写作与思考2010poets.org
查尔斯·布考斯基：你想成为作家吗？
Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?
导读
这是布考斯基那首著名的诗《So you want to be a writer?》的讨论：诗里说，如果写作不是不由自主地从你身上涌出来，那就别写。评论区围绕“写作门槛该不该这么高”“灵感与修改的关系”展开争论，对写作者很有价值——它逼你判断自己到底是想要写作，还是想要“作家”这个身份。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把“没人鼓励时你还愿不愿意继续写”当作检验自己是否真想做写作的标准，而不是等灵感或别人的许可。
- 02
初稿粗糙、反复删改、写到一半觉得“这是垃圾”都是常态，不必用“必须一气呵成”的浪漫标准否定自己。
- 03
灵感不会凭空降临：先把自己浸进素材里，再固定坐到桌前“耐心等待”，为灵感创造出现的条件。
- 04
警惕为了维持“真性情／不被理解的天才”人设而写作，人设和作品好坏无关。
HN 评论精选
反对“写不出来就别写”，强调修改与自我怀疑是写作的常态。
冒着不同意布考斯基的风险说：这是失败主义的鬼话。我怀疑世上没有一个作家不曾苦苦把词句挤到纸上，不曾删改、推翻、重写才写出值得读的东西，不曾一边写一边想“这是垃圾”，回头再看才发现它累积成了好东西。写作本来就难，没必要再用一种虚假的浪漫念头让它更难：仿佛不是从额头里完整蹦出来的文字就不配写下来。
RyanMcGreal查看英文原文
At the risk of disagreeing with the great Charles Bukowski, this is defeatist bullshit. I doubt there's a writer alive who has never had to struggle to put words on the page; who hasn't had to edit and revise and throw out and rewrite to produce something worth reading; who hasn't plodded through the writing process thinking "This is rubbish" only to go back and look over it and realize that it has added up to something good. Writing is hard. There's no need to make it harder by instilling a false, romantic sense that writing which doesn't spring fully formed from the writer's forehead isn't worth putting onto the page.
这首诗其实是一道过滤器：能顶住“劝退”继续写的人才是真作家。
如果我没记错，《女人》里有一段算是对这首诗的解释：找他求建议的“想当作家的人”太多，他就干脆劝他们放弃。没放弃的，才是真作家；只因为一个老混蛋劝了两句就放弃的，那也就……
_pius查看英文原文
IIRC, if you read Women, you'll see a passage where Bukowski essentially clarifies this piece. He'd get so many wannabe writers asking him for advice that he'd tell them to just give it up. If they didn't, they were real writers. If they gave up just because some old prick told them to, well ...
灵感不可强求但可创造条件：先沉浸素材、坐到位子上，再等待它来。
也许他想说的是你得先有灵感——也就是先有想说的话，而不是为了有话说才开口。我喜欢这句话：“灵感眷顾坐在打字机前的人”，意思是你无法强求灵感，但可以创造让它出现的条件，这大概就是布考斯基说的“那就耐心等待”。我的灵感常出现在洗澡、秋日公园散步或咖啡馆里，但我确实需要先做准备：把自己浸入素材，然后向沉默提问，而不是预设答案。我喜欢庞加莱的说法：我们靠逻辑证明，靠直觉发明；逻辑若不经直觉滋养，便始终贫瘠。
10ren查看英文原文
Maybe he's getting at the idea that you need to have inspiration - in other words, you first need to have something to say, rather than to speak in order to have something to say. I love this writer's saying: inspiration strikes he who is at the typewriter, meaning that although you cannot force inspiration, you can create conditions for it. Maybe that's what he means when Bukowski says then wait patiently. Although my inspirations tend to come in the shower or walking in the park on a crisp autumn morning or sitting in a cafe, I do need to prepare myself - by immersing myself in the material, then asking a question of silence, instead of presuming the answer. IANAM, but I love the approach of Poincaré: It is by logic we prove, it is by intuition that we invent. http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Poincare.html He also says, in agreement with Bukowski: Logic, therefore, remains barren unless fertilised by intuition.
警惕“硬汉真作家”人设：艺术才能与人品、与写作动机的纯粹性并不相干。
这是首好诗。但读完他好几本书后，我觉得他作为人几乎是场灾难。我比较同意 Modest Mouse 那首《Bukowski》的歌词：“今早醒来我觉得，每一夜都变得更像布考斯基一点。是啊，我知道他的东西挺好看，可天啊，谁想成为那样？谁想成为这样的混蛋？”我不是要贬低这首诗，只是想说：布考斯基更在意把自己写成“一个不被理解、保持真实、不像其他冒牌作家的硬汉作家”，而不是别的。又一个证据：能创作伟大艺术的人，和适合当你室友或配偶的人，未必相关。参见亨特·S·汤普森。
dalton查看英文原文
That is an excellent poem, and I remember reading it before I was familiar with his work. Now that I have actually read several of his books, I see how he was sort of a disaster as a human being: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski I sort of have to agree with Modest Mouse on this one. Lyrics from the song Bukowski: "Woke up this morning and it seemed to me, that every night turns out to be a little bit more like Bukowski. And yeah, I know he's a pretty good read. But God who'd wanna be? God who'd wanna be such an asshole? God who'd wanna be? God who'd wanna be such an asshole?" Not trying to take away from the poem, just trying to make the point that Bukowski was way more interested in writing things that make him seem like a "badass misunderstood writer who Keeps It Real unlike all of these other phonies who claim to be writers" than anything else. Sound like any company founder you know? Yet another datapoint that being someone who makes great art, and being someone you would want to be roommates with/married to, are not exactly related. See Also: Hunter S. Thompson.
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