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jueves, marzo 25, 2010

Diez reglas para escribir




Vía Memo Vega me enteré de una lista de reglas para escribir que The Guardian pidió a varios escritores. Hay algunas buenas. Pongo por acá las diez de Margaret Atwood:

Margaret Atwood

1 Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.

2 If both pencils break, you can do a rough sharpening job with a nail file of the metal or glass type.

3 Take something to write on. Paper is good. In a pinch, pieces of wood or your arm will do.

4 If you're using a computer, always safeguard new text with a ­memory stick.

5 Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.

6 Hold the reader's attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don't know who the reader is, so it's like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What ­fascinates A will bore the pants off B.

7 You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you're on your own. ­Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine.

8 You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.

9 Don't sit down in the middle of the woods. If you're lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.

10 Prayer might work. Or reading ­something else. Or a constant visual­isation of the holy grail that is the finished, published version of your resplendent book.

2 Comments:

Blogger David Miklos said...

Me gustaron, igual que a ti, las reglas de Atwood: son de una redundancia mordaz. Me gustó el pragmatismo sincero de Jeanette Winterson (gran escritora). Y detesté a un autor cuya obra me gusta: Richard Ford. No toleré que alguien se atreviera a decir que para escribir no había que tener hijos... ¡acaba de nacer mi primera y única, Anna! Me sentí insultado, incluso. Pero no dejaré de leer a Ford. Creo que mi regla es una. Bueno: dos reglas. Ignorar las reglas de escritura propuestas por escritores. Y escribir.

10:20 a.m.  
Blogger soltero said...

David, muchas felicidades por la llegada de Anna, de veras. Coincido con tus dos reglas, pero la verdad que estos decálogos bobos son bastante entretenidos. Y a veces hasta reconfortantes. En cosa de no engolosinarse para no faltar a la segunda regla.
Un abrazo, G.

5:47 p.m.  

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