MY PASSION
Today, my first thriller “THE AZTLAN PROJECT”, published in the UK last October, was enrolled in the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. This competition launched in 2008 awards a prize in the General Fiction category every year. The winner receives a publishing contract with Penguin, the largest trade book publisher in the world, and a $15,000 advance. Let’s wait and see.
I already explained in another post a few days ago that I’ve got a schedule I must follow with a strict discipline every day to be able to write articles for magazines and websites at a set time and write my books at another. Writing the blog obviously comes last.
MY PAST LIFE
My life in London was really different from the one I live now. I have been very patient there. I worked for a train company called Eurostar for more than six years. I have done some hard work there even though I had some terrible timetables (working shifts) and some pathetic self-absorbed managers who don’t care about their employees at all. If they could, they would certainly rather have robots: never late, never sick, never complain… always smile!
That’s what the passengers have never realised about Eurostar, since they couln’t see how the smiling and friendly employees at check-in, for example, were in fact being treated behind closed doors. How could they have seen the managers patronising, sometimes even bullying their employees? (Especially the foreigners!) I have seen all that and I’d have a lot to say. Eurostar is quite not the star it claims to be! However, that’ll be the subject of another post, another day, maybe…
So for six long years, I was waking up as early as 2.30am to go to work for nine hours in the cold (up to minus 10 degrees Celsius in winter sometimes) and then going back home at noon completely exhausted to look after the children, while the missus was also going to work, and finally not going to sleep before midnight (even though I had to wake up two or three hours later for another shift) to be able to have a little husband and wife time, watching TV, talking, etc. Without saying that I had to find moments to write my books and articles too…
That was my daily life until last October, when I resigned from Eurostar. In July, back from my holidays in France, something happened on my first day back at work that made me chose to give up that crazy life in cold London for my chosen life in hot Brazil. A life without simple-minded managers. A life that my children and my wife would enjoy as much as they deserve. A life with a family around. A life with my passion for focus.
Now, my passion, writing, has become my full-time job here. I believe that when your passion becomes your life, you can fully enjoy your life. Having the support of your loved ones in your passion and in your life gives you a better family life and a greater relationship with them.