Clear-Headed — Author's Note

by Cédric de Mylo

This second volume is built as a mirror of the first. Same timeline, same places, same characters… but a different perspective, a different light. As if shifting the angle just slightly could reveal a whole new reality.

The first chapter, Clear-Headed, opens with a creative gesture. This is deliberate: I wanted to begin with the shaping of matter, gradually leading toward the novel’s central character. A way to suggest that no one can be reduced to a single label. Each person is a construction — a layering of impulses, hesitations, contradictions, and growth.

And then there are those photographs that appear right from this opening chapter... Their presence is no accident. They will return. They mean something. What they reveal will become clear in time.

Thank you for following this writing journal.

See you soon for the next chapter — with a few new faces, too.

Excerpt

Slim, nimble hands work a small block of plaster with meditative patience. At times, the movement speeds up. Delicate. Precise. Intent. Then it pauses — as if to better express the unspeakable through touch… Slowly, a human head begins to emerge. A profile takes shape: the curve of a nose, the hint of lips, the softness of a brow. A face takes form, imbued with calm and quiet kindness.

The studio is spacious, vaulted, bathed in light. Large windows let in the breath of the outside world. On the white walls, shelves overflow with wooden bases and the sculptor’s tools: spatulas, scrapers, gouges, chisels, blades… A little farther on, a series of photographs is pinned up. They all seem to have been taken in the same place: a Mediterranean forest crossed by a narrow path winding among umbrella pines, squat holm oaks, a few olive trees, and patches of pale rock. A landscape of silence and wind. A cradle of gentle solitude.

A sculptor at work — the birth of a character through gesture and dust.