Not The Jersey Shore

I strongly believe in the saying "Write what you know."  And that is just what I did in writing my novel. I grew up in New Jersey in an Italian-American family and so the family of my novel is Italian-American and the setting is New Jersey.  And although the characters are Italian-American and from New Jersey, they are much different than the cast of Jersey Shore or The Sopranos.  Like many other Italian-Americans that come from the great state of New Jersey, I am tired of the negative stereotypical conceptions of us, as gangsters and morons, that have been created and nurtured by the media.

The Greco family are all highly educated for one thing.  There is no mob affiliations here!  In fact, Vince, the youngest child, is so politically correct that he won't set foot in the WalMart because he does not agree with their politics.  The patriarch of the family, Frank, works as a courtroom judge.  The matriarch is a college professor.  The oldest son, Cosmo, studied astronomy at an Ivy League school. And the main character, Silvia, studied painting in art school which she attended on a full scholarship.

All in all, they are a lovable, quirky bunch of characters, all very unique and distinct from each other and all very different from how we are used to seeing Italian-Americans depicted.

Making People Out Of Words

Although I knew the general plot through my outline, around midway through the writing of my book, my characters started doing things that I had not planned for them. They surprised me by certain decisions and or actions.  This was when I knew that I had created demensional characters that came off the page, that came to life.

For example, I did not know that Cosmo would do a magic trick for Isabella in the final chapter or that Silvia would decide to become an art school teacher, or that Donna would change her mind about the party.  I did not know that Frank would be the first to show up at the party and did not know that Donna would decide, definitely, to leave Frank. When I was ten years old, I wrote a story entitled The Magic Pen.  In the story, the main character had a pen, that when used, would create stories as if by magic.

I actually found myself hanging out with my characters in a way.  I would be walking down the street and imagine that I was in a dialogue with them.  Or I would talk about them to myself like they were real people.  A lot of my thoughts went into working out how they would act or what they would say.  And eventually they became so real and so dimensional that they started doing things on their own!  Kind of creepy, but super cool.

See great article on creating characters in the Guardian article below.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/16/how-to-write-fiction-andrew-miller

Welcome!

When I was ten years old, I wrote my first story.  It was called The Gates of Utica and I was inspired to write it during a trip to upstate New York with my mom.  I knew then that I wanted to be a writer; that I wanted to tell stories and make people laugh and cry and think; that I wanted to use words to paint pictures and make music.

I just completed my first novel which is entitled Olive Branches Don't Grow On Trees.  It is the story of a twenty-three year old girl named Silvia Greco who decides to make peace in her constantly feuding family.  It takes place in New Jersey and is set in the present against the back drop of the current wars. Throughout the course of the story, Silvia learns that peace is not something that is freely existing, but that rather, it is something that needs to be created, cultivated and nurtured.  This book is filled with lovable characters, humor and insight. You can buy it as a Kindle e-book on Amazon for $1.99 (cheap) and $8.95 in paperback (still pretty darn cheap). It will also be available in print format on Amazon shortly.  You can also check out the first chapter on my website: http://olivebranchesdontgrowontrees.com/

This is the first of many posts in which I will be sharing the various insights about the writing process that I have gained from completing this book.  I also want to share recipes for many of the delectable dishes that are mentioned in my novel.  Because the book is about an Italian-American family, food is a central part of it, and so there are several references to yummy Italian dishes. I am delighted to say that the recipes for these dishes will be shared in this blog.

Hope that you enjoy reading and will return often!