of the right

to be a writer

I think a lot about what it would be like to be a writer.  Sitting at the typewriter, leaning over a coffee-stained table poorly lit by one of those tiny lamps with the green ceramic shades.  Smoking cigarettes is always a bad idea.  Another hour passes as I peck away on my Underwood Portable, acquired by means not simply of my own doing, no doubt, but mine nonetheless.  It was probably a charitable gift from a boyfriend of a friend or of my sister.  Of course, I’m glad I could help, he would say.  He’s tiring to think about. I secretly route for him to fail.

Clichés are a tired frame around a picture that never gets old.

Distractions are a writer’s worst enemy.  Noise, more correctly, is a writer’s worst enemy.  The coffee helps.  I don’t think it makes things quieter, rather it makes thoughts louder.  It’s the little sounds that are the worst.  Sharp, loud, abrasive they seem against the placid serenity of a city in silence.  Barcelona is a city seldom in silence.  Its sea is a poor reflection of its streets, bustling with life, rushing and scrambling.  Sometimes it feels like they’re jostling to be heard over the incessant buzz of stress.  What do they have to say?

A typewriter is important for a writer because a sudden flash of clarity can only be captured at the speed for which he can write.  A stroke of luck in an hour of misery as he patiently waits for its arrival—self-doubt is a weed that cannot be rooted and whose only sun is silence from the splash of keys.    

You can’t backspace on a typewriter.  That explains the crumpled up pages on the ground and ink stains on my hands.  Ink stains.  They’re like calluses for writers, or is that arthritis and poor posture?  A writer doesn’t backspace, he starts over.  If a mistake is made, the words have been betrayed by the audience that has not yet been born.  This is why there is no need for a backspace.

Vices are important tools for a writer.  What would Hemingway be without cigarettes, brandy, and bullfights?  A writer documents the experience of living.  Ironically, they recklessly indulge yet carefully ruminate its depiction. 

Barcelona can be a city of indulgence.  Tonight there is no noise, for it is Sunday:  a day of rest, a day of fútbol.  Perhaps a day for the writers to write and the livers to rest, but the bleeding won’t stop just because it’s Sunday.