I discovered that to keep a radio on in the background was a good help. You have to focus on what you are writing to exclude the chatter of the news, and this also attenuates every intrusive thought.
Another strategy was to rewrite. The first draft of anything is crap, and anyone who writes professionally knows that. You have to go all the way to the end, before starting to change dialogues and adjectives. I knew it and taught it to others.
I used to rewrite each chapter dozens of times. I reread every draft from the beginning before writing the next chapter. I fed my obsessive part until it was so saturated that it fell asleep and I felt myself free to go with the writing.
Twenty years and almost as many therapists have passed since then, and let’s say that I took off some guilt, took in some pills, and today I enjoy myself better. Last year I was diagnosed with obsessive neurosis, and it is probably true. I am not going to patronize others about what obsessive neurosis is: I believe that everyone experiences it in their own way: now you know mine.
Today, I am aware of what I am and what to do with myself. If I have to waste hours writing a damn line, I use that time also to research. I search for hours, sometimes for days. I need the speed of a bullet and the shape of a blood spatter before writing “bang”. I look for the brands of military devices, the shape of their consoles. I watch videos of autopsies and massacres photos, I learn the chemical components of the explosives, the weight of a train. And (obsession is obsession) only from original sources. I also buy a lot of things to see how they work: toy guns, walkie talkies, drones, technology (ok, I like strange stuff). And books, so many books…
I paid the toll for my neurosis, but I believe them makes me a better writer. Please, don’t misunderstand me, a better writer than I could have been. There are colleagues who write at once with a quality that I will never have, even if I rewrite a million times. I simply pointed my obsession in a direction, and took the good from it. In a hyperconnected and messed up world like this one, where crime and evil have no boundaries and travel at the speed of light, probably I’m tuned with it.
SANDRONE DAZIERI is the bestselling author of numerous novels and screenplays. Kill the Father, the first novel in his series featuring Colomba Caselli and Dante Torre, was an international bestseller and received spectacular praise for its highly unconventional detective duo. Its follow-up, Kill the Angel, was also an international bestseller, and Kill the King is the third and final novel in the series. Follow Sandrone on Twitter @SandroneDazieri.
