Living in a warehouse was a great experience and from all the friends I made in Unit G, Abner had a Hugh impact in my personal growth. My American friend was extremely creative, intelligent, exaggerated and generous. He is one of those that can talk about any subject and it was with him that I shared my fears.
“Abner, sometimes I think I'm wasting my time. I work, I make money but I feel like an amoeba, you know, living day after another but I'm not proud of myself,” I said.
“What is your life project? What is your dream?” He asked me.
“I want to be a writer,” I said timidly.
“So be a writer. The thing is, you will have to study hard, read a lot and write a lot. To become a writer, you need to work twice as hard as in an office. Be an artist is much more difficult than being promoted in a company,” he said and gave me tips.
“Read books by English, American, Brazilian writers, from all nationalities. Learn the world language.”
I settled down on the sofa and he continued. “Write about what you believe, don’t copy styles, create your own,” he paused. “You have to be the best, but the best for yourself.”
“Do you think I have a chance?” I asked, doubting my talent.
“Everyone has but most of the people give up because the process is hard. Once you publish your first book you will learn the most important lesson, do you know why?”
“No…”
“You will realize that it is possible to make a dream come true. Publishing a book is not difficult at all but the question is: are you willing to sacrifice yourself? Stay at home writing while your friends are at the bar having fun?”
“Yeah ... seems difficult …,” I replied laughing, after all I loved a social events.
“The hardest task is to focus,” he stated and gave me another tip. “Start slowly and have daily goals. Write fifteen minutes a day but just stop when you meet your goal. The more you write, a page will be completed and eventually the last words you write will be: The End,” he said and told a bit about his own experience as a painter.
“I spend my time painting because I like it and I believe in myself. Every day I wake up, I have a cup of coffee, I go to my studio and I paint for 8, 9, 10 hours. I spend eight months painting the same painting. Some people see my painting finished and think that the process was easy. They think the painting is too expensive. If you don’t accept my price, you don’t deserve to have my painting hanging on your wall,” he said.
Talking with Abner was energizing and he encouraged me.
“Writing a book is a long process. If it takes ten years for you to publish a book, so it will take ten years…but publish it.”
“You’re right Abner but sometimes it feels that I'm so far from conquering something. I feel so amateur,” I despised myself.
“Marcelli, everyone is an amateur until the moment he decides to practice. If you asked Albert Einstein what was the best chocolate cake recipe, he probably wouldn’t know the answer because he had no experience with it. He was an amateur at baking cakes. On the other hand, your grandmother would spend hours explaining to you, because she spent her life baking cakes. She researched recipes, tested, got it wrong, tried again.”
I laughed at Abner's example but in didactic lines it made a lot of sense.
“You will become a specialist in what you enjoy doing if you practice, study, and learn from your mistakes,” the American said.
“You’re right Abner, I'm going to keep writing Unit G, even though some stories are boring,” I said.
“Write freely but edit wisely. If you, the author, think that a chapter boring, the reader will sleep in your book or will give up reading on the first few pages.”
“True… but don’t you think that even after editing there will be people who won’t like anything I write?” I asked.
“Marcelli, if writing makes you happy, that should be enough. Now, go to your studio and just come back here when you've finished a chapter,” he ordered and I went.
That day, Abner planted a creative seed in my heart and since then, I have never stopped.
*based on a true story