The Eternal City in January offers a particular kind of solitude. Tourist crowds have temporarily receded, leaving space for a more contemplative engagement with Rome’s layered history. I’ve taken a small apartment in Trastevere for the month—my first extended stay in a single location after nearly two years of perpetual movement. Each morning, I cross the Tiber via Ponte Sisto, the river below reflecting winter’s pale light, and venture into a different quarter of the city.
Yesterday’s wanderings brought me to the Colosseum shortly after sunrise. Without the usual crowds, the massive structure revealed itself more honestly—not as a tourist spectacle but as a testament to imperial ambition, architectural ingenuity, and human brutality. Standing in the arena where so much choreographed violence once unfolded, I found myself thinking about the narratives civilizations construct to justify cruelty, a theme I explored extensively in “Inhuman Humanity.”
But where that novel examined contemporary manifestations of institutional violence, Rome offers perspective on how such systems rise and eventually fall. The Colosseum now stands partially ruined, its original purpose obsolete, transformed into an object of historical contemplation rather than current spectacle. There’s something reassuring about this cycle—even the most imposing structures of power eventually crumble, becoming artifacts rather than active threats.
This sense of historical perspective feels particularly valuable after the intensity of the past eighteen months. Creating and releasing three novels in such rapid succession—”Shattered Horizons of Tarveran,” “Inhuman Humanity,” and “Anonymous Letters”—demanded a level of sustained focus and energy that proved both exhilarating and depleting. Now, with these books finding their way in the world, I’ve made a deliberate decision to pause, to create space for new ideas to germinate without immediate pressure for completion.
Rome provides the perfect environment for this creative interlude. Unlike London’s relentless forward momentum or Shanghai’s accelerated future, the Italian capital exists in a peculiar temporal suspension where past and present constantly interpenetrate. Yesterday’s visit to the Biblioteca Angelica—Italy’s first public library, established in 1604—brought this home forcefully. In its magnificent reading room, scholars bent over manuscripts beneath the same frescoed ceilings that have witnessed four centuries of intellectual inquiry. Time here feels less linear, more cyclical—a welcome counter to publishing’s constant demand for the next project, the next deadline.
The library itself contains over 200,000 volumes, including rare manuscripts and incunabula (books printed before 1501). A display of illuminated medieval texts particularly captivated me—their intricate illustrations and ornamental lettering representing hundreds of hours of patient, focused attention. These works emerged from monastic scriptoria where scribes devoted decades to projects they might never see completed, a stark contrast to our contemporary emphasis on rapid production and immediate circulation.
Walking back to my apartment through Campo de’ Fiori, I found myself contemplating the different temporal scales of creative work. Some ideas require quick execution—they present themselves fully formed, demanding immediate expression. Others need extended incubation—months or years of subconscious processing before they’re ready to emerge. Having worked primarily in the first mode during recent years, I’m deliberately shifting toward the second, allowing nascent concepts to develop at their own pace without forcing them toward premature articulation.
This doesn’t mean complete creative inactivity. Each day here, I maintain what I call a “garden notebook”—a collection of observations, fragments, questions, and possibilities that might eventually grow into finished work. The metaphor of gardening feels apt: I’m preparing soil, planting seeds, providing favorable conditions, but not yet focusing on harvest. Some of these seedling ideas may wither; others may flourish in unexpected ways. The uncertainty is part of the process.
One recurring theme in these notes involves the concept of ruins—how structures and systems decay, what persists, what transforms, what disappears entirely. Roman ruins demonstrate that destruction is rarely complete; fragments remain, are repurposed, incorporated into new constructions. The Pantheon’s perfect dome has survived largely intact for two millennia, while the Colosseum stands partially collapsed. The Teatro di Marcello was converted into medieval fortifications, then Renaissance palaces. Each structure has followed a different trajectory of preservation, adaptation, or decay.
This pattern of partial persistence, partial transformation mirrors my own relationship with previous projects. Elements from abandoned drafts often find their way into new works, sometimes years later. Ideas that didn’t fit one narrative become central to another. The creative process involves not just generation but recirculation—a continuing conversation with one’s past efforts.
After the more speculative settings of “Tarveran” and the dystopian elements of “Inhuman Humanity,” I find myself drawn back toward psychological realism. My garden notebook contains several character sketches for a potential novel centered on a group of scholars researching an obscure historical event, each bringing their own biases and agendas to the interpretation of limited evidence. The setting remains undetermined, but Rome’s scholarly environments—its libraries, archives, and academies—provide rich material for imagining such intellectual communities.
For now, however, I’m resisting the pull toward immediate production. This year will be one of input rather than output—of reading widely, observing carefully, and allowing ideas to develop organically. After the marathon of 2024, this creative pause isn’t an indulgence but a necessity—the fallow period that enables future fertility.
Tomorrow I’ll visit the Vatican Museums early, before the crowds arrive, to spend time with Raphael’s frescoes and the Sistine Chapel. Like the Colosseum and the ancient libraries, these Renaissance masterpieces offer lessons about creative ambition, technical execution, and the dialogue between tradition and innovation. Rome continues to teach me that great work emerges not from isolation but from engaged conversation with what came before—a lesson I hope to carry into whatever projects eventually emerge from this period of reflection.
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” (Emerson’s observation reminds me to trust the slow, organic development of new ideas during this creative pause)