This strange mania of being a writer

03/02/2023 Nilson Lattari

Ok, I confess. I like to talk about myself. Like a writer, of course!
The writer is, at first, selfish, egocentric, arrogant and he thinks his text is the best in the world. If he loses some literary contest, this tragedy happened because they are unfair to him. I love it! Ok, there is an explanation: if you don’t like your text, who will like it? Us, of course!
I imagine how people see writers: creators of curious characters, smart people, always happy, good humour, plenty of creativity, and charming princes. Well, believe me, all this is fantasy. We have colds and fevers sometimes. We don’t earn money from our writing. We go to supermarkets and stores to check products and vegetables as if we understood something about them. No question, writers know things, don’t they? But all this is false, lies, because lies are our matter. Writers lie all the time. They lie so much that they turn a lie into a true story. And they copy ideas from others, as you have just noted.
When you read a novel, you imagine the characters created there. In fact, in general, characters are based on authors. In theory, the only person that a writer knows is him. Then, every character is an author trying to be him. There are traces of his personality inside the characters. It’s like a writer writing or telling a story containing half-lies and half-truths mixed.
But, there is a question, think with me. If a writer writes a love declaration to you, believe me, it’s true. He wrote an original love declaration, only for you. Because creativity is our job, our talent, and there is talent enough to write a declaration to each person who seduces us. And we won’t repeat them, this is important.
Some people say that writers have a deal with a sorcerer or sorceress who blows stories in their ears. Some writers are obsessed and go into a room for a long time to write, and others write twenty-four hours a day and things like that.
My sorceress, I have never seen her and when I hear whispers in my ears they seem like drunk talk, without sense. I have been imagining someone writing twenty-four hours a day! In my case, I have always needed eight hours to sleep, to support my family, tidying and keeping our house clean. Normally, I need to solve problems outside, and I have to work seriously to earn money, and, suddenly, I have an idea. I pass a long time, days, without inspiration to write, and this is a big problem. I feel a sensation that I will never have inspiration and there is no rabbit inside of my magic top hat to take it out. And there isn’t indeed.
Writing is not a habit, it’s a talent as others, like football players and guys who work with propaganda. We have bad days, simply, horrible, and we have incredible days as well.
Ninety-nine percent of us are working hard and we have one percent of inspiration and insights. The question is to value this one percent and write different things to entertain people with a text that everybody wishes to read.