Quotes from “Writers on Writing”

Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from The New York Times
By John Darnton (May 1, 2002)

作家談寫作 (中文譯本)
原文作者：John Darnton
譯者：戴琬真
出版社：麥田
出版日期：2004年11月12日

「有時候，一部小說的靈感就只是因為一個聲音，那聲音說著一些乍聽之下很蠢的事。」
(『速食小說?你做夢吧!』by Thomas Fleming, p.76)

Sometimes a novel emerges simply as a voice, saying something that sounds almost silly at first.

「寫小說和初戀無關。它和熱情與堅持有關，一種經常混夾著慾望和乏味工作的矛盾組合。比較像一場歷時很久的婚姻? 對，它需要不斷重新點燃心中對寫作的熱情，它要求對孤獨時刻的奉獻，你得孤獨地尋覓一個合理的字眼、語氣、風格、意義 (可以這樣說嗎?)，還有寫書的目的。」
(『忠誠說故事者的永恆承諾』by Maureen Howard, p. 110)

Writing fiction is not about first love ... It’s about passion and endurance, a combination of desire and grunt work often at odds with each other. More like a long marriage? Yes, the rekindling of the love of writing and a commitment to the solitary hours finding the word, tone, style – and may I mention the meaning? – why you are telling this story that will become a book with its pages.

「小說比較和慾望有關 --- 把慾望翻譯成文字 --- 是ㄧ種能夠忍受長時間專注的個性，換句話，是一種能夠日復一日獨坐一處的能力。」 (『從小說家變劇作家』by Ward Just, p.127)

Novels have more to do with desire – translating desire into prose – and a temperament that accepts concentration over the long haul, meaning the ability to sit alone in one place day by day.

「假如你想成為作家，你每天都必須寫作。統一、單調、確定、變異和熱情，全都包括在這件每天的例行公事中。你不能偶爾才去井邊提水，而要每天 都去。你不會忘了小孩的早餐，也不會在早晨忘記起床。周公每天都會來拜訪你，缪思女神也是如此。」
(『致作家:脆弱的想法須要每天灌溉』by Walter Mosley, p.181)

If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day. The consistency, the monotony, the certainty, all vagaries and passions are covered by this daily reoccurrence. You don’t go to a well once but daily. You don’t skip a child’s breakfast or forget to wake up in the morning. Sleep comes to you each day, and so does the muse.

「我們愛小說，因為它有真實的成分。多多少少，小說中的角色和我們自己相似。小說中的困境就像是我們日常生活所預見的難題，也有小說家真的寫的近乎自傳。」
(『用創造取代侵犯傷害』by Carol Shields, p. 242)

We love fiction because it possesses the texture of the real. The characters in a novel resemble, more or less, ourselves. Fiction’s dilemmas are similar to those we encounter every day, and there are novelists who do indeed write close to the autobiographical bone.

「寫作是為了閱讀自己寫出來的東西，看看它好不好，當然，因為它從來不曾好過，所以寫作也是為了重寫，ㄧ次、兩次……直到你能讓自己反覆讀下去為止。你是你自己的第一個讀者，或許也是最嚴厲的一個。」 (『指令：寫、讀、重寫。如果需要請自行重複第二、三步驟』by Susan Sontag, p. 255)

You write in order to read what you’ve written and see if it’s OK and, since of course it never is, to rewrite it – once, twice, as many times as it takes to get it to be something you can bear to reread. You are your own first, maybe severest, reader.

「寫作最終是一連串允許你以某些特定方式來表達自己的過程。去創造。去跳躍。去飛翔。去掉落。去發現你自己獨樹醫格的敘述方式和堅持；也就是讓你找到內在的自由。你要嚴格的自我指責，但別太過分。不要太常停下來重讀。當你認為還不錯(或是不太差)的時候，就讓自己繼續向前滑行吧。不要等待靈感來推你一把。」 (『指令：寫、讀、重寫。如果需要請自行重複第二、三步驟』by Susan Sontag, p. 255)

Writing is finally a series of permissions you give yourself to be expressive in certain ways. To invent. To leap. To fly. To fall. To find your own characteristic way of narrating and insisting; that is, to find your own inner freedom. To be strict without being too self-excoriating. Not stopping too often to reread. Allowing yourself, when you dare to think it’s going well (or not too badly), simply to keep rowing along. No waiting for inspiration’s shove.