A writer's journey; a conversation with fellow writer Irene Perali about writing, technology, and expat life.
CritiqueMatch: You and I share the same passions: tech and
writing. Tell us about your story.
Irene Perali: I remember the first time somebody
asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I was four years old, and my
answer was: "I want to become a writer." I wanted to be a writer
before I learned how to write. I wanted to be a writer because I liked to tell
stories. I had a vivid imagination, and, as soon as I discovered the power of
the written language, I began to write all the stories that popped up in my
mind. It felt natural and effortless to me.
School was my best source of writing prompts. School
instantiated all my passions. I never met a person who enjoyed doing homework
more than I did.
At school, I also discovered that I was good at math, a
subject I loved as much as I loved writing. However, being good at math is a
curse. When this happens, it becomes almost a
moral duty to pursue a career in STEM. The attitude at math is so measurable
that an insecure person like me chose a life in which I would be judged
objectively. It was certainly a safer choice than undertaking the path of
making a living as a writer.
I studied Electrical Engineering and abandoned any writing
efforts for eight years. When I moved from Italy to California, I became more
self-aware. On one hand, being part of the innovation process strengthened my
passion for technology. On the other hand, my writing voice came back. I
realized that it wasn’t too late to follow my first love for writing, and I
didn’t have to give up tech to be a writer. Since I believe in the value of
education more than in anything else, I attended several
creating writing classes. After years of engineering, the lessons were so
refreshing that they gave me the energies to work on my first novel.
CritiqueMatch: Tell us more about the book you have been writing.
Irene Perali: My book, The Followives, tells
five intertwined stories of wives following their husbands who moved from Italy
to California to pursue a compelling job opportunity. “Followhusbands” exist
too, but, in my experience, I met only women in this situation.
I wanted to tell their perspectives on
the contemporary Gold Rush happening in Silicon Valley over the last decade.
These women gave up their friendships and careers and accepted to be unemployed
- not all visas allow immigrants' spouses to work in the US - to support their
loved ones. Their acts of love are often under-appreciated because people
usually think of life in California as a dream of sunshine and positivity. It’s
instead a place full of contradictions that become more evident for people who
didn’t choose to move there and don’t work in tech.
The book touches different themes such as
the struggle of deciding to leave your country, immigration misadventures,
homesickness, and the search of the perfect career. Everything is glued by five
romantic love stories.
I decided to tell five stories with five
different endings to show that everybody's life is the combination of personal
choices and unexpected events. Some women find great opportunities in the new
country; others gain more awareness in their relationships; others realize that
Californian good life cannot replace the love of your friends and family.
CritiqueMatch: The story in your book is inspired by events very
close to your personal experience. What triggered you to write it?
Irene Perali: As you might
have figured from my previous answers, I am an Italian engineer who immigrated
to California. I deliberately moved alone, but I could have just as well been a
followife.
In my first year, during a creative
writing class, my teacher said: "In our books, we don't want to tell about
our lives. Our lives are boring because we tend to avoid conflicts, and no good
books come without conflicts."
While she was saying these words, I
thought that my life was, on the other hand, a mess—immigration is tough—and I
had a lot of material for a book, but I wasn't ready to share my story yet. So,
inspired by other people's experiences, I created five versions of myself as
the wife of a male engineer, translating into fiction some episodes of my life.
I feel very attached to the theme of
personal satisfaction in a couple. As a wife, I would support my husband's
career even when it comes to making difficult decisions, and I expect him to do
the same for me. But I think it's important that each individual doesn’t take
for granted that the partner will blindly do it. We live in a world where we
are not constrained in a ten-mile circle around our hometown and we often have
the opportunity to choose the best place for our personal growth. However, this
freedom can come at the expense of our loved ones' freedom. It's one of the
biggest challenges of modern couples.
CritiqueMatch: The characters in your story are fictional, but you
developed a close attachment to them. How do you balance your
"feelings" toward them versus the need to develop a character that
fits the story? What are your recommendations to other writers?
Irene Perali: My characters
are fictional, but they are different versions of myself. Therefore, I have a
hard time not being attached to them. Sometimes I feel I really lived those
five lives. When I review the chapters of the book, I share their emotions and
struggles.
To craft an engaging story, I always keep
in mind my teacher's advice: create conflicts and show your characters'
weaknesses. I allowed my characters to fail multiple times, behave
irrationally, and run into problems they could have avoided. I allowed them to
be selfish, jealous, and unfaithful. Writing fiction gave me this privilege,
and I tried to put the plot before my tendency to protect the characters. The
fact that my characters can be unreasonable or apolitical doesn’t mean that I
would do the same, or I agree with their decisions.
My practical advice to other writers is
to list your characters’ strengths and make sure that equal or more flaws
counterbalance them. Perfect characters are not credible, and readers can’t
identify themselves with them.
CritiqueMatch: You wrote your story during Nanowrimo. That is
incredible. Tell us about your experience.
Irene Perali: If you have
twenty years to write a book, it will take twenty years to write the book.
Nanowrimo was a great motivation. You
have thirty days for 50000 words, meaning about 1666 words a day. I allocated
two hours a day to writing and tracked my daily progress. It helped me to
establish my writing habits.
And I won the challenge! For those who
don't know, Nanowrimo is a challenge against yourself and not against others.
Everybody wins as long as he writes 50000 words at the end of the month. It's
one of the most satisfying things I ever did. I felt I accomplished something
concrete that nobody can take away. It was the turning point between "I
have this great idea for a book and all these inspirational sentences" and
"I have a manuscript that I can share with other people."
Writing a book is 10% great ideas and 90%
hard work, and Nanowrimo helped me with the latter. The website is also plenty
of precious resources for writers. I knew the key points of the plot, and it
was amazing to see the story evolve day after day, word by word.
When I finished the challenge, I realized
that the draft was just the tip of the iceberg.
The hard part is what happens after. I've
been editing the book for a year. I wish they did a Nanoedimo! But then I
discovered CritiqueMatch.
CritiqueMatch: How important was finding beta readers for your
story?
Irene Perali: It was
essential. I have three main problems: I am not a native speaker, I am not a
professional writer, and I often write without the focus that writing requires.
I have a full-time job, which absorbs most of my mental energy. My husband and
some of my best friends were my first beta readers—thank you!—but I know they
weren’t completely objective with me. After reading my draft three times, I
knew it wasn't good, but I didn't know how to make it better. I needed an
external opinion.
Thanks to CritiqueMatch, I found four
kind and honest beta readers. They highlight the wrong use of words. They give
me feedback on the plot or characters, and they tell me when paragraphs require
more explanation.
It's also interesting to see when they
have different opinions about what I wrote. Some loved sentences that others
suggested to delete; some loved characters that others hated. After all,
literature is subjective by nature.
An external and unbiased opinion is
crucial to improve the quality of a novel, and I recommend everybody to do
that. It might be hard at the beginning—nobody likes criticism—but I always
remember that beta readers want to help you. Now, the more comments I see, the
happier I am.
Moreover, CritiqueMatch’s beta readers are awesome compared to some ruthless beta
readers I found on writing forums. They are my primary motivation to continue
to edit my draft. If they take the time not only to read but also to review my
story, I don't have excuses to procrastinate my work. I am so grateful for what
they are doing for me.
I hope they will continue to review my
book until the end.
CritiqueMatch: You are an engineer working on a fascinating new
technology. How did your engineering world help you become a better writer and
vice versa?
Irene Perali: Writing a book
and working on a complex engineering problem have more in common than one can
imagine. Those activities require method and discipline. I don't see myself as
an engineer and amateur writer as two separate entities. There is a sense of
continuity between my scientific and humanistic side.
I approached my book the same way I
approach an engineering project. At work, I like to do two things: block
diagrams and beautiful plots. So I did the same for my book. I created the
"datasheets" of my characters and, before beginning to write, I did a
block diagram of their interactions in the story. In this way, I had the
skeleton of my story, and I could focus on the writing and add more meat to it.
During the editing phase, I found some
tools to analyze my project. Some tools convert a novel into a curve and show
the turning points. I didn't know that a book could be quantified. Seeing the
data analytics of my story was a pleasure. It’s similar to characterizing a
prototype.
I also use websites that count the number
of times I used certain words or expressions, and I built all the statistics of
my use of language. Another great way to turn a story into numbers. During the
first revision, I discovered I used the word "happy" 1000 times, and
it was probably a good idea to replace it with synonyms. It helped me to make
my vocabulary richer.
One thing I learned during my engineering
career is that communication is critical. To make the best use of your
technical skills, you need to be able to communicate effectively, in particular
when you work in a diverse environment. Writing tips like using shorter
sentences, fewer adjectives, and avoiding passive voice allowed me to better
express complicated concepts at work.
As you said, I work on a new technology,
autonomous vehicles, where we are paving our own way every day because it's a
problem that hasn't been fully solved yet.
We need to create momentum to make progress. It's like writing a book:
when you start, you know where you want to go, but you don't know exactly how
you are going to get there. It's only when you do the work, that you discover
new exciting turning points, leading you to your final destination.
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About the Author: Irene Perali
Born and raised in a small town in Northern Italy, Irene
is an engineer with a passion for writing.
She never took writing seriously until, in 2015, she
relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area for work. Before then, during her
doctoral studies, she had experience in writing and peer-reviewing scientific
papers, an experience that she decided to extend to fiction.
In California, she studied creative writing at different
writing schools around the Bay Area and started to work at her first draft.
Irene’s favorite genre is women’s fiction, with immigration as the central
theme. Writing is still a hobby for her, and she hasn’t published anything yet.
She is targeting 2020 for publishing her first book.
You can follow her immigrant life on Instagram where she
will give updates on her progress in the publishing process (username: @ireneperali).
