50 estratégias

50 estratégias para trabalhar (na escrita)

[Em inglês.]

Algumas, mencionadas, que resultaram comigo:

- Schedule your day's activities--and schedule writing hours first. This doesn't necessarily mean putting them first in the day, but putting them on the schedule itself first, so they get priority. Schedule everything: bathing, eating, sleeping, telephone time (outgoing calls, at least), walking the dog--everything. Then, if it's not on the schedule, don't do it. Schedule it tomorrow.

- Write to music. Put two or three CDs in the player and stay at the keyboard until they're done. Crank it up. Boogie a little. That's not just background noise; that's the sound of you working.

- Set a quota of pages written per day. Make this realistic. The object isn't to prove anything to anybody, but to give yourself a reasonable goal to shoot for, one you'll actually be able to hit every day. If you go over it, that's cool, but all you have to do each day is hit the quota. The catch: Extra pages don't count toward the next day's quota.

- Set a quota of hours worked per day/week. The same applies here as with page quotas. Make it realistic.

- Hide your wristwatch in a drawer. (Meaning: reduce your dependence on the clock. Let your inner circadian rhythms tell you when it's time to write and when it's not.)

[No meu caso: virar o relógio para a parede.]

ISTO tenho de experimentar (lol):

- Generate story ideas mechanically. Roll dice and pick characters and settings from a list. Tumble a desktop encyclopedia downstairs and write about whatever it opens to when it lands. Throw darts at your bookshelf and write a homage to whatever you hit. The goal here is to demystify "idea" as a stumbling block. Ideas are a dime a dozen once you learn how to find them. Become a supplier rather than a consumer.

[E usar o tarot para criar histórias/personagens. Note to self: comprar um baralho primeiro.]

- Outline. Plan everything you're going to write, scene by scene, all the way through to the end. Do your research while you're outlining, so by the time you start writing the actual story, you're already living in that world. With a detailed enough outline, the actual writing becomes a matter of choosing the right words to describe what you've already decided to tell. You can concentrate on style and let the plot take care of itself, because you've already done that part.
[Hum, uma sinopse muito completa não costuma resultar para mim... mas trabalhar na sinopse e fazer pesquisa ao mesmo tempo talvez resulte. A pensar.]

- Don't outline. Don't plan ahead at all. Feel the lure of the blank page. Trust your instincts and dive into the story, and don't look back until you're done.
[O meu método usual...]

Há mais lá. Vão espreitar :)