sábado, 4 de junho de 2011

alguns excertos de um bom professor

The object of fiction isn’t grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story . . . to make him/her forget, whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all. The single-sentence paragraph more closely resembles talk than writing, and that’s good. Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction. If not so, why do so many couples who start the evening at dinner wind up in bed?

(...)

A novel like The Grapes of Wrath may fill a new writer with feelings of
despair and good old-fashioned jealousy—“I’ll never be able to write anything that good, not if I live to be a thousand”— but such feelings can also serve as a spur, goading the writer to work harder and aim higher. Being swept away by a combination of great story and great writing—of being flattened,in fact—is part of every writer’s necessary formation. You cannot
hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

(...)

One of my favorite stories on the subject—probably more myth than truth—concerns James Joyce. According to the story, a friend came to visit him one day and found the great man sprawled across his writing desk in a posture of utter despair.
“James, what’s wrong?” the friend asked. “Is it the work?”
Joyce indicated assent without even raising his head to look at the friend. Of course it was the work; isn’t it always?
“How many words did you get today?” the friend pursued.
Joyce (still in despair, still sprawled facedown on his desk):
“Seven.”
“Seven? But James . . . that’s good, at least for you!”
“Yes,” Joyce said, finally looking up. “I suppose it is . . . but I don’t know what order they go in!”

On Writing - Stephen King.

3 comentários:

Diogo C. disse...

Já leste Pynchon?

Tolan disse...

Não. Fala de escrever, é?

Diogo C. disse...

Não. Ensina a escrever, porque é um Deus-escritor, um dos últimos vivos.

Acho que tem muito do que procuras.

Se conseguires o Arco-íris da gravidade, de que só há uma edição brasileira, a não ser que leias o original, lê e relê. O Bloom considera-o canônico do romance pós-moderno.