When I was fifteen, I told my mother:
- I found my calling: I want to be a writer.
- My son, "she said, looking sad - your father is an engineer. It is a logical man, reasonable, with a clear vision the world. Do you know what it means to be a writer?
"Someone who writes books.
- Your Uncle Harold, who is a doctor, also writes books and has published some. Continues to the faculty of engineering and have time to write in your spare time .
"No, Mom. I want to be just a writer. Not an engineer who writes books.
- But you've already met a writer? Have you ever seen a writer?
- Never. Only in photographs.
- So how can you be a writer without knowing what that is?
To answer my mother decided to make an inquiry. And here is what I found out about what being a writer in the beginning of the sixties:
A writer always wears glasses and is not well comb. passes half his time with rage all, and half depressed . Live in bar, arguing with other writers, also wearing glasses and unkempt. Speech difficult. always has fantastic ideas about his next novel and hates just released.
A writer has the duty and obligation to ever be understood by his generation and will never be considered a genius, he was convinced he was born in an age where mediocrity reigns. A writer always makes various revisions and alterations s in every sentence he writes. The common man's vocabulary consists of 3,000 words, a true writer never uses them, since there are other 189,000 in the dictionary, and he is not a common man.
only other writers understand what a writer wants to say. Still, he secretly hates the other writers, as they are contesting the same seat that makes literary history throughout the centuries. Then, the writer and his peers compete for the trophy of the book more complicated: be considered the best one that got to be the most difficult.
A writer whose name means scared topics: semiotics, epistemology, neoconcretism. When you want to impress someone says things like "Einstein's donkey" or "Tolstoy is a clown of the bourgeoisie."
All are shocked, but others begin to repeat that the theory of relativity is Tolstoy wrong and defended the Russian aristocrats.
A writer to seduce a woman, says: "I'm a writer, and writes a poem on a napkin, always works.
Because of its rich culture, a writer always get a job as a literary critic . It is at this point when he shows his generosity, writing about books from friends. Half of the criticism is made up of quotations from foreign authors, the other half are phrases such analysis, provided using terms such as "epistemological break" or "integrated vision for a hub." critics who reads comments: "What man so religious!". And do not buy the book because you will not know how to continue reading when you see the epistemological break.
A writer, when invited to comment on what they are reading at the time, always quotes a book that nobody heard.
There is only one book that arouses the unanimous admiration of the writer and his peers: Ulysses, James Joyce. The writer never speaks ill of this book, but when someone asks what is, never get to explain it well, leaving doubts about whether he read it. It is absurd that Ulysses will never be reissued, as all writers quote as a masterpiece, perhaps the stupidity of the publishers, letting the opportunity to make big money with a book that everyone read it and everyone liked .
Provided all this information, I returned to my mother and explained exactly what a writer. It was a little surprised.
- is easier to be an engineer "he said. - Besides, you do not wear glasses.
But I was disheveled, with my pack of Gauloises into your pocket, a play under the arm (endurance limits, to my joy, Yan Michalski critic called "the craziest show I ever saw"), studying Hegel and decided to read Ulysses in any way.
Paulo Cohelo
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