social investigation

The process itself, of putting one word together with another to structure a thought in a way that makes it communicable, shouldn't hurt. The art of writing is a pleasure and that is why those of us who write are always involved in this, either writing as such or thinking about what to write or remembering what we already wrote. It is a pleasure and, consequently, it develops a need, a drive, a form of falling in love...

Inspiration is talked over and over again. What if it's a crush, like Cupid's. What if it is a flash, some muses, some magicians, a miracle, a door, an ancestor, a mischievous spirit that suddenly opens the way for us to a beautiful text or gives us a key or a map or a compass towards a subject that lends itself to our literary adventures. In the context of writing our story, that inspiration would tell us where to start or which characters are key or which places to recreate or what treasure is in our memory that serves as the foundation for the narrative...

Eager to polish a story, we proceed to replace common places with other, more creative and personal ways of saying things. Now, it is necessary to think (besides being original) what that "common phrase" or commonplace really affects. Sometimes it is because sincerity is lacking where the matter of being believed is essential, as in a testimony or in an autobiography, because there specificity is the greatest contribution...

In the shared territory of the language, there are not only words, the structures that give them meaning, local expressions, grammatical and orthographic conventions, etc. There is also a drinking fountain, a source of ready-made phrases or expressions that we call commonplaces. They come from interesting or effective findings that some author gave to humanity and humanity, grateful, wanted to show their admiration by repeating that phrase and embellishing or improving their literature with it. That author could be a poet, a novelist, an orator, a philosopher...

I asked a friend who is a great conversationalist why she didn't write those colorful and interesting stories that she told with such grace and enthusiasm. He replied that without the nourishment of the immediate reaction of his audience, he could not fabricate stories and that he had tried but that the result was frustrating. “My written stories -he lamented- seem rigid and bland to me; they are no longer living words”.

They say that many who have shouted eureka! finding something they desperately sought, they achieved it in the humbling, everyday act of taking a shower or soaking in a bathtub. The explanation is that when we let go of the state of despair, the mind is released and finds itself without effort, that is, in freedom.

I suggest an exercise to hone our observation capabilities. In a meeting let us remain silent for ten or fifteen minutes. Let's observe people: their gestures, interactions, their way of dressing, of seeing others, of intervening or listening or being silent. Everything has a specific way of happening: let's observe in detail, minutely.

Like flying, writing is learned by launching. Like the birds that come with the instruments in the suitcase of the wings, whoever writes comes equipped with two essential tools: something to say and a visceral need to say it. And the rest, as the Guatemalan Monterroso would say, paraphrasing the British Shakespeare, the rest is silence. In other words, if you already have something to say and it stings you to say it, don't ask for anything else. Fly. Scribe.

How do you write a tango? I asked for. A tango is not written, it is danced, they answered me in the classic posture of someone who enjoys consuming and not doing what is consumed.

Go for a walk. Without direction. With no other purpose than to activate the energies with which we converse with ourselves: prelude to the act of writing. Make the effort not to think? Not precisely. It is about allowing thoughts to flow in their own way, which is generally chaotic or at least interrupted by the environment where we are walking and curiously looking at artists.