Semanário 160
Como separar o EU-Escritor do EU-Leitor?
Os leitores que nunca tiveram pretensões de escrever um livro, conseguem ler um livro e vê-lo de forma crítica. Talvez até vejam mais que um escritor que leia o trabalho de outro. Será que o leitor e o escritor/leitor lêem o mesmo livro de forma totalmente diferente?
Acredito que sim, pois enquanto que o leitor procura no livro o que gosta e o que não gosta, o leitor/escritor procura no mesmo livro o que funciona e o que não funciona, de forma a usar isso como um quase estudo para quando passa de leitor a escritor.
Esta impossibilidade de separar os dois é extremamente interessante e enriquecedora em determinadas fases da escrita, no entanto também há o revés da moeda: Quando lê os seus livros, o autor não consegue separar o Eu-Leitor do EU-escrito e desta forma não consegue ver erros que para os outros são óbvios e por vezes nem mesmo consegue ver o que de melhor tem o seu manuscrito por ser incapaz de desligar o Eu-Escritor.
Por mais que tente fazê-lo (desligar o Eu-Escritor quando estou a ler os meus manuscritos e preciso de me sentir como um leitor), nunca consigo. Claro que há coisas que saltam à vista e são impossíveis de ignorar, mas depois existem outras coisas que, quando mais tarde nos são apontadas, só conseguimos pensar “Como é que eu não vi isto?”.
Na semana que passou li textos de três escritoras, na condição de beta-reader (ler o manuscrito antes de ser enviado para editoras e dar opiniões/conselhos) e percebi, talvez mais do que nunca, que o que fiz para elas não consigo fazer para mim mesma. De tal forma que, quando estava a apontar alguns erros ao trabalho dessas escritoras, dei por mim a ter consciência que eu própria havia cometido alguns dos mesmos erros e isso nunca me tinha parecido mal, simplesmente porque não consigo ler o que escrevo com os olhos tão críticos.
Será que mais alguém sente o mesmo?
*ENGLISH*
Weekly 160
How to separate the I-Writer and the I-Reader?
Readers who never had any will to write a book can read one and see it with critique eyes. Maybe they can even see more than a writer who reads someone else’s work. Is it possible that the reader and the reader/writer can read the same book in a completely different way?
I believe so, because while the reader looks for what he likes and doesn’t like in a book, the reader/writer searches, in that same book, for what works and what doesn’t, so that he may use that as an almost study for when he himself works as a writer.
This inability to separate the two (reader and writer) is extremely interesting and enriching in certain phases of the writing process, yet here’s also the other side of the story. When reading his own books the author is unable to separate the I-Reader from the I-Writer and by doing so he doesn’t see the mistakes that are very obvious for other people, and sometimes he can’t even discern what his manuscript does best and worst because he is unable to turn the I-Writer off.
No matter how much I try to do this (turn off the I-Writer off when I’m reading my writings and I need to feel like a reader), I never can. Of course some things just jump out and are impossible to ignore, but there are other things that are later pointed out to us and we think (How did I miss this?”.
Last week I read the texts of three writers, as a beta-reader (reading other peoples manuscripts to give advices/opinions, before they are sent to editors) and I realized, maybe more than ever, that what I did for them I’m unable to do for myself. That is so true that while I was pointing out other people’s ‘mistakes’ I suddenly realized I myself had made those same mistakes and never realized it, simply because I can’t read what I write with such criticizing eyes.
Does anyone else feel the same?
And because I couldn’t simply take time to work on other peoples writing, I wrote two short-stories: one about books, to submit to Fénix fanzine, after a revision; another on Dragons, that I think I’ll submit to the Terrir Classic Monsters anthology, and this one is related to “Dragons and their Sacrifices”, which I still have to revise (the short story and the novel).
As you may guess, last week was productive and on top of that there was another writer’s meeting (nanoninjas) that took place on the 12th, in Oporto and it was a lot of fun.
As a final note I leave you with a parody for the comic “Don’t Feed the Skull“, written by me and drawn by Rui Alex, which is included in the magazine/fanzine Zona Nippon 1 (in stores now!).