BBQ on Finchley Road

Has it ever happened to you? Sometimes your waiter has a very interesting face, or the person sitting in front of you in the underground has a unique choice of clothes, or someone older than a 10-year-old kid is playing with a Nintendo DS on the bus.

I appreciate when these things happen, but just appreciating is dull.
Think about it: every single person you meet has his/her own life, full of events, hobbies, and many other people. Why should you care about strangers, you might ask, and well, it's not like you need to. But when you read a novel, aren't you reading about the lives of a (usually) fictional strangers? Why should common people be less interesting.

If you ask them their lives may sound boring, but that's just because not everyone is a great storyteller. The job a good storyteller is to take all those little quirky details that makes something fun, entertaining, moving, and make you see them just like he or she sees them. A writer is not necessary a journalist.

Every time I see someone particularly interesting from some point of view, I always ask myself "what are their lives like?" and proceed to make up my own fabulous story about them.

Not that I'm convinced that anything I suppose about them is true --in most cases, nothing is. I make up their characters on my own, with no intention of being faithful to reality. It's just that creating stories is quite fun (especially when you're on a long bus travel and forgot to bring a book).

If I ever publish a book with all these short stories, I want to call it like this post: BBQ on Finchley Road. Why? Who? What even? Well it's a long story... and maybe, one day, you'll read it.