It took me a long time to publish my first book. It’s funny because I’m a professional writer and above all I have always been a reader, an avid one, and books, more than movies, TV, plays, books define who I am. I am a guy who reads. But it took me a lifetime to finish and to get a publisher for my first book, “O Herói Insone”.

I’m not going to bore you guys with details of my biography. It’s enough to say that I got into moviemaking, later I got into TV, drama and all that has to do with characters and actors conquered my heart and my attention, and it all became my profession. I make my living out of screenplays, not books.

Reading a lot made me someone who goes to bookstores a lot. Seems obvious but one does not necessarily comes from the other. Lots of people who read a lot don’t go to bookstores that often. Not to mention those who never go because they get their books online or as ebooks.

And here we get, this single moment of self love. The moment when I find my little book at a book store. Yes, I often actually look for it. I know exactly where it is at some stores. I get curious to see at what shelves they put it. If they use my last name, Mendes, to index it, or the middle name, França. But I also sometimes happen to find it when I am not looking for it, I’m just browsing the bookshelves. Because the ones who are real book addicts are always expecting a book to find them and not the other way around.

So my book found me.