Tag: writing

It is curious how the writing process always seems unpleasant, or at the very least, overexposes its worst aspects. We start a prose piece, and our mind remembers how much more beautiful poetry is; we draft a volume of verse, and our mind seems to miss the productivity of prose. There is no escape: whatever we create, the process will always be a struggle, and abandoning it will always be easier. That’s why it makes us envious when we observe those who play around making art or make it thinking of figures, of fame, of readers. Although they produce mediocre works, they free themselves from this unbearable anguish and this terrible desire for annihilation.

Auguste Dorchain, in L’art des vers, admirably defined the charm provided by poetry: “la surprise dans la sécurité”, “la variété dans l’unité”, “la liberté dans la discipline”. It is the balance between such contrasts that gives us a sense of pleasure in going through a poetic work. Without the security, the unity, the discipline, we do not find the whole harmonious; without the surprise, the variety, the freedom, it does not seem stimulating. Thus, it is fair that a poet defines which elements will represent the first qualities, and which the second in his poem. It is by balancing them that a well-made whole is built, even if it leans more toward the most desired effect. While the yearning for freedom that inspired poets of the past is understandable, while many innovations have renewed and enhanced admirably the poetic art, it seems a depreciation of art to accept it performed in any way, as if the music of a layman playing a musical instrument in disorderly fashion were rewarded with praise.

We jump from English to Portuguese poetic theory and observe a contrast. In English, rhythmic regularity is valued, when it seems Portuguese theorists agree that variety gives dynamism to poems and is, therefore, preferable to avoid “monotony”. The curious thing is that the latter do not suspect that there is no rhythm without regularity and end up fatally praising the rhythm of poems that do not have it. Any sentence spoken in any language will have an intonation, or a “cadence” of its own when analyzed individually. Poetry, however, arranges phrases in such a way that there is a harmonious link between them, a link determined by rhythm. If, from one verse to the next, everything changes, there can be no rhythm in the composition, unless one makes a creative and non-musical use of this word.

It is laughable the lack of creativity of these screenwriters who, when portraying a writer, must necessarily describe a period in which he experiences the much discussed, romanticized and ridiculous “creative block”. All professionals in all areas have processes, methods, a work system that allows them to obtain results despite mood and creative swings; except, of course, this stupid writer, who insists on sitting down every day in front of a white canvas, with absolutely nothing planned. It is regrettable to say it but, unfortunately, this so-called “creative block” simply does not exist for professional writers. Sitting in front of a blank canvas is just amateurism; and the professional writer who does so is just acting like an amateur. It does not take much experience to realize that the process of devising plots, chapters, and poems can largely be carried out away from the desk, in a relaxed, sometimes more favorable environment. It does not take much experience, either, to realize it is easier to execute a plan than to make it from scratch and then execute it. No, no… it is needed to keep representing the writer as a beast, who stubbornly sits down every day to solve all problems at once, the writer who sits down and waits for an angel to come down from heaven and guide his hand… What a joke!