Friday Feature: @Eusorph
We’re very pleased to be starting the Friday Feature up again, where we showcase Prosers weekly and allow them to share details about themselves as well as what makes them tick.
Our first Proser is Lapo Melzi, who you can find on Prose under the username @Eusorph. He lives in a small town near the Italian Alps called Vergiate, roughly translated as Greentown, that sits in a national park with wonderful woods and lakes.
“My house was a farm full of all sorts of animals when I was little and it later became a horse riding school for many years. I had the luck to grow up surrounded by animals and learned to trust, appreciate and love them. The woods remain the place where I always feel at home and the mountains are still my favorite hiking ground.”
Sounds beautiful. We ask what Lapo’s career is there. He explains: “After a career in advertising and independent Film, due to health issues, I am back in my hometown and work as a restaurateur in the family business. Although I have forfeited my previous career, I have never given up on my stories and what I really want is to be a full-time author.
Always intrigued about this, we prompt him to explain what his relationship with writing is and how it’s evolved? “I started writing poetry when I was in high school. That was my first ever creative endeavor and one that made me aware of my abilities. It wasn’t until my twenties though that I tried my hand at stories. I was attending Film School in Milan then and nobody wanted to write what I wanted to direct. I never thought I could write fiction (I had too much respect for books) but I really wanted to tell more imaginative stories than those that were given to me by the screenwriting students at my school. So, I did my best and wrote my first scripts. It was difficult, but scripts are very bare bones and technical, so I didn’t feel daunted as I would if I had tried to write a book. Then I just kept on writing and during the years I discovered that was my real instinct: to sit down and write stories.”
“The conscious decision of being a fiction author came much later, only about three years ago, because of my second bout of cancer--talk about a blessing in disguise! My first encounter with big C happened during my thesis year in the Film Department at NYU. At that time, I simply let it pass over me and concentrated on shooting and finishing my thesis—it did scare me, but it didn’t make me stop and think too much. The second time, almost five years later, during a routine exam and at the time when I was about to be considered “out of danger” had a very different effect on me. I realized that at any time in the future I could die quite suddenly and if that happened I couldn’t afford to go without having written my stories. In my opinion, the real tragedy in life is not dying--that we all have to do--but it is dying without having done what we have at heart. So, I said “the hell” to everything that wasn’t what I really wanted to do. I had been writing scripts for about fifteen years by then and was really tired of the limitations imposed by Film. In particular, I was tired of being obliged to write only what I could produce and I was yearning to delve into the internal emotional and psychological life of my characters. I also had a hunch that I would write better novels than scripts by then. But it was just a hunch, because I didn’t have the slightest idea whether I could actually write interesting prose. So, I gave up Film for good, sat down and wrote my novel Horse Sense. It’s been the best decision I have ever taken in my life. The one I don’t have any regrets about.”
Prose asks Lapo to discuss the value that reading adds to both his personal and professional life. He tells us: “I haven’t read a book with my eyes in more than twenty years, because they get too sore too quickly and give me headache. Instead, about fifteen years ago I discovered Audiobooks and was hooked right away. I always loved oral storytelling and find Audiobooks far superior to audio-less books: you can read them while you also do something else, filling more waking hours than paper books; they let you visualize far more, because your eyes are not busy reading text; and finally you have some of the best actors and voice actors reading the story you love--try listening to Jeremy Irons reading Lolita or Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter and tell me if they don’t sound better than the voice in your head!”
“When I started writing I had to give up reading, because I constantly found myself filling the gaps in my stories with material from other people’s books and I hated it. Some people say that artists usually have to usually start by imitating someone else they admire. I don’t believe and I think it’s a bad exercise. Instead, writers should start immediately to try and find their own voices--it’s painful, but important.”
“Now, I read about three to four book a month, both fiction and non fiction. They make my life less boring and open my mind to the world, letting me learn new things each time. As an author, they offer a insight into other authors’ styles, plot and dramatic devices, story ideas, dialogue rendition. Also, given the incredible variety of styles, topics and the fact that even books that are considered classics are very far from being flawless, they provide a lot of encouragement in my endeavors and lessen my sometimes crippling perfectionism.
We ask what can we look forward to in future posts and what he is working on now. He explains: “Right now, I am working on my second book entitled “Quigley,” the story of a New York pet flying squirrel, who abandons the safety of his apartment in order to save the squirrels of Central Park from the tyranny of murder of crows with the help of an ex-experiment rat, embarking in a journey that will either shred him to pieces or transform him forever. The novel is the direct adaptation of my award winning screenplay “Quigley.”
“After that will be the turn of “Romeo Vs. Juliet,” a pastiche adaptation of the beloved Shakespeare’s story set in a Verona where Renassaince and modern times coexist and that answer on a comedic vein the question: what would have happened if the two too-young-to-be-married lovers had survived?”
“Then it will be the turn of “Wassapu,” a Dickensian story of a heartless jackelope-riding villainous creature that robs all the other animals of the Dome Forest of their food and leaves only misery in her path. One day though, she is lured by a cookie to a great city, where she butts head with the score of homeless orphan street urchins that fills its streets and finds out she isn’t the only one who has been robbed of her heart and hopes. After this, there are already other planned stories, but I don’t want to bore you.”
We like flattery, so we want to know what Lapo loves about TheProse.com? “The greatest challenge for an independent author is visibility. Prose is a great way to reach a wider audience that otherwise would never be acquainted with my work. It also gives me the opportunity to get in touch with other fellow authors and start an artistic conversation with them.”
“The Prose team seems genuinely interesting in promoting its members unlike other platforms, where you are ignored unless you pull 1m views. I think this is great and a great added value for readers, who can count on Prose to showcase fresh and different authors, instead of pushing more of the same.”
It’s all true, and thank you. Tying in with our feature on our blog site, we ask if there is one book that he would recommend everybody should read before they die. His answer: “One is not enough :-) The Lord of the Rings, Dune, Seabiscuit an American Legend, Cyrano de Bergerac and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.”
Is there an unsung hero who got him into reading and/or writing? “I don’t know about unsung, but it was J.R.R. Tolkien for me. For two reasons. The first is that I was fourteen when I read the Lord of the Rings—it was the first book that I chose and bought by myself—and it changed my life. I think I should have known that one day I would try to become an author, because to this day, I still have burnt in my memory the image of when I put down the Lord of the Rings in the left shelf of my old wood and glass bookshelf and I thought, “This is what I would like to write.” The thing is, though, that I had never written anything before, nor I was planning to and I didn’t even ever show any aptitude to writing stories at that point. It was just a purely instinctual thought that rose to the surface. Now I know why it surfaced. The second reason is that no other author that I know put so much work, research and invention in a story as he did. I profoundly admire his patience, dedication, strength of mind and imagination.”
We ask Lapo if there is anything else he wants to share with fellow Prosers. “Other than here on Prose, the most important place where you can find me is on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/LapoMelzi), where, if you like my work and want to see me become a full time author, you can donate a recurring tiny amount of money (as little as $0.25 per part) and become a Patron of the Arts. It’s like going back in times when Dickens published his novels in weekly installments: you get something great to read each week and the independent author can keep on being independent by earning a steady income that will enable him to write his next book.“
Thank you Lapo. We hope you enjoyed the return of our Friday feature as much as we did, as we’ll be back showcasing another Proser next week. Get in touch if you want to be added to the list, contact us on info@theprose.com