The tower on the hill

I love to wake up early in the morning. Today i woke up before 6. The sun falls laterally at this hour and the hills around the house throw long shadows. You can see their relief much better than during midday. They turn into something magical, calling you to visit them, to discover every pleat and they reveil secrets, which are hidden during bright daylight. 
On one of the hills, there is a surveillance tower from a military installation on the other side of the hill. I know it is made to survey the military ground so no one can approach from the back. But I like to think at it as if it would be watching over my small valley. I live in a neat residential area, most of the buildings here are two to three stories, with tiny front-gardens which have only a decorative purpose for the one or two families living inside each house. The people here are the growing middle class of Lima. They send their children to universities they just start being able to afford since one or two generation. They have relatively good cars and are able to support the growing consumption habits of the mega-city: cinemas, shopping malls, restaurants, bars, theatres, concerts and other spectacles. 
This citizen, they suffered the hardship from the years of high inflation and terrorism, but who knows if they actively remember it. Everything seems so calm here. We have parks with trees which are barely visited. People don't go out to the parks here, don't sit by the trees and enjoy the sun. ... The people in my area, they are mostly homey people, polite, cultivated and reserved. But the parks are necessary. Lima is a desert, it’s brown and grey. If you go out of Lima, you will see that the whole coast is like that. It has its own beauty, especially during morning and evening hours. When I visited Huarmey, the landscape was impressive. It made me remember these American movies where you make a road trip over the desert. The dunes are not yellow like the ones you imagine from the Sahara. They are grey, brown, even a bit white. Sometimes they shine and the air plays freely around them, painting beautiful formations on the hills backs. ...But in Lima, you don't have this openness from the desert. It's full of houses, and streets and pavement. The limeños used to paint their houses green, and red, and blue and yellow. When I arrived here 15 years ago, the city looked like a chaos to me. All colourful, nothing had an order. Today, my eye is not that of a European used to proper order anymore. I got warm with the chaos, I learned to love it. But today the Limeños are getting tired of it. The colours of the houses around my area are more decent nowadays. Light yellows, light greens, light greys. Everything starts looking more harmonic now; the parks are the only things bringing colour into the scenery. It's like the citizens are starting to get used to moderate, civilized conditions. No bombs anymore, the current war they are fighting is mostly against corruption, and they have many battles won. Not everything is yet clear in the state of Peru, not at all, but the process is started, and people forget, people seem to forget quiet quickly. 
When i was living here 15 years ago, you bearly couldn't carry a handbag with you. You usually closed it up in the trunk of your car or put it under your seat, and made sure to close the doors and no matter how warm it was, the windows stayed closed too, …at least, in most of the city areas. Last saturday, I was on a local transport driving through Surquillo, when I saw something, which reminded me, how much the city has changed and how little the citizens notice it. I was sitting in the transport when we stopped at a red light. And there I saw it: A car next to me, with a couple around their sixties. They were driving an old car, a model which might be 15 to 20 years old or so, one which has the door security locks on top, not the ones which are placed in the middle of the door and you can't see them from outside. The door locks, ... they were open! Inside me, all the security bells rang. We were driving through Surquillo. One of the former dark parts of Lima. There have always been worse parts in the city, parts you can't even access, if you don't live there, but you could say, it has always been the bad part of the town which is surrounded by most of the residential areas like Surco, Miraflores, San Isidro. That means, in former days, if you wanted to visit someone living in one of the other residential areas, and you had to cross Surquillo, you used to check again on all the doors, all the windows and nearly hold your breath if it started being late. When a car or a bag got stolen in the residential areas, if you were quick, you could have probably found it back in one of the ambulant markets or garages of Surquillo a few minutes later... 
But now, ... things have changed, or people seem to have forgotten. They seem to be relaxed. I wonder how that can be? 
The area looks truly different. Big, global supermarket-chains and handcraft-markets have opened modern shops here, with automatic doors and attending personal in uniform, with price catalogues, and shopping trolleys. You have a very famous clinic which treats for low budget, but nevertheless has a good reputation, from Surquillo I always take one of the very modern trans-city busses, el metropolitano, who has a special trace and therefore practically flies you through the immense city... and all over Surquillo there are placards announcing "Surquillo está cambiando" (Surquillo is changing), repeating it again and again, like when you speak out a wish in a fairy tale. And every three times you say it or read it or think it.... something actually changes in Surquillo... 
But the people, when they speak, they say that Lima is getting more and more dangerous, that the organized crime is taking over the city, that the government is making a dissatisfying job ensuring the area.  People seem to have forgotten what it was, truly living in fear. People in the civilisation often ignore the drums of the wild, the coldness of the winds in the desert, the desperation of the darkness during the nights. Here, in the city who never sleeps, full of lights and of progress, of green calm parks and light painted two story houses… Here, a watchtower on a hill of a residential area -seems to me- is of high necessity. And be it only to remind you that there was a time, where such a watch tower was needed in the middle of the city, in the middle of residential areas.

Startled

Hi there, 

One week is past since the experiment started and I am startled and overwhelmed. I started taking part of the three day lasting IndieReCon on Tuesday, a conference set up by and for independent publishers; that means mostly writers who decided not to (or sometimes couldn’t) join the mainstream publisher and sell their books online or by investing their own capital in prints.

I have to admit that I was impressed by the high amount of information. Each hour a new post was charged on the webpage and discussions started nearly 7 minutes afterwards, when the first participants finished reading it. Besides the posts and the discussion boards there were life-chats and video interviews. The days started at 8am and finnished long after 9pm. In only three days I have soaked up so many different aspects of this career, I can barely sum it up and I certainly wasn’t able to digest all of it at a time.

And I think that is actually my major problem right now. Having a wide overview about what is in front of me is certainly positive for a pragmatic and strategic approach, but it did steal the breath out of me: There is so much to learn!

When I read the profiles of the people organizing the conference I feel stuck. How are they able to write and publishing one or two books each year on their own, while still having a regular job and also being a mom/dad? …I wonder if something goes wrong with my interior time perception or my vital energy. How do they do it? Are they exchanging their Duracell’s every 48 hours to continue non-stop? What about the rest of their lives? Don’t they have friends to meet, places they want to visit, other hobbies to experiment? Don’t they ever have a bad day or get sick?

I would be envious, if it wouldn’t appear so surreal to me. I know time is a relative thing, and the more skilled and experienced you get in something, the quicker you are. But even if they are having a high degree of expertise, in order to be able to manage several pages a day, after coming home from work, after having family dinner and after putting their children’s to sleep, it still means a lot, a lot, a huge amount of sacrifice! So yes, what else can I say but merely “respect, ladies and gentlemen!”

But now, in order to not let me down, and not give up after the first week, I need to put myself more concrete goals. I need to concentrate on writing first. How about a short story every week? Is this very daring?

I will try my best.

A new community

Hello there,

I often find it more difficult to explain myself to my life-long friends and my family than to complete strangers. How do I tell them that I am trying myself out on a new project, a project which might change my life or might end up in a big defeat, but -regardless of the outcome- a project which encompasses my whole compromise, takes the best hours of my day and unavoidably carries not only a change in itself already, but -most important- a big risk? This risk being understood as the decision to invest my time and energy in this endeavour, substracting this same amount of time and energy from any other more profitable and "realistic" project which could guarantee my economical survival. Though I am perfectly capable of sustaining myself at this moment and taking this risk calmly with a small cushion to fall on, I am nevertheless exposing myself to the judgement of people I care very much about and who I know, know and judge me quiet well. Without anything to hold against their pragmatic and preoccupied arguments but a mere illusion, I prefer to postpone an extravagant out coming till I am able to fetch a few first results on which to base any further judgements.

The result out of this situation is in some way isolation. Even the few people who know about this experiment can accompany me only halfway. This is a new experience. It is difficult to explain to others what I am learning or experiencing each day, when I myself am not able to grasp every new entry precisely.

But luckily, entering a new lifestyle comes mostly in hand with entering a new community. This enhances many positive things: First, I can engage into conversations without anyone interpreting what I am saying, but just reacting to what I am actually saying. Maybe these people don't get to know me as a historical person, ignoring which experiences make me actually say what I say or think what I think... But they help me to get a new perspective on myself by getting to know the current me, or at least the part of "me" which is right now under construction, opening a new terminal... The second most important thing this new community provides, is a big bunch of like-minded people, with whom you not only share the same interests and experiences, but who can also introduce you to this new world and confirm, that you are not completely out of your mind by trying this out, or at least, that it's a quiet common disease and there’s nothing to really worry about.

Where did I meet this huge community of equally sick persons? - In Google plus. Yes, sounds like advertising. I don't care. Different from face book, Google plus offers the possibility to interconnect with -currently- unknown people on quiet specific topics. In just one day of research I have gotten to know at least two groups I will now regularly start joining at their discussions and training sessions, I learned a lot of new tech tricks (follow link below) on how to use new media to boost my creativity and I inscribed myself to a writer's conference taking place in a few hours. This community provides me with knowledge, comradeship and guidance on my new path. Thank you Google-team for making this possible in such and efficient way. 

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More on Google plus:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/115270351257026959175/posts/CLqB7sW1Md4 

What do we have in this box?

Good morning Latin America and good day rest of the world,

Today, as every good start, I cleaned up my desktop, installed a Google calendar and condemned myself to a regular weekly task on Wednesday morning of catching up with the “minor to-do-list”, how I call it. In concrete words it means: clean up desk, desktop and do all the small activities I have been avoiding the other days… I will so hate this date!

But happily, happily: today is Saturday. So for the moment I am safe.

Next I am doing is starting with a list on all the things I want to write about. It turns out to be a quiet mixed box of non-related topics. Like in a fruit and vegetable salad – just about everything is thrown inside. Let’s see what at the end stays. But what I want to do for sure is document the processes on writing itself, like in a scientist’s diary. I will try to figure out a methodology on how to keep writing every day and start improving the quality and originality of the texts and thoughts. In fact, I am guided by my belief that most of the things in life can be related to jogging. When you never went for a run, or when you stopped with it for a long time, you feel insecure about even being able to stick to the purpose of running regularly. But everything is possible. I had a personal trainer once – not a paid one, but an expert on this field anyways – and he told me, the trick is starting very, very small. If you push yourself by trying to jump on bigger steps, then your brain registers stress and you might feel like a hero after the first session, but your body will remember and try to skip the next sessions whenever possible and sabotage you from inside.

I haven’t been writing regularly in years. So starting with a short idea every 1 to 3 days, even if it is just a thought of two lines, should be an acceptable small step goal.

And now, I stop theorizing about writing. Because as I learned from the Christmas hang out sessions for SME offered by Franck Scipion last December: “How can you theorise about something you have no clue of?”

Good day and high morals for your goals!

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Hangout-session for SME (in spanish): hangout: formación SME

Startingpoint, the rest is history

Startingpoint, finally.
Unaware that every big journey doesn't start with your feet crossing the threshold of your front door, but with an infinite number of mental, physical and logistical preparations, i have been looking forward to this day for at least a year and almost getting myself lost in the storm of arrangements and decisions before even having started.
But here I am now. With a (still) quiet-improvised mental backpack, a long to do list and no plan where or how to start, but just starting to figuratively put one foot in front of the other.

What is this about? - Writing. Pure, simple.
Why do I make such a fuss out of it? - Because this is a mental striptease.

So here I am. Undressed, on stage, under the spotlights.

                                                                                    Pic: courtesy of Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums

How do i feel? - Vertigo, a bit of excitement and infinitely happy to finally, finally be here.