The project

My goal: to publish a book before I turn eighteen. Not to write a novel, not to write a book of short stories, not to write a book at all. To publish a book. Before eighteen. Maybe I could be eighteen by the time the book is published, but no more.

When I talk about this there are people who seem to understand and there are people who don’t. I prefer the ones who don’t. To you, I dedicate this book. Not because I love you and evidently not because you’ve made me who I am. I don’t believe in that shit, I’ve always been who I am. I dedicate this to you because you are not completely lost.

Whenever someone gently nodded upon hearing my project I always knew they were utterly misguided about my intentions. They thought I wanted to be young and famous, like Mike Tyson or Rimbaud. Also, they thought I didn’t understand literature. “You’ll grow up” they thought with a hideous smirk. I too kept smiling with a pair of bright eyes looking towards the future. The other thing is they were happy about me trying to publish a book, even though they thought it was kind of stupid. Still, they didn’t mind at all, as if trying would make me a better person, or ultimately a real writer. None of the objections mattered. Bright eyes. Future.

When I still went to high school someone asked me about the deal with publishing if I didn’t want to be famous. “Aren’t writers supposed to, like to write for themselves? Aren’t they supposed to publish just for a living?” In my case, that wasn’t exactly food for thought. I have long seriously taken that issue into account whenever I think about writing (and I think about writing a lot). The thing is, I don’t have a reason to write. Words come out by themselves, nonstop. Always been like that.

My class notebooks were full of these things I wrote. I don’t know how to call them, because I’ve never personally understood the distinction between fiction and non-fiction. I mean, I’m not stupid. If you show me a book I would have no problem figuring out. Even a child could do that. Nevertheless, I still don’t fully get it. Ever felt like that?

What I’m trying to say is that writing or finding a reason to write has never been a problem to me. Not because it’s so easy that it’s not really a problem. It’s not even easy. In fact, I never thought about it until people started to notice. Then I had to explain them, and I learned a lot about myself. Things like that happen. An old man working at a rotisserie once told me: “I’m glad you asked me, I didn’t know.” I had posed him a question about the correct timing to rotate the chicken.

If you truly understand you know you can never write for yourself. Not because writing is supposed to be about communication. It’s because the words come out for some purpose we don’t understand. From the ultimate novel to the pitiful note on the fridge. I don’t mean, like a divine purpose or so. What I’m trying to say is that words have their own habits and behaviors, their own traditions. We too have our own habits. Sometimes our manner is the same of words, like in my case. Then you’re fucked. You’ll have to write until you die, unless you have a car crash car and you hit your front lobe and your mode switches. Or maybe you get depressed and you try to kill yourself, and you almost succeed. And then you don’t need to speak. At all. You talk to make people happy, but you don’t need to say anything anymore. Your notebooks will remain blank, the screen of your computer empty. But until that day, I’m pretty much fucked.

The genuine predicament has to do with some kind thoroughness I can’t entirely explain. Some books are just wrong. When I was in third grade I hated my math book, because it was wrong. I told my teacher and he said the exercises and the explanations were all right. But I wasn’t talking about the exercises or the explanations; I was talking about the book. I used to fail mathematics all the time because of it. In fourth grade we all got fine books and it was okay. I don’t miss taking math classes at all, but if I had to I wish I could use that book.

I want my book to be right. It has to be a story. Also, it has to be true. And it has to be published before I turn eighteen. If I could explain I wouldn’t have to write it. Don’t ask. It’s just time for this chicken to turn over.