“”I write.”  This statement is the one and only real “datum” a writer can start from.  “At this moment I am writing.”  Which is also the same as saying: “You who are reading are obliged to believe only one thing: that what you are reading is something that at some previous time someone has written; what you are reading takes place in one particular world, that of the written word.  It may be that likenesses can be established between the world of the written word and other worlds of experience, and that you will be called upon to judge upon these likenesses, but your judgment would in any case be wrong if while reading you hoped to enter into a direct relationship with the experience of worlds other than that of the written word.”  I have spoken of “worlds of experience,’ not of “levels of reality,” because within the world of the written word one can discern many levels of reality, as in any other world of experience.”

-Italo Calvino-

p.s….

“A work of literature might be defined as an operation carried out in the written language and involving several layers of reality at the same time”

“The preliminary condition of any work of literature is that the person who is writing has to invent that first character, who is the author of the work”

(further Calvino’s)