Any person of average intelligence, if he knows a particular field well, can write a thematic book easily, for instance, on gardening or on cooking. But things get complicated when he aims at expressing what he harbors in his heart. In this case, he has to find the proper words to convey his feelings and emotions. Words are supposed to
mirror the mind, but sometimes they misrepresent concepts and feelings. Some states of the soul are even inexpressible. It may also happen that written words are unclear and
inevitably give rise to misunderstanding.
In the past, whenever I attended important meetings, I worried about finding the right words to express my ideas. The same happened to me at school. When I was a student, sometimes I couldn’t express in words what I had in my mind. My difficulties were so great that a teacher of mine spurred me to answer his questions in the Sicilian dialect, because what mattered for him was the concept, not the form.
How does one start to write a book? I feel a fire inside myself, a volcano filled with magma ready to erupt. How can I turn my ideas and feelings into written words?
Once there was a great Italian poet who withdrew from the world. His name was Giacomo Leopardi. He was a nobleman. Secluded in the tower of his gorgeous manor house, he wrote wonderful poems.
Maybe I should do as he did to create good writing. I should isolate myself to write my book, I thought. I talked with a friend of mine, who was a critic, about literary work that springs from the solitude of the author. She said, “If you seclude yourself, your writing will not be good. It will be dead writing. Conversely, if you live in the world, you will write something good and interesting to readers.”
She went on, “Words are like seeds. If you sow good seeds, they will sprout and flower. If you sow bad seeds, they will produce poisonous weeds. Passing from mouth to mouth, from ear to ear, or from eye to eye, good words will spread their beneficial energy to the whole universe, while bad words will pollute the air. Words are like boomerangs. Good or evil, the fruits of your words will come back to you. So you have to be careful about what you write.”
I pondered on what my friend said. I recalled an episode that caused quite a stir in my hometown when I was a high school student. A girl had committed suicide in her car. I still remember her blue car and even the number plate. She had fired a gun against her head. A book was found close to her. She had read that book before committing suicide. Was it possible that the book she had read gave rise to her self-destruction? Suicide has many causes. In this case, one of the causes could have been the reading of that book, whose words were not favorable to life.
I want mine to be a living and wholesome book that generates good energy and improves the lives of those who will read it.
A friend of mine, who was a lawyer in Palermo, used to go to a bookstall and purchase a randomly chosen book. He said that a book bought by chance opened him to new horizons. Someday, if someone picks up my book randomly from a bookstall, he will come in contact with the vibrations of words.

This is an excerpt from The Vibrations of Words – second edition- by Ettore Grillo
Ettore Grillo author of these books:
– A Hidden Sicilian History
– The Vibrations of Words
-Travels of the Mind
http://www.amazon.com/author/ettoregrillo