I would be only near the truth if I said that the last two weeks have been FULL.

I was waiting for the results of a literary competition I entered this year and I literally couldn't wait anymore.

Before I tell you how that went...let me give you some backstory here.

Once upon a time, it was the blessed year 2022 and a Sardinian girl had just landed in a city full of possibilities called Vienna. And like all fairytales she met a guy.

Beautiful, curly hair and dark eyes. You know the type.

Long story short (actually it was just short) she got "ghosted". Yeah - before she even got a chance to learn that that is a verb.

So what does a writer do to just move on and forget about a love disappointment?

She turns the guy into the antagonist of her novel.

Yeah, that's me. And you all probably know me as the cinema & TV series addict - screenwriter for life. A novel? That was a novelty.

But you know the biggest problem with novels? They gotta be written.

And at the time, with full-time drama school, my full-time teaching business, the birth of Storytelling with Love, my own scripts to write - who's gotta time for writing A NOVEL?

After 3 years, I realized it was time to strategize. So, on January 1st 2025 I wrote down on a piece of paper: "this year I'm gonna write my novel".

The Universe responded pretty fast by showing me a flier on a Literary Agency's website: a literary competition.

1st round: I was only required to send the first chapter. Deadline in April.

Niiiiiiice, I got three months for an entire chapter. Easy.

Of course I ended up the last three days crying and getting desperate (and my partner seeing this side of me for the first time - thank god he didn't ghost me ) - but as usual, I (oops - we) managed.

We sent the first chapter. After a couple of weeks I received 12 chapters from other contestants to review anonymously. In this competition, the participants are also the anonymous judges of one another. That's a very cool concept.

Except that I received some very weird - and sometimes disturbing - stories. But over all it was a nice experience.

Only the people who'd pass this phase would have had to send the entire manuscript for the 2nd round.

I forgot about the whole thing and on June 21st I found out I was a finalist.

My next deadline: July 15th. To send THE ENTIRE MANUSCRIPT.

22 DAYS. Who's ever written a Novel in 22 days? That's impossible.

Let me tell you. It's actually not.

With an organized routine (and a blessed partner who'd review all my mistakes and would cut mercilessly anything that was not serving the story) - I sent the novel thirty minutes before the deadline.

After a couple of weeks I received 9 books to review. (Some of them - REALLY disturbing - I'll tell you more about in the next weeks).

Of course, reading 9 books in two weeks (I had three months, but no deadline no pressure!) required strategizing.

I would read all afternoon until dinner time. This was the part I learned the most about myself as a teacher.

My partner would keep reminding me that these people were my competitors and while I was sweating reading their work and writing beautiful and constructive feedback - they were probably asking ChatGPT to read my book and find as many typos as possible to give it a bad grade.

At first I thought I was doing it to follow the Competition rules. We were all required to read and review with honesty - in a constructive spirit.

Then, I realized. I was actually GREAT at this job. I could recognize good work from the first sentence (and I was right: one book I knew was excellent - from sentence one - won the competition).

Finally, November 14th arrived. AAAAND...my novel didn't win. I licked my wounds for about half a day and then I turned that precious time into something more productive like correcting my typos.

The most amazing part: after a couple of days I got to read the reviews people wrote about my novel.

What can I say, I love that the world is so varied: someone wrote "Great work. I couldn't find any mistakes" and someone else "This mistake is UNFORGIVABLE". Someone else even wrote to me directly in first person "It looks like you don't know much about Sardinia, but nice try".

HELLO?! I am Sardinian. Whatever Lisa, just breathe.

The point of all of this is: I finally realized how great I am at giving other people constructive feedback on their novels. Now I truly feel like all those fuckers I wrote my reviews for should actually pay me.

And let me tell you why I am not bragging: even with the most misogynist story ever (a psychiatrist who sexually desires his patient, who is abused by her husband, REALLY?!), I managed to stay calm, to report all his flaws (and his characters' flaws) with the hope that we can change this world.

To the guy calling all the female characters "he" (and wrote 700 pages with no ending) - I wrote down a list of ALL the mistakes and 3 strategies he could use right away to shorten the length and increase the tension.

Why was I so kind? Because all these people could be my students. And as a Coach and teacher I have to believe that there is ALWAYS space to grow.

I could have just got mad, shit on the competition and told everybody this is just a non-objective joke (and I may be right). But would that be good for me?

Isn't it better to know that I can actually read a book a day and write extensive and constructive feedback? And that I apply my own philosophy "Storytelling With Love" to ALL that I do?

I prefer this way.

Stay tuned. My Start and Finish your Novel program (inspired by this journey) is going to be published super soon.