LET’S START WITH CIVIL STATUS? WHO AM I ?
A man. 47 years old (damn, it changes all the time...)
Married, 2 children. (nothing new)
A little white hair… (a little more than last time)
Ok, don’t worry, I’m not going to give you the whole picture in rhyming verse! If ? Really, are you insisting because you love poetry? Well, me too and I'll talk about it later.
I live in a magnificent corner of our beautiful country: Franche-Comté with its soothing and inspiring landscapes.
My relationship to reading?
It’s stupid to say that but I’ve always loved reading (it’s like the Miss France ceremony “I love reading, Antarctic penguins and whipped cream on Tagada strawberries”). It seems that when I was little I always had a dictionary in my hands or a local newspaper. I also remember reading a lot of comics and that my aunt, a member of France Loisirs, gave me a volume of the nature encyclopedia every month. In short, well surrounded by the book object since I was very young, I have always had a book in my hands ever since. Some left such an impact on me that I have never forgotten them (The Black Child, by Camara Laye, middle school reading; La Mousson; Regain, by Jean Giono; Jessie, my first Stephen King at 13…)
Today I read everything to the point that it would be reductive to cite a particular genre or authors... However, I venture to mention Stephen King, Amélie Nothomb, Jean Teulé, Jules Verne, Victor Hugo, Frédéric Dard, Alexandre Dumas , Max Gallo, Janet Evanovich, Madeleine Wickham, Linwood Barclay, Tim Weaver, Shari Lapena, Lisa Jewell, etc. in VO, Arturo Perez-Reverte, Carlos Ruiz Zafon in VO also, etc..
I also like discovering first novels from author friends…
Four or five years ago I rediscovered the pleasure of comics and graphic novels which today have taken on considerable importance in the literary panorama.
Finally, to close this subject (oh my I'm talkative...), I have a terrible relationship with reading in the sense that I am unable to part with a novel I have read... to the great dismay of my wife and the walls of my home which are already crumbling under more than 3000 books... As a result, I am also unable to borrow a book from the library since by definition I would have to return it... The addiction is too hard! You know that, the rest of you...
My relationship to writing?
It’s a shame to say…. Ah I already made that one! More seriously, I think I wrote my first short story around 11 or 12 years old, on a semi-word processing typewriter, on vacation with my aunt (the same as in the previous paragraph!). It was a story about boxing (I was a Rocky fan at the time!), followed by another rather fantasy one.
After which I followed literary studies, a bit by chance or by default since I wanted to be a fighter pilot but for that I would have had to not be angry with scientific subjects...
But there: revelation! I had found my way! I loved high school and the study of literary texts.
Come to think of it, I also loved Saturday morning at school: writing day.
So I concluded that this was my destiny. So, when I look back I say to myself: ok, it was written that I should write!
How do I write?
By hand ! Yes, the old fashioned way. Well, not with a quill pen either, eh! Not on papyrus! No, with a pen or a criterium on small notepads. I've already tried writing directly on screen but I feel like I'm not typing fast enough to follow the train of thought. Or rather, I am convinced that what would come out would be different, and in my case, less good. So it takes time! Write then type... And then not really liking reading on a screen (I'm not ready to have an e-reader!), I prefer to be able to reread my manuscripts although I have really bad handwriting which sometimes seems airtight to me, let's be honest!
I write at any time but I particularly like to do it at a restaurant at lunchtime or in a bistro. Or sometimes in the evening, the TV on. Paradoxically, writing in noise helps me isolate myself, I'm like in a bubble. Writing in silence in front of a blank page would distress me!
What do I write?
I wrote short stories, children’s stories, the beginnings of scripts…
Having reached the middle of my life, I concentrate on two areas of writing, for me inseparable: novels and poetic collections. I need these two very different types of writing. Knowing that the novel is purely fiction while I indulge much more in the poems that I write “with my guts”.
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