Those of you, who grew up in the former Soviet Union will remember the old production of Cinderella from 1947. If I am not mistaken it was first produced in black-and-white and later colored. I think that this is the best production of Cinderella ever. But I guess, everyone thinks this of their favorite movies from their childhood. The reason I mention this is that in this movie, the most wonders are not done by the Circe but by her pupil, whose name was simply “Boy”. Every time he was told to work a miracle, he looked apologetically at Cinderella and said: “I am not a wizard, I am just learning!” and did the most wonderful things.

So, now you know: I am not a wizard or a fairy, I am just learning. I am learning to create magic with words.

I recently discovered my incredible passion for writing and noticed the wonderful and relaxing flow of words as soon as I take a pen and a notebook. I have understood that one of my big dreams is to write and to share its results with others. I am not talking about publishing. I don’t know if I want to publish my writing. I guess I will discover the answer to this at some point. But I definitely want to write and share. I am really glad that there is such thing as blogs and blogging. And fortunately, I have already at least two readers who can’t wait to read everything I am writing: my sister and my niece. My husband is very supporting in this hobby of mine and my 2,5 year old son is pure inspiration to me. So, first of all this blog is devoted to them, to my entire family and is for all of them.

But it is also for anyone who would like to take a break from a daily routine, or chaos, or madness and immerse into thoughts of a total stranger or a friend, if we know each other.

If you speak German, you might think that I am German, because at least some of my sentences will have structure of those in German. But it would be only partially true. My best spoken language currently is indeed German, but my mother tongue is Romanian. I grew up in Moldova, former Soviet Socialistic Republic of Moldova and, as for many who grew up there, my Russian was for quite some time much better than my mother tongue, because my whole education was in Russian. Here is my brief geographical biography in reverse: I live today in Denmark, lived for twelve years and married in Germany, spent three years of my childhood in Algeria and I grew up in Moldova. So, I am very interested in many various languages and read in and about thirteen different languages, but I am a beginner in more than a half of them. This discourse on my language background should explain you the colorfulness and maybe also the reason for some of the possible misunderstandings, or I would rather see them as puzzles for you to solve.

So, if you are a linguist, then this blog might provide you with a lot of research material on the way a total foreigner percepts and writes in English, who incredibly enjoys reading and writing in this language.

What will this blog be on? Most probably it will be on almost everything. It will contain short and long stories, both true and fictions, it will have some contemplations, diary-like entries and short thoughts of mine as well as my favorite quotations of other authors. It will have references to interesting books, including guide books for creative writers, the exercises from which give me a lot of great ideas and the results of which will be posted on this blog as well.

I hope you will enjoy reading this blog and I am looking forward to your feedback, however short. Actually, I think that this blog cannot fail you. Even if you exclaim upon reading it: “What a waste of time!” it will be already a win-win situation for you and me. And the reason is simple: the best and the most enriching thing to be wasted is time. Being in the process of wasting it, you gain so much: you chuckle, you make harrumph sounds, you notice something you never noticed before, and the most important, this waste of time tears you out of your routine and your hurried life.

I plan to post at least once weekly in this blog. But it can happen that I post more or less often, depending on some obvious factors as eagerness to write (for more) and being on a long vacation (for less).

So, I invite you to waste your time with me and have a great time!

Victoria, alias Vica