Arquivo de writing | Page 29 of 30

Short Clauses and Pace

I flip through some writing manuals, read articles by scholars of letters, and perceive a certain obsession with short clauses as style formers. I do not deny: short clauses, in fact, add dynamism to any text. But style is a mixture between expressiveness, concision and rhythm, and if we can say that short clauses dynamize, the long ones, in turn, deepen. Let’s see: Nelson Rodrigues. This master, especially in his fictional narratives, made use of the short clauses with extreme expertise. Meanwhile, we have to think: how are Rodriguian novels? Soon we will see that Nelson purposely imprinted dynamism to the narratives, since the plots are developed in accelerated progression, generating apprehension and expectation. It is a technique, instigates the reader. But Nelson knew, like few, to print rhythm to his texts, and the clauses in which the master wanders, extends, diluting the germinated tension in previous clauses are not rare. Now let’s look at the other side: I think of Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, Hermann Broch. What would these authors be without their long clauses? Or rather: how to print depth in the narrative without using robust paragraphs and long constructions? Is it possible? Evident… but it is undeniable that this is an accurate technique. It is all a question of asking ourselves: what do we want to write? An objective narration? Describe the sequence of an action? Or sink a character in a reflection? Evoke reverie in the reader? They are different goals. And if, as I have read more than once, long clauses may suggest affectation, provoke boredom, stir up futile details, no doubt a narrative developed exclusively in short clauses will sound like shallow, broken and banal.

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Very Simple Precept

I see my production swelling, the work of these days taking shape and, systematically, the progress appearing. Gone are 25,000 words that came out light, — please do not remind me of the review… — from seven hundred to a thousand per working session, with good days — and them has been the majority — adding two daily sessions, no major problems with the plot outlined, the characters taking dynamism, all going very well… I see that all this is due to a very simple precept: to sit and write. If I lose the morning, patience, but the night will never fail. And if I find myself unwell, again patience, but I have to write, because writing is an inflexible priority for me. So I can make progress, I find myself in just over twenty days with almost half a volume written — I know, I know, not yet revised… — and everything seems to be moving better and better. I do not know at what level the experience will carry my productivity in a few years, but for now I feel with manifest satisfaction.

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Publication: Act of Renounce

I see the publication as an act of renounce. Publishing is, briefly, giving up on improving a text. For my part I can say: all these notes are written on Saturday, or before: written during the week, while I try to sleep, then rewritten on Saturday and abandoned, obligatorily, on Sundays, when I schedule the publications. I always publish in dismay, determined to do better next week. And the same thing I say to the books: I have, after all, a volume of thirty short stories, which I cannot even look at and which I have not yet published for specific reasons. To me are dead lines, incorrigible, that will come out soon whether I agree with that or not. Poems finished, the same: I can not read them, disgusts me to have them in visual contact. And that is the only way I can work. If I could not forget the flaws of my works, ignore them, then I would certainly still be writing my first short story today.

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How to Deal with Creative Blocks?

Easy question and prompt answer. How to deal with creative blocks? Giving it due importance: none.

I even understand the terror of some writers with the white screen, the vacuum of ideas, such “creative blocks”. But I see this as an extremely fragile problem, likely to be broken with three beats on the keyboard.

What is so-called “creative blocks” is usually the set of psychological excuses that a writer repeats to himself for not writing.

As long as it is possible to begin a novel with “Once upon a time…”, a tale with “It was a sunny morning…”, an essay with “The object of this study…” or a dialogue with “How are you?”, creative block will never be a relevant problem.

But what happens, and the little practice has always supported me, is that the fingers activate the brain, and if they dare to type something like “Once upon a time…”, automatically the brain, irascible and relentless, will make immediate correction, so that even before the fingers finish their youthful intent, the phrase will already be properly reconstructed.

The brain is lord and stubborn broker of the fingers, but needs their stimulus to put itself to work. So, if a sunny day dawns, just for that, the brain will begin to paint it as it should be, and then the fingers, very agitated and hasty slaves, will have to review the work done badly or continue if it is good, which they will do with great pleasure, since they are made to hard work. In short: it all comes down to a matter of starting the movement.

Therefore, understanding “creative block” as a problem of the fingers, taking note that, when sitting down, he will immediately put himself to write, regardless of the emotional state, environment or motivation of the day, the writer can thus keep his spirits up for the terrible work that awaits him in the review, which will require everything possible to extract from his brain, tormenting him with the unattainable form, the failure in the rhythm of the text, the bad chaining of paragraphs, the word that escapes or does not express to him precisely… not to mention, of course, the extremely bitter feeling that will immediately sprout in his chest as soon as the brain begins to bring to life the lines written in a state of emotion.

This “creative block” is a problem that arouses laughter when the writer stakes goosebumps in front of a poorly written text, full of errors, long-winded, tedious, inexpressive, knowing that exactly this text took him tens of hours and constitutes, in short, the work of his life.

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