When did you start writing? What is the purpose of your writing? You do make me reminisce... I started writing when I still didn’t know the alphabet... I must have been three; I remember I used to hide under the bed and pretend to write sentences... they were just squiggly lines... then, the first time I decided to write a novel (not a story for homework), it was in English; I must have been about eight, and I realised my English was not good enough (of course) to write a full novel, but I remember how it started... it could have been an alternative start to The Road to London: ‘There is a boy and he is on the street...’ How strange, looking back, to think that it took me about thirty years to finish that original novel... I first accomplished a text with a poem, in Italian, ‘Bordighera’. I know for sure I was eleven; it was about the anguish of being in a beautiful sea town on the Italian Riviera, but away from my parents. I gave it to my Italian Teacher instead of an essay; she loved it, and asked me if I had more as she had a friend who would like to publish my work. I didn’t have any others, so I wrote a few without inspiration; then I never passed them on to her: I was ashamed of their quality. I then started writing poetry in English, and some of my earliest poems have now been published several times. I was writing in English, though living in Italy, because I was hiding myself from the world around me: I didn’t want other people to understand them; they were my way of dealing with my atrocious angst, with my insecurity about myself, in such a hermetic and coded way, that I wanted, and I think I managed, in a way, my poems to be unreadable, and more difficult than The Waste Land: Eliot was talking about the Human condition; I was talking about mine! The first series of poems I wrote, when I was fifteen, was Ybo’; I literally invented my own English in them; the spelling, the grammar, the Philology do not exist anywhere else. With Heav’n from Hell, I reached the height of hermeticism. I know that in a short passage in the poem ‘Orphalese’, about ten lines in hendecasyllables, I included two hundred and forty-four quotations... That was mad, so, I opened up to myself and the world with my Flicker series. The big difference between my poetry up to the flickers and my prose is, to go back to why I write, the purpose: I wrote The Road to London to share my experience, and not just mine, as, even if I thought at first the novel was loosely based on my life, I then realised it was about my Best Friend, Stephane, to whom she is dedicated; I only realised it after he died, but it all suddenly made sense. It made sense why the novel came to me so suddenly, while dancing with him, and how I started reciting the words to him; it made sense how he seemed to understand every nuance of it as I kept reciting every word as it kept coming to me, a chapter every Friday night while clubbing; it made sense because she describes his, not my, version of the universe. I didn’t know then, but my Muse, was listening to every word as I ‘wrote’ the novel. Steph was speaking to me from the future, from beyond the grave. Believe me; I have tears coming down my cheeks right now, just thinking about it. The Road to London is Steph saying to the world that we ‘different’ people, we weirdoes, we scum of the Earth have a beauty inside that shines like the Sun in the sky, just get rid of your blinkers, and look for goodness’ sake! And if you can’t face the sun, at least look at his light on the skin of the Moon.
The shortest synopsis of The Road to London is ‘A (gay, if it still really matters) boy’s quest to find who he is and for the freedom to love.’ Ready to jump out of a window, the boy remembers his life, how his games as a child shaped his identity and his sexuality, how his formative years were pure angst, how he had to hide from the looks, the words, the punches of his peers, and build a world for himself, a world of dreams, then alcohol, drugs, hallucinations till, maybe, if the reader wants... the boy will not fall from the window, but fly to London, where he can finally live the story in the ‘letters’ to My Dear, coming from his future in a gay club in London, and finally be proud to be different
A picture of the manuscript, and yes, I still write by hand and with a fountain pen: I find no rhythm with a keyboard, but writing by hand...is like playing the violin.
What are your forthcoming writings? What I am working on at the moment is a collection of short poems and stories for a book whose full copyrights will go to a very worthy Charity, Water.org, who provide clean water to communities who, ironically, in a world that calls itself ‘modern, advanced...civilised’ still don’t have access to it... I think the title may be Words for Water. I am actively seeking contributions from other writers for it; so if you have written a beautiful story, poem, script and are reading this, famous or not, please get in touch on Goodreads. I am also ‘pottering with poetry’ again; being deep inside a poet, I need to go back to my cradle every now and then... I’m writing a collection Queer Poems, where ‘queer’ doesn’t just mean LGBT, but any victim of bigotry and discrimination... Still, very much indebted to Eliot, as I am walking down the structural and stylistic road he opened with his ‘Preludes’. The next prose book, I feel, but this is not much more than a hunch, will be of short stories. I’d never written short stories before Tales for the Free Mind and Open Heart, and I found I love how you can play with different structures and genres in such a short space. When I say short... I talk a lot, but only write words if they are absolutely essential; I don’t dilute up to the word count... so far these stories are more ‘the haikus of prose’ around one to two thousand words, but that’s not a rule. As short as possible. What are your future plans? Plans... Aspirations? I can’t plan because I never know if I will ever again have the inspiration to write... Well, the basic concept for a novel has come to me today, so that may be after the short stories... It won’t be a sequel to The Road to London, sorry, that’s not me... I don’t do encores; it’s either innovative or I don’t write it. I see no point in not exploring new styles and structures. The big dream... to write the epic poem of the Twenty-first Century. Wish me good luck. What four top most things you take care of while writing a book? Sincerity, meaning that the book must come from real feelings, not just be written to make some money. A book has to give to the reader... Style, there are only two types of books, well-written ones and badly written ones, to quote Wilde; without style, there is no enjoyment for the reader. Structure, this includes characters, plot and setting; the books I write are my books, not the copy of someone else’s; they may take lessons and inspiration from other writers and books, but they don’t copy; they develop, they change what I have learnt, and go down new paths. Personally, the themes are important; it is linked to the first, but exploring a theme in a yet unseen direction is another essential feature for me. How much real life goes into fiction writing? It’s hard for me to make a clear distinction. We can’t write reality as it is; even the fact that we have to choose words makes that impossible. On the other hand, in my personal case, I can’t write about something I have not experienced first-hand. I would say one hundred percent real and one hundred percent fictional. Blame my skipping Maths lessons, but that’s how it works for me. It’s where the real becomes fictional, that hazy, uncertain and beautiful area in between that really gets my creative juices going. Is high level of imagination important to have for an Author? I can’t speak for everybody, but for myself, yes. I must say that I understand imagination as Coleridge did, inclusive of, not opposed to, reason. Imagination is the holonym, it encompasses reason, and that, despite the fact that I suppose most people believe the opposite, or that they are mutually exclusive (we live in a masculine society, what do you expect?), seems so obvious to me. We can’t even think without imagining the words we use to think, or their signified, so how could we possibly reason? Your dream destination on Earth? The heart of every human being. What is the current book you are reading? I am reading Willy, by Robert Dunbar and I am loving it! I had worked out that man has a wonderful way with words, is super intelligent, experimental, creative, deep from the very first few words. I read a few pages to taste it a couple of months ago, then had to do other things, but have been waiting to start it ever since. I’ve just started it, but the way it explores what one could call a ‘learning disability’ from the very depth of the protagonist’s brain and how he does it through literally building the language of the character, which of course, we know, language is thought, and at the same time conveys an atmosphere that is borderline gothic, I’d say Dickensian, in this ‘school’ as the boy calls it...superb!
Your favorite celebrity and why? Madonna, even if celebrity is a bit of an understatement. Why? I could go on for days, but I’ll give you three key reasons. I wouldn’t be the person I am without her, possibly, I wouldn’t be in this world now (selfish reason). She invented modern music: the world of pop is doing the music she invented in nineteen-ninety-eight, and no one has yet equalled Ray of Light (musical reason). She has single-handedly done more against discrimination than any other person in living memory, whether it be women’s rights, campaigns against wars, LGBT rights, ageism, you name it (cosmic reason). I rest my case.
Some quickies: Sun or Moon, Laughter or Smile, Morning or Evening, Coffee or Tea, Mountain or Sea, Long Drive or Short Drive, Silence or Conversation, Water or Fire, Air or Earth, Mars or Jupiter, Tulip or Rose, Red or Blue, Left or Right, Glance or Stare Moon, smile, evening, tea, sea, long drive, silence, water, air, Jupiter, rose, blue, left (did you need to ask?), glance. I know you’ll psychoanalyse me now... too late.. I’ve sent many a psychiatrist crazy already...
The last line of your autobiography would be… Can I say what I want on my tombstone instead? Be right back! Links: Twitter handle:@Bulla_Adriano Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/TheRoadToLondon Goodreads author page:http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7209201.Adriano_Bulla Amazon link: http://myBook.to/TheRoadToLondon