Nedavno sam se opet odlučila priključiti zajednici na Goodreadsu, što sam zapustila u posljednje vrijeme. Planiram sve knjige o kojima sam pisala i sve postove koje sam napisala za ovaj blog prevesti i prebaciti na Goodreads (kao nezaposlena osoba, imam bezgranično mnogo vremena). Svaki mjesec od njih dobivam newsletter u kojem obično pišu novosti iz svijeta knjiga, a ovaj mjesec su imali druženje s Alainom de Bottonom i intervju s Paulom Austerom – da sam prava groupie, to bi za mene bio groupie – raj (OK, serem, totalno sam groupie!) Na pitanje još jednog groupieja o svojim spisateljskim navikama, Paul Auster je rekao sljedeće:
“My day begins as all days begin for every human being. You wake up—if you're alive, you wake up—pot of tea, read the paper, then walk to the little apartment three blocks away where I have my separate writing spot. It's very Spartan here, nothing to do but work. I spend as much time as I can writing each day, which usually means from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.—basically a 9-5 schedule. Some days one has more stamina, you're more on fire, it's a marathon so you have to pace yourself.
I do have a few unusual writing habits—I'm a dinosaur now. I write everything by hand and type it up on an old manual typewriter, an Olympia 1961. The one time any serious damage was done to it was when my now-33-year-old son was two, and he snapped off the return arm. I had to take it to a shop that was very much like the Hospital of Broken Objects in Sunset Park.
I can say this, I've never been able to compose on a keyboard. I need a pen or a pencil in my hand, feel that it's a very physical activity. When I write, words are literally coming out of my body.
I'm very particular about my notebooks, and 95 percent of the time they are the same kind of notebook: They're made in France and are very tall—Clairefontaine brand, 24 x 32 centimeters. They're filled with pages of graph paper, which I like, as my handwriting is rather small.
I tend to buy notebooks whenever I travel. I have Norwegian notebooks, Japanese notebooks, Australian notebooks. I write with a fountain pen, and over the years I've experimented with many different kinds of fountain pens, but for the past decade or so I've been using an Italian brand called Aurora. I do write with pencils, too, and those are always Pentel mechanical pencils with 0.5 leads. I told you I have small handwriting!”
(nisam vam prevodila, mislim da se možete snaći!)
Isto tako, Fannie Flagg, čije knjige pamtim po onom feel-good osjećaju (kako je i opisuju neki kritičari, iako ne uvijek u dobrom smislu), rekla je nešto o svojim spisateljskim navikama. Obratite osobito pozornost na bolesti od kojih boluje, jer je s takvim poremećajem napisati i kratak post za blog sigurno izazov, a kamoli nekoliko romana.
“I wake up in the morning and immediately before anything, I walk to my office, put on my coffee, and read my little positive affirmations. Sometimes. I can't be honest and say I do it every day. Then I sit down and start working. I stay there until 2 or 2:30 p.m., then I leave. I can't say hello to anyone, I can't talk to anyone on the phone, or deal with mail or television because I am severely dyslexic, and with that comes ADD. I am so easily distracted that if I see a leaf fall off a tree, I'm gone. I have friends who are writers and can sit there and answer the phone. I wish I could, but I can't do it.”
Ako Fannie Flagg to može, a ona je bolesna (inače, ostatak intervjua je obojen razmišljanjem i stavovima osobe koja posjeduje svevremensku klasičnu kulturu i južnjačku gostoljubivost, i koja kao da je ispala iz nekog drugog, pristojnijeg vremena), nema razloga zašto i neki od nas (koji su zdravi, imaju vrhunsku koncentraciju i sklonost pisanju) ne bi mogli napisati knjigu.
Isto tako, vidite da i zdrave osobe (poput Paula Austera), lako budu ometene i dekoncentrirane, stoga nije čudo što se odvajaju u posebne urede koji moraju biti sterilni i ne dopuštaju nikakvu dekoncentraciju.
Volite li vi čitati o radnim navikama slavnih književnika?