Rachid Amrani

Aspiring writer with a passion for storytelling and reading good books. I consider my writing journey as a learning process and a succession of trials and errors.

I did not learn my first word in English until I turned 16. So if my writings are riddled with flaws, you know why.

The first novel I read in the English language was The Old man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Twenty years later I read The Great Gatsby. I was spared the agony of reading Shakespeare. Sure I would have repeated many academic years and would have never graduated from college.

My stories as mediocre as they are explore the complexities of rural life (I grew up in a very remote, mountainous area or in no man's land as the saying goes.)

The characters that populate my stories struggle with things that might appear simple to some such as securing funds to buy the necessities. There is drought, too. The wrath of nature, the escape to the city, the country folks versus the city folks. (Fortunately, no wars).
I've lived all these calamities, and I try to bring them into life in the form of words.

My advice is to read and write as if the words are the air you inhale for your daily sustenance. Refrain from defeatism, procrastination.

Your readers want to hear that you wrote something and not you're writing something. Past tense is better than present tense. The first communicates the job is done, the second well...simply, undone.

Good luck to everyone

-Rachid-