Hello there,

This is the first post of this new adventure as a writer.

Manifesto

Sometimes stories come to me. It’s been happening since my earliest memories.

I was 7, maybe 8, the first time I tried to put a story down on paper. I had barely learned how to write and read, and I was already devouring classics: Verne, Salgari, Dickens, Peter Pan, Moby Dick, you name it. The natural next step was to learn how to - clumsily - typewrite and start working on my first novel.

I left it untitled. It took place in modern-day France, and it was a treasure-hunting mystery starring six little boys and girls with perfectly reasonable French names like “Francoise”, “Luc”, “Jean”, etc.

I managed to write the first chapter, but then I abandoned it (I can’t remember why).

Over the years I kept writing, and I soon started writing poetry and composing songs. I even published a collection of poems with a legit editor and stuff. I wrote two short stories, self-published.

All of this was in Italian, my native language. Then life happened and for the most part of the last twenty-plus years, I needed to focus elsewhere.

Only in the last few years have I started shedding the carapax I don’t need anymore and I have been slowly conquering back the parts of me that I had neglected during the war.

One of these parts is writing. I want to write because sometimes stories come to me.

And I want to write in English because my Italian peaked twenty years ago and it’s now time to approach a different pinnacle.

What am I writing, then?

That is a very good question! Currently, I'm working on my first novel: The Boy Who Didn't, Book 1 of the Consequo Trilogy.

In a world gently ruled by the omnipotent AI, 18yo B.’s life takes a turn for the worse when he refuses to do The Thing to become an adult.

While on the run, the boy will learn some truths about his world and about himself, until he will finally have to face his fate.

• What exactly is The Thing?
• What are the Ferals?
• Why does AI keep 12 Elite families in the City, and why do they talk differently than both the harvested and the adults?

Beta readers have already asked me these and several more questions, but they'll need to wait because even though I swear I know all the answers, I haven't written them down in a chapter, yet!

What's to come

I'm going to share every chapter of The Boy Who Didn't as I write them. They will be rough first drafts, and I will edit them, but it's unlikely that I'll ever change the core ideas.

There are 3 of them, so far, and the fourth is almost done.

Together with each chapter, I'm going to also share a link from where you'll be able to keep up with it as I edit or change things around.

I'll start sharing the chapters soon. The rest we are going to figure out together.

For now, I'll finish this book and the next ones because B. deserves it.

See you next time!