Coming back

I know I haven't written here in such a long time, but this will end soon, I can assure you. The thing is, I have been extremely busy writing TV scripts for the Romanian National Television. It turned out to be pretty fun, but it's over.
I'll be soon going to Denmark, to catch up a little bit on my reading and most definitely my writing. I will be gone there from the 8th to the 20th of Decembrer, and I hope that I will be able to produce at leat 100 pages of my new novel. It has to be ready by the end of the spring, adn writing TV scripts hasn't helped me at all. There are moments in which I have trouble remembering the main character's names, so I have to get back on track. Till then, I will try posting here more often.

Advice: You don't know EVERYTHING about your characters

I've seen a lot of people writing stuff, excruciatingly painfully explaining every single twitch that character had in the first few pages of that story. People, we do not need to know the entire biography of someone right when you open the story. Why? Well, first of all, because we do not care. We are not yet attached to that character emotionally, so it's definitely not interesting. There are few authors that can pull this off, and they have their methods.
Best was to describe characters is, first of all, gradually, over the entire length of the story, so the reader gets to know it and gets attached to it, and then, use a lot of dialogue and interaction. You can very well describe your character through dialogue, he can answer inspired questions put by other characters, so you don't need to foolishly explain everything to your readers.
That should be a ground rule. Your readers are not stupid. If you hint them something, they will probably understand what you meant without trying to give them every single bit of information you have stacked up. Also, don't have every single character of your fully developed in your mind in the beginning. Of course, if that happens, it doesn't mean it's wrong, but you will be amazed at how much your character can evolve while you're writing your story. Every twist and turn in the plot, will obviously affect your characters, and through that you will find out how they're shaped and how they react to different impediments. Test yourself, put a character through a few different actions that would obviously endanger it. Write down how he or she would react to that. After doing that, you'll have a much clearer picture on how brave your character is. You can do this for a bunch of other qualities you can think of.
I hope my advice will help you, and hoping to see some feedback here.
Start writing.

Advice: Don't put too much of yourself into your writing

If there is one thing I learned while writing short stories and starting to write a novel is that putting too much of yourself into something you write doesn't always work and doesn't always appeal to your readers.
Yes, it's fine to distinguish one of your characters with your qualities, flaws and maybe something really exciting that has happened to you and you want to share with the world, but writing too much about yourself into a fiction piece will not work.
Why? Because, let's face it, you as an individual, unless you've been to war or experienced a truly traumatic event, will not have a story as interesting as a "fictional" character you can mold and turn into anything you like.
If you want to tell your life story, wait till you are famous and then publish it as non-fiction. Till then, let your characters be free, don't assimilate them with you.

I think I have a title

One of the best things you can do as an author, especially, an inexperienced one, when writing your first major piece is to find a title before. Of course, it doesn't have to be the one you'll use when you finish it, but something to get you started, to give you the definitive proof that you are headed somewhere.
I am, apparently headed somewhere with my novel, but didn't think of a title yet. This until yesterday. Another sneak preview I'm gonna give you regards two main themes in this book, probably one of the first two locations that I have imagined from the beginning. One that I am completely familiarized with by now, about which I sketched already entire scenes and charts of significance and another one that is just revealing itself to me. You will understand in a second why one of them can be the title of the novel and the other cannot.
"The Dump" will be one of the major "spacial" characters of the book, obviously when you will read it you will understand why. There's still some time till that happens. The second, that I think will be the title of the book is "The Glass Gazebo".
I already have in mind so many ideas about this fabulous place I have discovered that I cannot wait to share them with you.

Coelho's hype

I was in one of Provincetown's bookshops the other day and I almost bought this book. But then I thought, why read Coelho again? Haven't I had enough reading his last books, didn't I feel enough pain reading Zahir?
I mean, let's face it Coelho is not the most brilliant author in the world, he writes book using a recipe, so, after you've read a few of his books, you kind of know what's gonna happen or what philosophical reasoning will be used in the next one.
Of course Coelho appeals to so many because it's not only easy to read and understand but his words seem to disperse some kind of reasoning beyond what you can usually read on the bestseller list.
I mean, just imagine how many 17 year old girls thought and still think that Coelho is the most brilliant writer ever, an incredible philosopher, maybe even better that Aristotle. Of course, this image is provided by the fact that he is able to hide very bad fiction behind really good wording.
But, unfortunately that's all there is to Coelho, he can fool some, he hasn't been able to fool others yet.
I am in the category in the middle. He did fool me in the beginning but right now, I've made the decisive step. I have not bought "The Witch of Portobello". And neither should you.