I don't like leaving businesses unfinished, yet, for everyone who had been checking on this page from time to time (and surprisingly it was more people than myself!) during the past year and a half it looked as if this page suffered a sudden and abrupt death.
I am the one to blame and I somehow feel like this web page is but what my favourite plush used to be in my childhood: my best companion when I most needed it, when the world was big to my eyes, but little I had seen and little it had seen me. I struggle to say I am known to the world now, because I am very far from that, but looking at the ground covered in these 5 years, I feel like the journey has reached the point of no return and though scary it is the kind of thrill that makes you smile and look forward to the next steps of this adventure. The world got bigger than some writing from my desk at home, now I get sent to big sports events and I am more often on a plane than I would have ever thought.
I cannot see too far ahead of me, actually, I can't really see too well what I am going to have for lunch in a couple of hours (and yes, I am the one cooking!), so let alone what the future will bring, but there are many irons in the fire and I am absolutely thrilled by the idea of what these could bring. I know I am talking foggy here, but I don't want to say too much about these, yet I can tell you it is a great feeling when some big companies come to you and ask if you'd be interested in working with them, rather than being the other way around.
But enough with all these praises, I am still alive and I am making this seem like an eulogy! Even though, thinking about it carefully, it kind of is, because the main idea behind this stream of consciousness you are currently reading is to put a formal end to this page. As it is said at the very beginning the unfinished businesses really hurt my sensibility and for that I want to try and give a much deserved burial to this blog, whom I will always be grateful to as nothing I did by now would have been possibly without the hours I spent exercising my early reports, interviews and all sorts of skills here. Probably, looking back at what I did at the very beginning I would blush in embarrassment for the errors, the naivety in some mistakes, the complete inexperience... all of the faults are a part of the process and it is a never-ending one as this is the beauty of journalism: it is a never static job, things change quickly and one needs to learn new skills, adapt to new styles and technologies. For example, I am working a lot in social media to day and never would I have thought to as I consider myself primarily a writer.
But even if I am writing less (I am still finding some space for written journalism though, especially in Italian thanks to Il Tennis Italiano magazine and Sportface.it), it has been a year now that I took back an old dream of mine: writing a novel. I am saying that because it is part of this idea of mine of leaving nothing unfinished. I started it some 11 years ago or so, it was early in the days of high school and it all started as I was drawing maps and characters on the desk of my "neighbour" in class. I had been going on with random writing for years, even though never constantly, until the pages sank deep in one of my drawers during university. I meant to restart for long and I have even dreamt that the protagonist dragged me to his world to finish his story (which, for instance, I still don't know how it will end!), then last summer I suddenly decided to give it another go. I read the first chapters and decided that it was too badly written to only need some editing before going on, so I isolated myself in my mountain house and for a week I did not use social media, nor personal connections (bar a few of them to keep my sanity to a decent level) and started the writing the story from the very beginning. For someone who swims deep into the waters of sports writing, this book is far from my usual world, in fact, it is a far away world that nobody is familiar with apart from my characters: a fantasy world which is finding its reality and details through the pages of this absurd idea of mine. I am close to page 400 now, so fingers crossed I can bring it on to finally give an ending or I fear the protagonist could haunt me again!
So what will be of this page now? I don't know, but I want to keep it, just like I still keep my wolf-plush in one of the shelves in my bedroom. Lately it came useful as I had my little nephew coming over to play but rain did not allow outdoor activities, so similarly I might come back to this place in a few months, a year, or more, just to write some more nonsense someone might find it interesting, though I highly doubt. But as for now, this is the end.
All the best,
Giulio
p.s. I believe most of you follow me already on the social medias, but just in case you don't and you want to know what's happening in my life, or only if my novel finds an end or what the job opportunities I am being mysterious about are, give a follow to my twitter and instagram profiles.
