V.L. Perillo's Blog, page 4

May the writing group be with you

Writing is hard. It’s your mind against the blank page, against the jumble of words that are terrified to come out. It’s the dark side of you trying to stop the light from coming out of you.

Writing can be nerve-racking and painful.

Yes, it is painful to get the words out when they don’t dare see the light of day, when they are scared of being illogical, embarrassing, or just plain dumb.

And to add insult to injury, it is also lonely. Only you can do it. Just a battle between you and the word...

When losing is winning

If you read my blog, you’ll know I’ve been so excited about doing the NaNoWriMo challenge this year. I’ve been thinking about what novel to tackle and of new ideas all year long. I’ve also been reading and learning as much as I could about writing, so that my draft from NaNo could be more complete, with more direction than the two from the previous years – two novels that I still want to finish, but that need so much restructuring, they basically need to be re-written.

I thought about an exci...

Tonight, I learned I’m a coward

Tonight, I came face to face to the fact that I’m a coward.

Tonight, I found the unavoidable truth that when it came the time to act, I didn’t. Or at least not in time. I found myself more worried about getting myself into trouble than about helping.

Tonight, I had to face the fact that when the building is burning, I’m selfish.

It’s ironic. I guess it always is. We always believe ourselves to be better. We always have this idolized image our ourselves, and we think that – of course– when a m...

I’m thankful for…

Yesterday was thanksgiving here in the US. I was fortunate enough to spend it with amazing people who made it a night to remember! Each of them are special, and fun, and kind, and I’m privileged to have met them and to have them as my family in Vermont. Not everyone was there, but they were still with me in my heart.

So this got me thinking into what I’m thankful for. Here is the list I arrived to:

My amazing family, who even though they are worried about my choices, they are still here with...

Fantastical Beasts: an imagination feast!

WARNING:  I want to let you know that I tried my best to do a spoiler free post. Just in case it’s not as spoiler-free as I hoped, however, be warned!  Also, this post will be super short as this is NaNoWriMo month and I need to get going with that!

Last night I went to see the new Harry Potter world movie: Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them.

I liked it. I liked it a lot.

It was like stepping into a familiar, yet strange new world that embraced you with open arms. There were breathtaki...

Grip your readership

This past week I have been lucky enough to be able to go to Phoenix, AZ, for a scientific meeting, and while there, I was also very lucky to participate in a writing workshop. It wasn’t a fiction writing workshop, though. It was a workshop for translating my scientific research into a friendlier general public statement.

Let’s face it. As a scientist, I was trained to use a lot of passive voice, tons of jargon and to use large, large, large sentences. The end result of this combination are pa...

And NaNo came!

This month is NaNoWriMo. Happiness!!!

Also, I’m super exhausted. October has been a whirlwind of activities and I’m feeling exhausted. I’m also about to go to a scientific meeting for the next week, along with writing my papers for work and my NaNo project.

To say that I’m feeling a little overwhelmed might be a slight understatement, but either way, I’m determined to keep going. It’s only a few months more before I can rest and forget about the world, enjoying my family and friends back at h...

The End is only the beginning

I did it!

I finished the first draft of the novel I’ve been working all year long!

Yesterday morning, I was able to write the famous “THE END” at the bottom of the manuscript!

Despite being a writer and working with words, this time words fail me to express my emotions. I can tell you it was a mixture of happiness, wonderment, exhilaration, terror, relief, and disbelief as something I have been working so hard for had finally come to pass, but this description is not even close to what I felt...

Blocked by my own ideas

          It is very common to hear about writers suffering from the disease known as a writer's block. Sometimes that means that they can't write anything at all. Sometimes they are blocked by a particular work in progress.           This last one is my current case. I have this amazing idea for a short story, yet here I find myself writing this blog post, completely blocked. I'd like to think

Sometimes a detour goes a long way

       I’ve always been a writer, a story finder. I was writing short stories ever since I learned to string two sentences together. I even made use of writing during the hard teenage years, when everything seems bleak and you’re looking for your way. It was my refuge when there were no friends to be found, when there was no one who seemed to understand.        I lost it, though, as I went into