Ler estes exercícios por autores - enfim - vivos vale o que vale, sendo porém mais barato e útil do que um curso de escrita criativa. Se a estes escritores vivos acrescentássemos os conselhos entretanto deixados por todos os mortos, mais o Vargas Llosa, ficaríamos com um corpo de leis próximo do de um calhamaço de Direito. Limitei-me pois a extrair duas sínteses: a das regras mais divertidas e a das regras mais úteis para mim. Remato com uma regra boa para Mário de Carvalho, um escritor que cumpre sempre, embora sem perceber que qualquer manifestação de um dicionário de sinónimos no meio da prosa não é um oásis, é um baixio. 

 

Regras divertidas

 

1. Do back exercises. Pain is distracting. Margaret Atwood

 

2. 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. Margaret Atwood

 

3. Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide. Roddy Doyle

 

4. Do spend a few minutes a day working on the cover biog – "He divides his time between Kabul and Tierra del Fuego." But then get back to work. Roddy Doyle

 

5. The first 12 years are the worst. Anne Enright 

 

6. Are you serious about this? Then get an accountant. Hillary Mantel

 

7. Don't try to anticipate an "ideal reader" – there may be one, but he/she is reading someone else. Joyce Carol Oates

 

8. Stop reading fiction – it's all lies anyway, and it doesn't have anything to tell you that you don't know already (assuming, that is, you've read a great deal of fiction in the past; if you haven't you have no business whatsoever being a writer of fiction). Will Self

 

9. Don't be one of those writers who sentence themselves to a lifetime of sucking up to Nabokov. Geoff Dyer

 

10. Try to be accurate about stuff.  Anne Enright 

 

Regras úteis 

 

1. Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue. Helen Dunmore

 

2. Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet. Zadie Smith

 

3. Keep in mind Oscar Wilde: "A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal." Joyce Carol Oates

 

4. Try to think of others' good luck as encouragement to yourself. Richard Ford

 

5. Don't wait for inspiration. Discipline is the key. Esther Freud

 

6. Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it. Neil Gaiman

 

7. Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong. Neil Gaiman

 

8. Laugh at your own jokes. Neil Gaiman

 

9. Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious. PD James

 

10. Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire. Geof Dyer

 

Regra para Mário de Carvalho

 

Do keep a thesaurus, but in the shed at the back of the garden or behind the fridge, somewhere that demands travel or effort. Chances are the words that come into your head will do fine, eg "horse", "ran", "said". Roddy Doyle

 

 

Primeiro com motivação,  depois por orgulho. Whatever works.