Blog
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Chase
Barking.
Lightning.
The paws, the ears.
Cotton tail.
It crosses the wire fence.
Gets lost in the field.
And the dogs’ chase ends. -
Atorada con qué hacer la novela interesante
Sobre el bloqueo literario. Y ya no recuerdo a quién le volé el link de algún publicación anterior; lo más seguro es que haya sido a Marina Nill…
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It is only after years of this sort of practice
Photo by Vika Glitter on Pexels.com To read this quote in the original source, you may download the book from the Gutenberg project, totally free. The book is not, in any way, a manual on how to write fiction yet it makes a lovely reading. (Yes, I’m copying the style).
<<“The young writer”, as Stevenson has said, “instinctively tries to copy whatever seems most admirable, and he shifts his admiration with astonishing versatility. It is only after years of this sort of practice that even great men [[1]] have learned to marshal the legion of words which come thronging through every byway of the mind.”>>
<<I am afraid I have not yet completed this process. It is certain that I cannot always distinguish my own thoughts from those I read, because what I read becomes the very substance and texture of my mind. Consequently, in nearly all that I write, I produce something which very much resembles the crazy patchwork I used to make when I first learned to sew. This patchwork was made of all sorts of odds and ends—pretty bits of silk and velvet; but the coarse pieces that were not pleasant to touch always predominated. Likewise my compositions are made up of crude notions of my own, inlaid with the brighter thoughts and riper opinions of the authors I have read. It seems to me that the great difficulty of writing is to make the language of the educated mind express our confused ideas, half feelings, half thoughts, when we are little more than bundles of instinctive tendencies. Trying to write is very much like trying to put a Chinese puzzle together. We have a pattern in mind which we wish to work out in words; but the words will not fit the spaces, or, if they do, they will not match the design. But we keep on trying because we know that others have succeeded, and we are not willing to acknowledge defeat.>> <<«There is no way to become original, except to be born so,» says Stevenson, and although I may not be original, I hope sometime to outgrow my artificial, periwigged compositions. Then, perhaps, my own thoughts and experiences will come to the surface. Meanwhile I trust and hope and persevere, and try not to let the bitter memory of «The Frost King[2]» trammel my efforts. So this sad experience may have done me good and set me thinking on some of the problems of composition. My only regret is that it resulted in the loss of one of my dearest friends, Mr. Anagnos.>>
[1] [I will open a bracket in order to add all those anonymous women and heroine writers who have left a track in our writing; whom Stevenson didn’t include in the list of the great. Such as: Christine Nöstlinger, Jean Webster, Anette Levy-Willard, Marguerite Duras and Virginia Wolf. Add as many as you want in your comments so we start adding women to that list of the great writers.]
[2] In her youth, Helen Keller wrote a children’s tale which was published and later, accused of plagiarism. She was found unwilling guilty. Which was quite difficult to prove since she would memorize anything she read through Braille’ before she could write anything and there was no way to know what she had read or not. She was deaf so she couldn’t have heard of it unless her teacher did translate the «plagiarism story» on her hands by signs. She couldn’t have read it alone cause it was when she was learning Braille. The tribunal resolve had the publishing person (her friend Mr. Anagnos) to avoid her from then on and it hurt enough for her to stop writing… For a lot of time after until she wrote My life with her.
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Michistitch
Sí es de cartón o papel… Sí destruye todo.
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Arreglos
Llave angular de barril de 1/2″.
Latiguillo o manguera de abasto.
Yo con una llave Stilson y un lago en el baño. -
Pauta de inevitabilidad cuántica
Yaya Ceravieja no habría sabido lo que era una pauta de inevitabilidad cuántica ni aunque se la encontrara comiéndose su cena. Si alguien le mencionara las palabras «paradigmas espaciotemporales», ella se limitaría a replicar «¿Qué?». Pero eso no quería decir que fuera una ignorante. Sólo quería decir que no tenía ningún trato con las palabras, y menos con la jerigonza. En cambio, sabía perfectamente que ciertas cosas suceden siempre en la historia humana, se repiten como clichés tridimensionales. Son los cuentos.
Brujas de viaje. Terry Pratchett. -
¡La introducción ya se acabó!
Photo by Sebastian Ervi on Pexels.com
Hola. Esta entrada es solo para anunciar que el libro de introducción a la narratología ya se acabó. O, que ya llegué al final (¡por fin!). Estoy en la página 155 de 164 y lo que hace Mieke Bal en el resto de páginas es indicar a qué autor pertenecen las ideas que ha estado expresando y el año. También hay, como debe ser, una bibliografía al final y una página en blanco.No creo seguir con el tema. Es harto aburrido y si lo publique en el blog era sólo para tener un poco de presión ‘pública[1]‘ porque me daba lo que se dice una flojera de aquellas y porque es un consejo que te dan para no abandonar cuando estudias un idioma (de nuevo, presión ‘pública’).
En Abril me dedicaré a ver si puedo escribir 100 páginas en un mes. No creo pero ya veremos. ¿Tal vez si lo publico aquí…? Eso o podría traducir una monada de Diana Wynne Jones y Úrsula K. Leguin. No todo por los derechos de autor pero sí una parte.
Entre tanto, pásala bien escribiendo. Pasto kalo.
[1][1] Y la llamo ,’pública’ porque de fijo, sé que tengo cuatro lectores asiduos: La cocina de Meg ( que sé que anda por ahí), Dan chan, Big Choma y Deniz qie lee principalmente la poesía en inglés. Cuatro lectores no son lo que se dice público ¿o sí?
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Why to show ONLY the tip of the iceberg when writing?p2
Photo by DS stories on Pexels.com UNAVOIDABLE BUT UNEXPECTED
This is the main reason we end up adoring our character. We become intimate, cuates, bros, pals. Close enough to anticipate and become experts in what characters are to do or not to do. To believe something is logical or illogical through a given path and looking in retrospective.
Characters are the GPS. They tell us if something is shit hitting the fan.
They tell us things as:
- History (yeah, believe it or not your historical circumstances make it out here)
- Personal baggage
- Complications
- Fears
- Wishes
- Ice cream flavor (what about mint choco… Mine is cheese, if they can’t make cheese taste well, they can’t make nothing taste well and yes, that’s a double negation…)
- Shoe size
- Shoe brand (Nike or Vans?)
FITZGERALD FAN
Domet, as a Scott Fitzgerald fan uses Jay Gatsby as an example of iceberg. She says HE, would choose a decadent and sickly sugary ice cream flavor like double choco mint, would buy his suits in Brooks Brothers and furnish his bedroom in mahogany.
I, of course, disagree a little. Not for the moor of disagreeing but because; unlike Domet, I have a graphic background. And in graphic language there are pre-established symbols and personal images to the way of Milan Kundera’s personal dictionaries[1], The pre-established symbolism takes me to marble instead of wood (it is bigger and grandiose). Whilst my poor and not showable off knowledge of the world, makes me think vanilla; a lot less rich and sometimes tasteless but quite elegant and safe. About the clothes, I have no idea. I didn’t use to know Savile Row and haven’t seen a single Brook Brothers.
Nonetheless, knowing the character as something we barely look at (our hand’s palm), is very difficult given the fact even 3D people is quite incomprehensible. Yet, characters are never as complicated or able or so much as of being random in their doing.
FBI INQUIRY TO GET TO KNOW INTIMATELY OUR SUSPECT… OOPS, I MEANT CHARACTER.
Some of these questions belong to 90 days to your novel, Sarah Domet’s book. Some others are of my own concoction.
- What does the character wants from life?[2]
- Mate, tea, cocoa or coffee? Sugar? Milk?
- What’s their biggest trauma?
- What’s their name’s meaning?
- Where do they work at?
- What’s their favourite music?
- What do they use to wash their car? What car do they have?
- What do they sleep in? Chanel no. 5, pijamas or old clothes?
REMEMBER. These questions are not the plot. They’re the compass to be sure what’s the right decision when facing a problem. Domet says they will give you a kinetic memory of what the character’s to do and say. Maybe, and just as an idea. To kill them from embarrassment.
Thus, have a great time writing. Pastol kalo.
[1] A single word may evoke different things for you than what it evokes in me. It is not the same to know a taco from Taco bell than expecting a maize tortilla filled in with anything from scrambled eggs to beans.
[2] Great, even I don’t know that myself…
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Cuando no puedes castigar a otro poderoso…
Castiga a la víctima. Medusa y la violación del templo.